mur.mu.rs

How I feed my family

If you were ever curious what the Mayor of Appsterdam does all day, the answer is talk to people. A lot of that talking is in the form of answering questions. When I get the same questions again and again, or if the question is a particularly good one, I write about it here in this blog so I can refer people to it.

The faster I can respond to people, the more people I can talk to, and the more great stuff we can put together for Appsterdam. This also lets me spend more time teaching, which is really what I came here to do. My feeling is that my time belongs to the community, so I want to spend my time benefiting as many people as possible.

Which naturally leads to two questions I answer every day: “How do you feed your family?” and “Can you look at my app?” Good questions, and interesting answers, because it turns out, these questions answer each other.

I need to buy food and pay rent. You want some of my time to be your time. Hence, I make myself available as a consultant. I don’t have a lot of time, so rather than being picky about who I help, I set my rate to $1000 an hour. When I moved to Europe, that price became €1000 an hour.

That number usually shocks people. Has anyone ever paid me that? Yes. Have a lot of people paid me that? No. It’s a lot of money, though it’s not as dramatic as it sounds. If I go to a conference and give an hour-long presentation, for example, I’m there all day, but I’m only paid for an hour.

I really do want to help App Makers in Appsterdam make their products as successful as possible. That’s why we’ve built the world’s most advanced infrastructure for App Makers. So you can get lots of free advice to improve your products, your business, and yourself.

I also want to make myself available for individual mentoring to as many people as possible, which is why I’m introducing an Appsterdam discount. Appsterdam members can have an hour or two of my time for only €100 an hour. This reflects my feelings on how to price things: just low enough to make it an easy decision.

There are a couple of simple restrictions to qualify for the Appsterdam rate:

• You or your company must be Appsterdam members.
  (Suspended until the membership sign-up page is online).
• No contracts, NDAs, or other legal documents.
• Our meeting must occur in the city of Amsterdam.
• You pick the time and place. Lunch / Beer / Coffee is on you.
• Limit 2 hours per member, per week.
• Cash up front.

If you’d like to book time, contact Judy.I.Chen at Gmail with a time window and location. Once she schedules you, she’ll send you an invoice, which you will pay, in cash, at the beginning of our meeting. (This ensures I can deliver a completely honest assessment and escape cleanly.) Judy will then send you a receipt.