Dan Daugherty and His Randomness
Dan Daugherty Random Thoughts

10 Ways You Play Golf Can Kill or Improve your Business

The question is:

When you play golf or if you were to play golf, how do or would you play?

  1. Do you set a goal before starting the game?
    1. Many just go through life without setting goals. Even if you are playing for fun, which you should always do or why play at all, you should have a goal in mind. Do you want to hit below 100 this round? Set a round goal. Set a hole goal and then set a swing goal. You will be surprised how much better you will do if you have a goal that you want to achieve. Business Tip: Set goals and quantify everything of importance. You will see it improve dramatically.
  2. Do you run the swing and putt in your mind before you actually do it?
    1. This is called visualization. Every successful athlete and business person in the world are great visualizers. They plan everything in their head before they actually do it. Business Tip: Vision map where you want your business to be in 1 year, 2 years, 3 years and beyond. Define it clearly and run it through your mind daily.
  3. Do you write down your scores?
    1. Do you write down your goal and score on every hole. Goals and progress must be written down or you will never improve. Business Tip: Write down goals and goal progress and share with your teams.
  4. Do you move the ball when no one else is looking?
    1. Taking short cuts will never help you improve. Business Tip: Do not cut corners. Immediate revenue due to unethical actions will always kill your business and reputation.
  5. Do you take advantage of situations, use your experience and a little luck to win?


    1. Business Tip: When you do things right, sometimes you still need a little luck.
  6. Do you give up?
    1. Are you one to play 9 holes and then give up? Can you get past the dip?

      Business Tip: Chinese proverb: “The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”
  7. Do you complain over things you can’t control?
    1. We can’t control the wind. We can’t control the hole placement. We can’t control how fast the party in front of us is playing. There are many things in life and business we cannot control. Business Tip: Focus on things you can control. Don’t worry about outside forces you cannot change.
  8. Do you have fun?
    1. You can’t be serious all the time. Here is Tiger Woods Farting.


    2. Business Tip: Have fun. Life is too short.
  9. Do you play it safe or do you take calculated risks?
    1. Some like to play safe and others like to take calculated risks. Which one are you?Business Tip: To grow your business you will have to feel uncomfortable. Take risks. Learn from your mistakes.
  10. Are you mentally tough?

    Business Tip: Stay focused. Do extraordinary things and do it one product and customer at a time.


Lessons Learned from the Olympics

- You are never to old to conquer your dreams

-Records are meant to be broken

- Never. Ever. Give Up

Mens 2008 Olympics Relay

How to Get Your Start-Up Mentioned in TechCrunch

TechCrunch is the most popular start-up blog on earth. A simple mention of your product or service can increase your traffic dramatically over night. Recently, rentBits was mentioned in TechCrunch and since the post, our traffic is up over 25%.

A question I have been asked is, “how did you get written up in TechCrunch.” Below are 5 tips to help your start-up get mentioned.

  1. Develop a great product or service
    1. Why is your product different?
    2. What problem does it solve?
    3. Tell a Story
  2. Provide a frame of reference
    1. i.e The Zillow For Rentals
  3. Get their attention
    1. The editors of TechCrunch receive many emails a day. They should know exacly what your service or product does by reading the first two sentences of your email.
  4. Help them get to know you
    1. Add your company to CrunchBase
    2. Got technology news? Send them tips with a link to your blog post. We got two links to our blog from this and this post.
  5. Don’t use PR superlative “fluff”
    1. Stay away from terms like, “best”, “fastest”, “most”, etc. Also stay away from words like “revolutionary”, “web 2.0″, “leading”, “disruptive”

10 Rules to Succeed in Business and Life

Anything you do and want to be extraordinary at, shoot for the moon, if you miss, you will land among the stars……

Whether you are running a fortune 500 company, a real estate business, property management firm, ice cream shop, a charity or are a stay at home mom, these 10 simple rules will make you achieve extraordinary results.

1. Set Goals and Quantify Everything of Significance

You will be amazed how much something will improve if you set goals and measure the results. Break up your dream and vision into sizable parts. A dream can be broken down into goals, each goal can be broken down into steps, and each step can be broken down into tasks. Each task should have a completion date.

“Without goals and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.” - F. Dodson

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.” - Helen Keller

“Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I’ll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I’ll give you a stock clerk.” - J.C. Penney

“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs” - Henry Ford

2. Find Great Partners and Mentors

Learn from those who have succeeded and failed. Don’t waist your time with those who have done neither.

“My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.” - Henry Ford

“A friend is one who walks in when others walk out.” - Walter Winchel

“Tell me what company thou keepst, and I’ll tell thee what thou art.” - Miguel De Cervantes

3. Feel Uncomfortable every Day

Feeling nervous, unnatural and scared, helps you grow. Think for a minute about your biggest challenges and fears in life. Is it public speaking? Is it losing that extra 10 lbs? Is it having a more loving relationship? Is it making cold calls? We can all improve on everything. Do an extra 2 reps when your body says it can’t. Join a public speaking class when your mind says no. Make another 4 cold calls when you think you have already called enough. Make it a point to feel uncomfortable each day and you will grow exponentially.

“Success is always to be found on the other side of fear.” Unknown

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” - Robert F. Kennedy

“Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.” - Theodore Roosevelt

“I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do” - Eleanor Roosevelt

4. Get past the Dip

There is a Chinese proverb that says, “The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.” Gym memberships and gym traffic go through the roof in December and die down to normalcy in Feb. Why do you think that is?

“Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.” - Ross Perot

“Many of life’s failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up” - Thomas Edison

5. Follow your Passion

Passion is contagious. People can feel and touch it. It lives within us all and allows for extraordinary things to be accomplished. Find your passion and you will be extraordinary.

“I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.” - George Burns

“A shot glass of desire is greater than a pitcher of talent.” - Andy Munthe

6. Solve Problems

A bi-product of solving difficult problems is innovation.

“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.” - Henry Ford

“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” - Albert Einstein

“We are too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet.” - Unknown

“Don’t find fault. Find a remedy.” - Henry Ford

7. Focus on one thing

Resources are limited. Peanut butter is easy to spread thin, but it sticks to the roof of your mouth.

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody” - Bill Cosby

“Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all your energies on a limited set of targets.” - Nido Qubein

“One thing at a time, is my motto - and just play that thing for all it is worth, even if it’s only two pair and a jack.” - Mark Twain

8. Just do it

An idea is just the beginning. Get up and make the idea a reality.

“My mother said to me, “If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general; if you become a monk, you’ll end up as the Pope.” Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso” - Pablo Picasso

“Action is the foundational key to all success.” - Pablo Picasso

“You’re not a failure if you don’t make it. You’re a success because you tried.” - Susan Jeffers

“Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.” - Theodore Roosevelt

9. Fail often, Learn from each Failure

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” - Winston Churchill

“I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.” - Thomas Edison

” You become strong by defying defeat and by turning loss into gain and failure to success.” - Napolean

10. Laugh and Smile

One thing is for sure, we are all here for a limited time. Make the most of it and have fun.

“I never worked a day in my life. It was all fun!” - Thomas Edison

“Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other - it doesn’t matter who it is - and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other.” - Mother Teresa

VC Non Admissions

rentBits Launches Average Rental Rates

rentBits, our rental search engine, has released average rental rates for over 4,000 cities in the US. We collected data from over 7,000,000 houses, townhomes, condos and apartments for rent to provide historical and current rental data.

Below are the rental rates for the top cities in the US:

rentBits Organic Traffic Continues to Climb

Our rental search engine, rentbits.com, has been growing each month since launch. We recently wrote about the top cities in which Google Analytics tracks the cities and traffic for rentbits. It can be found here

On another note, we wanted to increase traffic to specific cities on rentBits to help drive more leads to our clients. rentBits currently crawls over 500,000 active rental listings each day and we wanted to make this available for the top cities in the US. 

Below are some of the popular US cities for rentals.

rentBits Sponsored Listings

We are very excited to announce that rentBits has released our beta of our sponsored listings. Similar to Google listings, advertisers only pay when a user clicks on a relevant ad.

When renters search for specific apartments for rent, they can narrow it down by city, bedrooms, bathrooms, price and other advanced features. Our system will serve relevant ads that match their search criteria.

Each sponsored listing is highlighted in a pinkish red.






What is the Average Rental Price in Your City?

rentBits, allows renters to search for houses for rent and apartments anywhere in the United States. We crawl the web, actively looking for rental properties. The index is currently over 300,000 rental listings that are updated daily and this is growing each day.

For example, if you are looking for houses for rent in Denver, you will be shown rentals from various sources that match your search.

With all this data, we have been asked to show what the average rental rates are in each city we have listings. Below is the average rental rates widget we launched last week. If you want to add this to your site, you can do so with our free average rental rates tool.
Get this widget Houses for rent in Denver, CO

Apartment Marketer Has Re-Launched

We are very excited to announce that Apartment Marketer has relaunched. We added a new look and feel to the site as well as a new logo.

Take a look at it and let us know what you think.

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