The Mike Project and Stacking the Bricks | Multithreaded Income Episode 15

In this episode, the hosts reflect on their chat with entrepreneur Michael Buckbee, exploring his unique concepts, such as 'Project Mike' and 'Stacking the Bricks'. They discuss B2B vs B2C enterprises and touch on the different types of services offered by businesses—Do It Yourself (DIY), Done For You (DFY), and Done With You (DWY). They also look at seeking out agencies to learn their processes. Toward the end, they share their thoughts on transitioning from a consumer to a business mindset.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Kevin Griffin

♥ Family. Microsoft MVP. Consultant/Trainer focused on #dotnet #aspnetcore #web #azure. VP at @dotnetfdn @revconf Mastodon: @[e-mail] - He/Him

Guest

Chad Carter

I help businesses create awesome experiences.Christian, Husband, Father, Entrepreneur, Investor, Technologist, Author, Speaker, Gamer & Web3 Devchadcarter.eth

Guest

Sean Merron

What is Multithreaded Income Podcast?

In the "Multithreaded Income Podcast," host Kevin Griffin navigates the nuanced landscape of generating multiple income streams as a technologist. Aimed at professionals who wish to diversify their revenue while maintaining a focus on technology, this podcast dives deep into unconventional strategies, untapped opportunities, and actionable advice.

Kevin Griffin: Welcome back to the show.

Everyone.

It's commentary time.

Hopefully you all had the opportunity to

listen to our previous episode with Mr.

Mike Buckby and I know Sean and Chad have

had a chance to listen to the episode.

Now, if you didn't get it from

the episode, I have known Mike

Buckby for a very long time.

I have lunch with Mike at least once

every two weeks, we have a little crew

that goes out and has a meal, discusses

our businesses and what we have going on.

And yeah, it's just a good time.

So having Mike on the podcast was

inevitable because He has done so

much that he is just, he just doesn't

talk about publicly very, very

often because he is killing it and

he would never say that to you that

he is killing it in so many ways.

I actually think in the podcast,

he was so good about going, yeah,

well, I had this success and I had

that success and it's all right.

So, but I'm on to this new thing

and he's just such a humble guy.

I love him to death.

I want to start the conversation

actually talking about Mike and

I think Mike made a comment.

In the episode that he calls everything he

does project Mike and so if he's working

on a project, it's working towards project

Mike and I, I kind of like that concept

and he used a term in describing project

Mike called stacking the bricks and.

Sean, Chad, have, have you ever

heard the term stack in the bricks,

Sean Merron: I'm not.

Kevin Griffin: Chad stack in the bricks?

Chad Carter: No, I've never

heard that before the episode.

Kevin Griffin: So I guess it's probably

useful to you all and listeners to kind of

describe what stack in the bricks is from.

That's a term coined by.

Uh, Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman, they

are folks who help people start their

SAS products, uh, start any product is

very similar to, to what we try to do.

And they have a course called 30 by

500, which I think is fascinating.

And you can really tell the people who

are giving legitimate good information

are never get rich quick schemes.

There are always get rich eventually, if

you do the proper things and stacking the

bricks is kind of that process of you do

little things that eventually build the

wall that becomes your, your product or

the, the thing that you're most known for.

So.

If I'm building a product for selling

coaching and knowledge for starting a

side business, one of my bricks might

be starting a podcast and another brick

might be starting a YouTube channel.

Another one might be starting to

write articles on things that my.

Listeners and my readers, my followers,

my community would care about that's

a brick and then you eventually

go and start adding other bricks.

Well, let me add a coaching program

where I can work with people directly

and teach them the things that I know

and help them in whatever ways a brick.

Actually, before that might be start

a challenge, so do a challenge series

where you just get people engaged

and see what's in their heads.

Uh, there's other parts of 35 by 500

that include like the sales safari where

you go off into your communities and

find out what their pain points are and

then you try to figure out how you can

address those pain points in various ways.

And I know what you're

probably out there thinking.

What is 30 by 500 mean?

And the concept there, if I'm saying this

correctly, I believe I am, is that can

you find 500 people to pay you 30 a month?

And that if you were able

to do that, that'd be.

15, 000 reoccurring revenue every month.

And that's a livable wage for most

people out there, I would assume.

And you can just grow from there.

So that's kind of the idea

of stacking the bricks.

Uh, John, does, does that make more sense?

Sean Merron: Yeah, it does.

And I love how he used the term.

I never heard it put like this.

I mean, I think a friend said it to him.

You just mentioned it, the whole project.

Mike.

Now I'm trying to think of myself like

project Sean, like everything that I'm

doing in my career, my personal life, the

different things I'm learning, different

side projects I'm starting, it's all a

part of project Sean, like I have to be.

almost intentional about kind of stepping

back sometimes and looking at all the

different things I'm doing that are the

different threads of, you know, income

or just even non income threads, threads

of education and continuous learning.

He mentioned that how side projects

to him are kind of like continuing

education in this uncredentialed job of

software engineer, you know, where in

some other careers they have to actually

do continue education, we have to make

the choice to do continuing education.

And it's all part.

Of this larger project that we're working

on that could eventually become the next

thread, the next big project, you know,

all the things that you've maybe done

independently, starting to see those

maybe a line, something you've learned

from it, something that you're now

finding that could be just one degree

of separation from the other and just.

The, the next set of income that

you're looking to go and achieve.

And I've heard it many times said to

me, I've said it probably many times,

how everything we do, we, we, it's

not win or fail, it's win or learn.

Right.

And so many times you hear, I think

that word failures, it's just, it's

just has such a negative connotation,

obviously, but, you know, people

are like fail fast, fail fast.

I'm like, learn fast, go test fast.

That's what you're really doing.

You're really, you're performing other

tests to see, figure out what would

be successful and what would not be.

And even with our show here, right.

With the multi threaded income podcast,

we're, we're learning some new things.

We're doing we're literally right now.

Like we're on squad cast, right?

First time using this all together,

using Descript to as a tool to,

uh, chop together videos and create

YouTube shorts using YouTube.

Brand new first time I've ever done

YouTube shorts, we're doing a lot of this

stuff ourselves, which we'll get probably

into some DIY stuff later on here and talk

a little bit about that and bootstrapping

things, but it's all coming together.

It's all adding up to me personally and

project Sean, and as well as you all.

And your different overall

projects that you're working on

Chad Carter: I also liked the whole

concept of Project Mike, and

just the notion of thinking about

everything that you have learned,

all these skills that you've built

up, and seeing where you are today.

And not so much about the last

thing that you attempted, and

maybe it didn't go so well.

Whether we call it a failure or just

a learning experience, it obviously

didn't go, uh, that way we want.

And we just wrapped up a challenge, and,

and one of the days, uh, we were actually

talking about some mindset, uh, items.

And one of the tasks or items that

was in there was around, uh, this

concept of, you know, minding the gap.

And just the idea is, when you're

focused on where you want to be, and

how you're frustrated that you're

not there yet, um, you know, it

doesn't actually serve you well.

Instead, if you look back at all the

things that you've done, From where

you started out to where you are today,

that can actually build a momentum.

In fact, I actually created a,

just, uh, was thinking about that.

Obviously since the challenge, I

created a, um, a post now I'm just

going to read here just because it's,

it's, it's post on Twitter or X now.

So it's super short, which is, you

know, if you're working towards a long

term goal and it's taken longer than

expected, well, don't dwell on the gap.

of where you are and where you want to be.

Instead, think about where you started

out and how far you've come and then

use that momentum to close the gap.

Now, there's anything that's just

really a good mindset to be in is

figuring out, you know, how far you've

come and be happy with yourself.

You know, if everything

doesn't go away, go okay.

Every time you, you know, got out

the gate and you're trying to start

something new, that's all right.

As Sean was just saying,

we're building skill sets.

You're learning something.

And if you have a skill set,

You are marketable, right?

You can provide value to somebody

by building up your skill set.

And if you can provide value to somebody,

well, that's how you can get compensated.

So I think that's kind of my, my big

thing is if you, if you can provide value

to somebody, you can get compensated.

And the way you provide value is

by building up your skill set.

Sean Merron: and Chad, also during

that conversation, our challenge

about the mindset you had brought

up a, uh, the concept, they were

actually, I thought about it as I

was listening to Buck B talk, you

mentioned a little bit earlier about

how humble, uh, Buck B is Kevin, right?

And it's almost like the, I forget, I

forget which point it was, Chad, you may

recall it here as I'm talking, but we're.

You, there's little wins, you get kind

of like, uh, minimizing those, you

know, like not realizing like the, the

awesome thing you did, I kept finding

Kevin constantly like, hold on, you just,

you just, uh, just glaze past something

like really awesome that a lot of people

would be pretty stoked about, you know?

And I know sometimes I might do that

where I'm like, Oh, it wasn't really

that much I made on that project.

Uh, or I, I, I'm even guilty of that

where maybe I should be a little more

grateful and like kind of celebrate

a little bit more of some of the.

Some of the wins, even if it's

anything more than zero, right.

Where I was able to get someone,

some stranger stranger money.

You mentioned many times, Kevin, in

the past that was able to buy something

that I did and really compensate

me for a skill that I have and

produce something for them, a value

Chad Carter: one of the concepts

that you were asked about there

in the challenge, it was, it was

from the book, um, the big leap.

So I'd highly recommend that book

has by a gay Hendricks, but he just

talks about an upper limit problem.

And one of the, and he has

like four different barriers.

He talks about, you know, one of

those is the fact that we deflect, we

don't actually accept appreciation.

And it's something I struggle with a lot.

It's like, oh, you did a

really good job of that.

Yeah, well, I totally messed this

thing up and it, you know, and we

just deflect actually accepting.

You know, um, praise basically.

And so when you do that, it's like a

subconscious thing that you think that

what you've done, that you, what you

just accomplished, wasn't all that great.

And it doesn't actually serve you well.

So actually, uh, receiving the

compliment can be good again.

I'm working on this cause I'm not good at

it at all, but you receive the compliment,

you know, actually do accept it.

And then if there's something that

you're still thinking in your mind,

but, but man, this went bad and I

didn't do this right, and this thing

wasn't, wasn't good, and you're wanting

feedback on that, then that's fine.

You still accept the compliment, but

then turn around and say, okay, but

I would like to know this, you know,

when I said this, I didn't feel like

that came across well, again, I'm

not fishing for a compliment here.

I don't need this, but I

am looking for feedback.

What do you think about this?

And, and that'll actually give

that person the opportunity

to give you valid feedback.

Especially if they just told you

you did a good job, and if there's

something you can improve on, you'll

typically learn something from that.

So, yeah, that's something I've

been personally working on a lot, is

just kind of shutting off somebody's

compliment instead of accepting it.

And actually, because that will build

up momentum to continue to move forward

and not think about all these failures,

quote unquote, that, you know, we've had.

But actually, uh, building

towards successes, building up

our toolbox, our skill set, you

know, our project of our name.

If you will project Mike.

Kevin Griffin: One of the other topics we

wanted to discuss was Buck B is all about

systems and he was talking about Venn

diagrams and how does he figure out what

type of business he wants to work on next?

And I think it's really

useful to take his.

His framework into account when picking

out what type of business you want

to do, because some businesses are

better students to make money than

others are so specifically like B to

B or I know we're throwing buzzwords

around, but it's business to business.

If I'm a business selling a service

to another business businesses.

Like spending money.

If it solves a problem,

they like to spend money.

B to C, which is business to

consumer or business to customer.

You are dealing with individual people.

And most individual people I know

are stingy as heck with their

money, or at least, you know, at

least for the stuff I'm selling.

If it's An ad hoc item in Walmart, they

might be willing to drop the money on it.

No problem, but it's harder

to sell directly to consumers

than it is to, to businesses.

And he also threw around some buzzwords

like DIY and DFY and Chad, I know that was

one of the items that you kind of went,

I want, I want to talk more about that.

So I'm going to give

you the opportunity now.

And you said there was some

stuff missing from, from Mike's

Chad Carter: he, he just simply had it

in, uh, a bit of conversation there.

It wasn't like he was trying

to go deep into, you know,

all these different concepts.

So basically you got three

different things, right?

You got, uh, DIY, do it yourself.

Then you got, uh, DWY done with

you, and then you got DFY, which

is done for you, and typically.

The done, you know, do it yourself

things are around products and one

during the challenge and all the stuff

is fresh in my head since we just ran a

challenge and one, I think on the very

first day we talked about all kinds

of different business types that you

had and personality types and, um, you

know, how you'd go about, you know,

kind of matching things up together

and the do it yourself approach It's a

lot with the products because the idea

is you're making a product and then

somebody's going to buy that product

and go do something with that product.

They're doing it themselves versus

most services Um or more of a done

for you approach dfy, which is hey.

Oh, you need an e commerce system Well,

let me go and actually spin up an e

commerce system Whether i'm building

myself my own set you up on spot shopify

set up a wordpress Google commerce like

whatever the case is i'm going to go

and do this thing for you So at the

end result you just give me money and

then you have an e commerce site It's

done for you, and then you can have,

uh, other things that are more like

in the middle is a done with you and

the done with you, um, could be like a

coaching program, for example, which is.

You want help trading something or

creating some milestone in your

life or doing whatever the case is.

And I'm going to come along beside you

and actually coach you through that.

So I'm actually doing this

with you to begin with, showing

you the skillsets you need.

And then ultimately you're going

to do it yourself, but it's a, it's

more of like a transitional period.

So it's not all just done for you.

Hey, and I was listening to.

Alex Ramosi over the weekend, um, uh, a

popular guy, super successful, lots of

businesses, and he's with acquisition.

com.

He actually acquires a lot

of businesses and things.

What Alex was saying in

this, uh, commentary I was

listening to was the fact of.

You know, when he, when he buys these

companies, he does these acquisitions,

um, he actually will bring in agencies

and while he's doing everything, he'll

actually say, okay, I need this agency.

I'm going to pay this agency.

Uh, certain amount of money, not just

to do it for me, but to actually teach

me what it is that they're doing.

So maybe it's a editing.

So let's say we want to bring

in somebody to edit our videos.

Then if you instead of just getting

an agency to, I want you to hire you

from here till the end of time to

edit our videos, it's, I want to build

the skillset of editing the video.

So I'm going to hire this agency

that does the editing for us.

And but during the process, I'm not going

to pay them more, but it's a six months in

the game to teach me everything they know.

Or for example, what if you were trying

to start your own development agency

and you had a project, you know, so

Sean, I know you're actually working

on a project right now and you have

them bringing in, you know, some

contractors to help you with this.

So an approach that could have

been taken is actually hire a

development agency to do it, but

pay them a little bit more with.

I want to understand your processes.

How do you go about hiring people?

How do you go about building up your

own stuff so that I can turn around

and do the same thing and build my

own development agency, basically.

Or if I didn't want to build my own

development agency, bring in developers

and train them in such a way that they can

be I would say profitable, but more like

productive is the word I was looking for.

So they'd be extremely productive

as soon as they get into the

door hitting the ground running.

So it's all about, uh, leveraging

somebody else's talents up front.

So it's almost like a done for you,

but by the time it's all done, sit and

done, you'll do it yourself because

it really wasn't a done for you.

It was a done with you.

Sean Merron: That's neat.

I hadn't even heard of

those other terms before.

I haven't heard of df, uh,

DFY or D four UDD with you.

DWI I've only heard of do it

yourself, so that was new to me.

Interesting to hear about those.

And yeah, it kind of scares

me with the work that I'm

subcontracting out right now.

The, the one thing that keeps

me up at night with that is

the whole, when it's done.

If something needs to get updated

after the fact, who's going to do

it, how's it going to get done?

I'm going to have to go find someone else.

What if this person is not around anymore?

What if something happens to them?

They're not available because of

another contract they're working on.

So, yeah, that's one, one way to

either learn it myself or another way

is to make sure they're building some

architectural diagrams and document

documentation along with that.

Getting access to the source control as

much as I can to try and alleviate that

risk a little bit to make it easier.

But, but Buckby, it was interesting.

I've heard this twice now.

We've heard this.

We have heard this really twice

now from two really successful

entrepreneurs out there with

Buckby and also, uh, Brett Fisher.

The next concept of this Venn diagram.

They both use that term and I think

they then both kind of transition is

saying the word framework as well.

When they go into assessing new

business ideas or new projects and such.

And so it's cool to see how they, they

each have like kind of figured out

over time, the things that are really

important to learning about what would

be a successful project or engagement.

So the one that stood out to me the

most was the whole B2C versus B2B and

how both of them, uh, been a little

more successful in the B2B realm, at

least initially I know it's consulting.

I know they've done some

stuff with Docker and Heroku.

And it's kind of like, okay, maybe

some independent developers are

doing some of that stuff as well.

But I also know there's a lot of big

businesses that are really doing a lot

of work and maybe where those engineers

work for that are probably benefiting

from a lot of material that they're both

producing and I see this a lot and just.

The, the industry I'm in as well, uh,

currently I do a lot in the auto industry

and it's a lot with other dealerships,

um, or OEM manufacturers, these big,

large enterprises that have had success

with consumers directly are now needing

to streamline their processes, automate.

So we have an opportunity as engineers,

obviously not only be hired directly

as employees, B2B fashion, and it's,

it's neat how Buck B realized like.

The more, more successful I'll

probably be is going to be somewhat

tied in the relation of how close

it is to a B2B versus a B2C, right?

And something for everybody, everybody

really to be mindful and listening.

I've tried a lot of B2C products,

um, and have not been as successful.

Uh, content creation.

We're doing that here.

We're trying to teach engineers, right?

Things about starting their own business.

It's difficult.

Like there's so many people

paying a lot of money.

To get into your ears and get in

front of you with advertisements.

And for one of us or anyone

listening that right now, that

much might just be independent.

It's going to, it's very difficult to

get in front of that consumer directly

with all that competition you have.

And it also kind of makes me realize

the, the, I guess, low amount, low volume

of things that people actually buy.

You mentioned earlier, Kevin, like

how stringent someone might be with

their money, with their finances.

I mean, yes, engineers, but

we're guilty of it as well.

You know, I have to be really

mindful of the things I buy.

I don't probably buy a lot of things

for myself, to be honest, outside

of the things I need, um, with

my, you know, house car, and maybe

there's a few little things I buy.

So really the opportunities for

B2C, you know, the, the large

enterprise companies, right.

I've taken and scooped up a lot of those.

And now it's kind of like, we're kind of

getting that secondhand trying to get an,

our own cut of that right through some

of this B2B stuff we're trying to do.

And you could be more successful

in getting, getting a client

or a project that way.

And then maybe from there you can start to

find ways then to merge from B2B into B2C

or start to tap into a little bit of that

revenue that's in that similar industry

or only in one degree of separation.

Kevin Griffin: I think a really

good analogy to this conversation

is when I was much younger.

So let's say college and I really needed

an imaging Our image editing program

and Photoshop was what everyone used.

And I was in college and I was

like, I can't afford Photoshop.

And I might have gotten my hand on

Photoshop in non moral ways, but.

I remember trying to look for alternatives

to Photoshop that would solve my problem.

And in a lot of cases they did,

but the tools available were

not as polished as Photoshop.

So it took me more time to,

to accomplish the result.

Whereas I could have just paid for

Photoshop and have the job done for me.

So I went the free route, took longer.

And it was more painful.

And as I got into my first professional

gigs, it was still kind of the same way.

I'm like, well, if the business

provides it to me, awesome.

If not, I'll still try to use

these free open source approaches.

And then when I started my business

and I had regular money came in and I.

I actually don't remember when it

was, but it was very long time ago.

I went, I'm just gonna pay for Photoshop

and I'm just gonna pay for Premiere.

I'm gonna pay for the tools that I

know do the job very well, very easily.

They have the good experiences, and now

the fees I pay for those tools are drops

in the bucket compared to, I guess,

the amount of time I would have spent

trying to use the free open source tools.

So I know someone out there is going

to say, well, the free open source

tools have gotten so much better and

you're right, but they're still not

nearly as good as the Adobe products.

And I don't, we're not here to talk

about that, but there's just kind of an

analogy is when I moved from a consumer

mindset to a business mindset, it was

much easier for me to spend money on

the things that solved my problems.

And I say this as my Adobe renewals

coming up and I got the email and went

and they're raising the price again.

My first thought was, well,

do I really need these tools?

But the handful of times throughout

the year where I use the tools and

they do exactly what I need them

to do, they pay for themselves.

So I think that's a good analogy for the

mindset and of consumers, the businesses.

Well, gentlemen, it's been fun

chatting about Mike's interview.

I think there were a lot of

good tidbits and we, we should.

Like transition the show just

to talk about each individual

thing for half an hour.

So one episode creates 10

hours worth of content.

We're not going to do that yet, but it's a

good idea, but thank you guys for hanging

out with me and thanks everyone for

listening and we'll see you all next time.