Welcome
I’m Sam Priestley and this is my blog where I share my experiences and insights gathered from the last 15 years working for myself. I wrote regularly from 2014 but rarely post these last few years due to my current work being too technical for a casual blog. Still I hope you find the articles useful.
Latest Posts:
Learn Voraciously
A friend recently told me that she thought I was much cleverer than her. Now that is an awkward first sentence to a blog post. In fact, it's the sort of incident that I would normally try and laugh off as quickly as possible. But this time it was so blatantly untrue...
If You Never Start, You’ll Never Succeed
One of my biggest flaws is that I am an eternal optimist. Even if all the evidence points to the opposite, I expect whatever I try will always work out. It is a problem. Whenever I come up with a new idea I start daydreaming about how awesome it is going to be. Then I...
Every Business I Have Started That Failed
I have a had a few successful businesses. I've created a successful sporting goods brand, built and sold a tech startup, and started a popular coffee shop. But those are the odd ones out. I have failed at far more businesses than I have succeeded at. I don't regret...
Be Ready For Anything – Surviving The Turmoil Of Post-Brexit Britain
What is going to happen? It's the middle of the weekend after Britain has just voted to leave the EU and my Facebook feed is full of gnashing of teeth and wailing. A lot of people are scared and worried. Regardless of what our politicians tell us, nobody knows what...
The Digital Renaissance and The Modern Polymath
We live in a world on specialties. "What do you do?" or "what did you study?" is the opening line of thousands of conversations around the world. We love to know what someone does in order to define them. "Oh, you're a mathematician?" And in their heads, they start...
What I Learnt Spending a Year Getting Beaten Up
For the last year, I have been putting myself through a lot of pain. I have had countless black eyes, a broken rib, a broken finger and spent most of the time covered in bruises. I have been suffering from the sort of violence people spend their entire lives trying to...
The Great Marketing Experiment – PPC Update
You may have read my post a few weeks ago about the post about experimenting with PPC adverts. During that post, I spent just under £300 on different forms of pay-per-click advertising. I didn't get much out of that £300, but I did learn a lot. I ended the post by...
The Great Marketing Experiment Ep 1 – PPC Adverts
This post is the start of a new and very unscientific series where I am going to try to learn as much as possible about online marketing through trial and error. Hopefully, we will all learn something from my mistakes, starting with PPC advertising. I am setting...
Riding The Storm Of A Stock Market Crash
For the first time since I have been seriously investing in the stock market, I am faced with a crash. I first started buying stocks and shares back in 2011 and enjoyed a very comfortable ride for the first few years. Then, just after the end of the tax year, I...
Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone
Have you ever had that feeling of butterflies in your stomach? Your heart racing, your hands starting to sweat? That horrible, crippling feeling of nervousness and fear? Some people just seem to be naturally confident. Well good for them. But if you're like me then...
The Millionaire Tramp
Meet Curt Degerman. For 40 years he spent his days searching through the bins of a small Swedish town called Skellefteå. Looking for scrap metal and tin cans. After he died of a heart attack aged 60, it was discovered he had left behind a portfolio of stocks and...
This Is How Much We Made When Our YouTube Video Went Viral
In February, we were lucky enough to get an unexpected viral YouTube hit. I had spent almost every day of 2014 playing as part of what we called the Expert in a Year challenge. We videoed it all and as a final round-up put together a one-second-a-day video, published...
