Adam Lee, cofounder and CEO of Bohemian Guitars. The business sells guitars made out of recyclable materials, and the majority of its sales in through the website bohemianguitars.com. Nathan and his brother are now making over $1 million per year, and their initial marketing strategy focused on crowdfunding. Their marketing strategy has found the secret to making money through these crowdfunding sites. Famous 5:   Favorite Business Book? – Tribes by Seth Godin What CEO do you follow? — Nick Woodman Favorite online tool? — Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Definitely not If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? — I wish I wasn’t caught up in saving for the future   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:16 – Nathan introduces Adam Lee, cofounder and CEO of Bohemian Guitars 01:40 – The company is a retail brand and manufacturer, with guitars made out of recyclable materials 2:20 – A guitar costs about $250, with $50 cost to produce 02:48 – Most sales go through the website 03:05 – They started in 2012 and have over 100 skews, for all custom guitars 03:22 -  They have partners in China and a facility in Atlanta 04:07 – The first year, their revenue was $16000 04:55 – Their 2015 revenue was just under $1 million, due in part to success with a ukulele 05:58 – There are a lot of players, and they are new to the space, so they try to draw people in with accessories. 06:55 – They do a lot of crowdfunding to raise funds and test the crowd 07:31 – Kickstarter and Indiegogo were both used, and are fairly comparable 08:24 – They did a soft launch on Indiegogo with a party and low price initiative as well as an official launch online the next day 10:39 – Their campaign was run for 30 days, with a goal to manufacture 1000 guitars. 12:04 – An online campaign requires a lot of work and preparation—you need a story to tell. 13:03 – You can pressure people to still buy after reaching the Kickstart goal by adding incentives. 14:00 – When you agree to purchase, Indiegogo and the company will email you, and you will be invited to an exclusive online community. 14:44 – They will now try to run a campaign on their own website. 15:21 – Follow Adam on Twitter 17:19 – Adam does the Famous Five 3 Key Points: Nathan and his brother came up with a unique idea and are now making over $1 million per year. Bohemian Guitars focused a lot on crowdfunding, and is continuing to try out new online marketing methods. The company gets buys with incentives that have short deadlines.   Resources Mentioned: Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible. Freshbooks - The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages  – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.   Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives  

Take a deep breath. We talk through the day of apocalyptic markets in our Weekly Wrap; there are some numbers on the rise — the average FICO score; and volunteers pitch in to fight the West's brutal wildfires.

Tucker Max is the founder of Book in a Box and the author of a new book on relationships, "Mate". http://bookinabox.com http://www.amazon.com/Mate-Become-Man-Women-Want/dp/0316375365

The actor Sam Rockwell explains why acting in every frame of the movie “Moon” can't compare to the difficulty of playing a damaged rodeo cowboy in Sam Shepard’s play “Fool for Love.” Also, reporter John Seabrook breaks down exactly what makes a pop hit — and how formulas can’t completely account for their magic. And Jenny Slate challenges you to create your own super-short holiday movie.

This week's guest is Alex Bleeker, who plays bass and sings in Real Estate and guitar in Alex Bleeker and the Freaks. Alex and I talked about starting out playing music in high school, doing experimental theater, booking tours on myspace, and much much more. Great dude, great guest, great episode. As always, email me at noeffectsshow@gmail.com Originally uploaded on 2/16/2015

Tom Haberstroh, BIG Wos, Justin Verrier, Zach Harper, Kaileigh Brandt answer listener questions via Twitter.

Novi-Doggie is upon us and it’s the time of year where we are thankful for everything in our lives. We are thankful that actress Maria Thayer of truTV’s Those Who Can’t and Strangers with Candy fame is here to honestly answer Scott’s questions...

About a month ago, Hunter was on Chris Ryan's Tangentially Speaking podcast. (It's episode 234 if you're interested.) I can't speak for Chris but I had a really great time. Some people on Twitter enjoyed the convo too. Someone even said they were happy that I'd finally found my soulmate. I was disappointed that my soulmate would be a married DUDE...but Twitter don't lie! And so, Chris and I scheduled a second conversation. Two plus hours later my faith in the wisdom of crowds is greater than it has ever been. Chris not only is my soulmate but he succeeded in bringing me to the point of tears. Legitimately, my eyes made water. Chris Ryan extracted my cultural confession from me. One of the patterns that Chris drew out in this conversation is that so much of humanity's cutting edge thinking rests on looking back to how Hunter-Gatherers lived to see what lessons we can learn from them. In short, humanity is trying to return to what it knew before. This is the nature of the Hero's Journey. A hero leaves the tribe and sets out on a quest to find something or solve some problem for the tribe. In the oldest sense, they leave the security of the village to hunt and gather to bring food back for the tribe. In so doing, they risk their lives and face trials from nature, plants and animals. Eventually, the face the ordeal that requires them to draw on all they've learned. If they succeed, they return to the village with their prize. A long time ago, humanity set out on an epic hero's journey. Something was missing from village life. What was it? That's actually a quite tough question. Life for hunter-gatherers is remarkably good. And yet, set out we did. We engaged in agriculture. We enslaved each other. We built great Empires and those Empires fought great wars. Religious and cultural movements swept across the globe. And now, with all we've achieved in our mastery over the natural world, many of us find ourselves looking back with longing to a time of strong communities and social belonging. We want to go back home. However, as Chris and I discuss in this podcast, we cannot turn back yet. For first, we must face the ordeal. What is that ordeal? The fear of our own mortality. And that, ladies and gentlemen, has been the ordeal all along. We have built great pyramids and statues. We have conquered vast Empires. We have created great works of art. And all of it has crumbled away. Shortly after the British Museum acquired a piece of a great broken statue of Ramesses II, the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote Ozymandias about the vanity of thinking that any monument to your own greatness would last. Since time immemorial, mankind has sought the elixir of life and the fountain of youth in the hopes that we would cheat death. And now, there are those among us who believe they will cheat death forever. Men like Ray Kurzweil believe that through the magic of technology we will achieve immortality. And perhaps, we will. But what is it that we want. What do we hunger for? Why as our technology rushes forward do we find ourselves looking back? Chris is fond of a quote from T.S. Eliot "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." That is the hero's journey. And perhaps man's hero's journey is not a straight line up and up forever. Perhaps in some sense it is one great circle. Whatever great technologies and elixirs we find, perhaps it will not be enough for us to have it. The great joy of the reward that we have hunted and gathered is in returning to share it with the tribe. And that is what we have lost. We have lost community. The challenge of Mixed Mental Arts is to evolve a culture that draws on the best of all times and places. Some of those places we left a long time ago. Chris' favorite quote has a special resonance for me. Robert McNamara quotes it in the Fog of War. For all his explorations and great statistical knowledge, McNamara in the end found solace in the words of a poet who talked about returning home. And that is very much my own experience. I have now wandered widely through the science. But all of those explorations have brought me to where I started. I have had to rediscover a sense of childlike wonder, of curiosity and of a desire for the sort of community that existed 10,000 years ago before the rise of agriculture. Can we have it all? I think we can. And I'm sure as heck willing to devote my life to trying. Chris reminds me in this podcast that Robert McNamara's middle name was "Strange." Robert "Strange" McNamara. And that's fitting. Life is strange. It just gets curiouser and curiouser once you leave your culture behind. And I'm excited to see how deep the rabbit hole goes...even if when I reach the bottom I find I come back out on top. "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." - T.S. Eliot