Hey, how's it going?

I'm Tom Morkes, West Point graduate, prior service U.S. Army Captain, and founder of Insurgent Publishing.

If you've ever asked yourself:

• "How can I turn my idea into a product or service?"
• "How can I know if people will like my idea and pay me money for it?"
• "How can I start this project the right way so that I know it will succeed?"
• "How can I create a successful business (or book, blog, or movement) without an audience, lots of money, or years of experience in the industry?"

Or if you've ever felt that there must be a better way to start, finish, or ship a creative project...

Then you came to the right place.

How I Can Help You Succeed

There's a quote often miss-attributed to Marcus Aurelius (but supposedly written by Oswald Spengler, who isn't worth emulating, but the idea still has merit) that goes like this:

The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.

Here's the deal:

I believe there's always a better, faster, more effective approach to achieving success in any endeavor.

Whether you're writing a book, starting a business, or would simply love to turn a creative idea into something...

There are the "obvious" solutions to the problem - what most people do (and why most people fail)...

And then there are "non-obvious" solutions.

These are the solutions the most successful outliers create to challenge and dominate the competition. And these are also the strategies that underdogs must use to achieve victory.

The most successful entrepreneurs, writers and leaders throughout history have organized the non-obvious to achieve victory.

Here are just a few examples:

• How Michael Collins organized and led a rag-tag fighting force across 10,000 miles of terrain to beat the most powerful empire in the world
• How people around the world are challenging the paradigm of fixed pricing by leveraging Pay What You Want pricing (and succeeding)
• How Uber is disrupting the transportation industry and changing the way we think about taxi services

But here's the thing:

If organizing the non-obvious is essential for victory...

Then the sure path to defeat (or failure) is doing things the standard, "proven," or conventional way, simply because it's easier to follow, than to think.

How to Achieve Victory in Any Endeavor

I've spent my entire life asking the question:

• Is this the best way? Is there a better way?

This one question has forced me to challenge everything:

Every preconceived notion, every standard operating system, and every system, process, tradition and activity that I've ever encountered.

But asking the question isn't enough. To truly challenge something, we must first understand WHY it exists in the first place, and then indifferently test it against an alternative.

That's why I share my successes and failures on this blog.

While most people are scared of being transparent because they fear people will steal their ideas, work, or success...

I believe everyone can achieve meaning and success more easily, and more enjoyably, by sharing their ideas - good or bad - as long as we're honest about what we did and the ensuing results.

I practice what I preach here on my blog.

Here are just a few of my experiments:

How to Launch a Product from Scratch With No Outside Investment and No Audience

This is a collection of blogs where I share the behind-the-scenes of launching HighSpeedLowDrag.org: a business training platform for veterans (a need my co-founders and I knew existed in the marketplace, but no one else had taken the time to solve).

Here are our results:

• How to Launch a Business From Scratch (the open-loop product development framework)
• How to Build a Lean Sales Funnel From Scratch
• How to Sell Anything (that's worth selling)

How to Sell Something BEFORE You Build it

Prior to HighSpeedLowDrag.org, I helped launched TheFlightFormula.com: the worlds first heart-centered business incubator program that was entirely Pay What You Want.

Here are the results:

• The Lean Launch (a $41,000 Case Study) (one of the most popular posts I've written)
• How to Turn a Physical Service into a Digital Product

How to Increase Your Reach, Impact, and Sales

For the past 2 years I've been using Pay What You Want pricing for the majority of my goods and services. Here are my results:

• 3 Ways Pay What You Want Pricing Leads to More Profit than Fixed Pricing
• How I Got Paid Twice as Much as a Lawyer by Letting People Choose Their Price
• $1,000+ from a Pay What You Want Pricing Product Launch

How to Fight and Win the Inner Creative War

By sharing my failures (and sometimes hard-fought wins) in business, I hope to help you avoid mistakes and achieve success faster and more easily...

But just because you have the tactics (or even strategies) to succeed, doesn't mean you will. Because the biggest challenge is internal.

That's why I often write about the inner creative battle, and what you need to do to overcome your biggest enemy: you.

Here are a few popular posts:

• Keep Fighting (a short story of my time as a collegiate boxer)
• Once More Into the Fray (life is more than survival)
• A Simple Question to Help You Find Purpose in Your Business, Life, and Art

Don't Go it Alone

Just as important as having the courage to challenge and test everything, is finding a team or mentor (or both) to help you through the tough times (and there will be tough times, believe me).

That's why I started a free newsletter.

When you sign up (totally free), you'll get access to business and marketing tips, insights, and tactics that I don't share on the blog:

Click here to get my best business growth insights and strategies FREE.

There's no need to go it alone. Sign up to my free newsletter and you won't have to.