Business update, week 12

October 13, 2025 at 2:08 PM

Hi everyone,

I’ve spent pretty much all the time since the last update working on Forecasting 101, my introductory guide to probabilistic forecasting. In this update, I’ll talk about my progress and what I plan to work on once the guide is finished.

Forecasting 101

As I discussed in the previous update, I found a customer willing to pay me $1000 to write an informational/educational guide where I describe what I’ve learned over two years of making predictions on crowd forecasting platforms. I set a deadline of November 1st and a target length of around 50 pages. I’ve spent the last two weeks working on a draft of the guide, which is now about 90% complete.

My goal for this week is to finish the rough draft of the writing, add a few diagrams and other visual elements, and spend the rest of my time editing the draft. Then I’ll spend the next week polishing everything up and figuring out what form factor I want to publish the guide in. That leaves an extra week of wiggle room in case any of the remaining work takes longer than expected.

I don’t have a whole lot else to say here other than that I’m happy with how it’s looking and surprised at how quickly the writing has gone. I already passed my 50 page target, even though I’ve only spent 8 days actually sitting down and writing (and on those days, only about half the day was writing time).

I think this is mostly a reflection of the fact that I’ve done forecasting on and off for several years, written about it previously, and spent lots of time just thinking about it too. So I haven’t had to do much new research for the guide, it’s largely a collection of concepts that have been accumulating in my brain for several years now.

What’s Next

Once the guide is finished and published, I plan to spend a bit of time making a website for the various ‘forecasting consulting services’ that I can offer. Between the digital guide, my coaching / study guide client, and a possible future lead, it seems like there’s potential to find additional clients in this niche. I’d like to have a single website that lists my prior work and the services I offer, hopefully increasing the chances of landing future clients.

Then, I plan to return to the robotics job coaching idea I’d been working on, which has been on hold while I’ve been completing the paid work for my forecasting clients. I want to continue with the robotics idea, as I have a clearer picture of how to turn that into a scalable business and attract customers. That said, the last month has showed me that there really are people willing to pay for my forecasting expertise, and I don’t want to throw away that momentum… if I’m able to keep getting clients in the forecasting niche, I may consider focusing all my energy in that area.

What are my current goals

This week: Finish the rough draft of Forecasting 101 (both writing and visuals) and make an editing pass through the full guide

Next week: Finish editing the guide, put it into whatever format I decide to distribute it in. I’m aiming to be 99% done with all the work by 10/25 so I have a week of buffer in case I need it.

That’s all for this week!

Jake