Help me Solve The Chicken and Egg Game

Posted on October 13, 2008
Filed Under Business, Entrepreneurship, Foundation, Startup | Leave a Comment

The Chicken and Egg Game is one of the most excruciating games that startup entrepreneurs have to play.

Here’s how you play it: In order to achieve A you need B but in order to get B you first need A. So what comes first, A or B? The chicken or the egg?

It’s a very common game that investors engage entrepreneurs in. Here’s how they play it: In order to get blank amount of dollars; you must achieve milestones 1-3…meanwhile, you can’t achieve milestones 1-3 without the blank amount of dollars.

So what’s my current chicken and egg game??

It goes soemthing like this…

In order to entice venues to give Tickets with a Twist free tickets to upcoming shows they want to know I have a solid foundation of members (currently around 1,000 WhyGoSolo members). However, in order to appeal to a solid foundation of members I need a nice (good size and variety) selection of tickets.

What comes first…the venues (tickets) or the members?? Venues are attracted to the members and the members are attracted to what the venues have to offer.

How am I playing the game?

I’m going after the chicken and the egg at the same time:

  1. I’m contacting venues and pitching them. I’m also reaching out to the actual entertainers and promoters for the venues who can also make things happen.
  2. I’m working to rally members. I started the Facebook Group – We Only Go Out for Free to raise awareness about Tickets with a Twist and WhyGoSolo. Say we had 5,000 members in DC. That would make for a very appealing crowd to the DC venues…
  3. I’m pulling my resources. I’m figuring out who knows who in the right communities to reach decision makers. I’ve bought quite a few people lunch this past week ;-)
  4. I’m letting people know. I have the mission to aggressively let people know about Tickets with a Twist and the many win, Win, WIN situations it creates for venues, entertainers and people who love going out. I’ll continue to blog, engage others to blog, I’ve made videos, a squidoo lens, posted on Craigslist and will be attending many upcoming networking events and meetups to talk about Tickets with a Twist and hand out information. I’m also planning some other things through Yut Media, Inc.

I’m sharing this because if you’ve ever played the Chicken and Egg Game you know this is an extremely challenging game that drives you crazy and keeps you going in circles.

Am I nuts to blog about being in a Chicken and Egg Game…possibly, but people can’t help if they don’t know what’s going on!!

Ready to Hire a Coach

Posted on October 4, 2008
Filed Under Development, Entrepreneurship | 1 Comment

I’m on the search for a good coach. I’m looking for a coach who specializes in working with entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs…not looking for a small business coach.

The last few weeks I’ve noticed just how extremely lonely I’ve been. Not the “I need a boyfriend” lonely. But rather, lonely in the sense that there is no one right now in my life with whom to share what I’m going through in order to get support and assistance.

That’s the only pitfall to not having a business partner…you find yourself all alone. Having a coach, will mean having someone who will listen to me once a week to talk through what I’m trying to accomplish, where I’m blocked, what struggles I’m wrestling through and what victories I’ve achieved.

I have a quasi support system, but I need a dedicated support system in place from someone who will intimately get to know my strengths and weaknesses, needs, desires and wants. Someone who, for an hour a week, will be solely focus on being there for me to assist me get to where I want to go.

Doesn’t hurt that I’ve been trained as a coach. I know the power of coaching and I’m ready to invest in it and put it to work for me.

If you’re reading this and you’re a coach or you know of an excellent coach – please have them contact me.

Again, I want a coach who works with entrepreneurs. Someone who understands the characteristics, needs and traits of entrepreneurs since that’s a good baseline to start understanding who I am and how I operate.

Going to a Conference? A Lesson in Preparedness

Posted on September 23, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment

It was my first time to BlogWorld Expo. I didn’t fully know what to expect, but as an entrepreneur I don’t have time or the money to attend a conference for the sake of “just checking it out”. I have to maximize everything I do. I didn’t necessarily do that at this conference, but I did learn how to better prepare for the next conferences I attend.

Set Your Objectives Before Arriving

Make a list of your top three objectives for attending the conference. Once you’ve set your objectives engage in making a plan to meet each of those objectives. You’ll want to allow some room for flexibility but you should hit the ground ready to meet your objectives.

I failed to do that for BlogWorld Expo. Looking back on BlogWorld Expo these are the three objectives I should have set for myself:

1. Meet Five New CEOs I Don’t Know

As the CEO of a startup – some of the best people for me to network with are other CEOs of startups. They are wonderful people to share knowledge and resources with, learn from, and cooperate with.

What I should have done was take a very close look at the list of exhibitors and figure out who the CEOs were for each of the companies. Then, I should have looked into their background, read their bios and prepared a list of questions and information on each CEO I wanted to meet.

I ran into Daniel Ha the founder and CEO of Disqus but I didn’t maximize my conversation with him. It would have been good to ask Daniel more about what his journey has been like in the last year since launching Disqus. Micah introduced me to the CEO, Todd Vernon of Lijit and again, I wasn’t prepared to make a good impression to start building some rapport.

2. Been Clear on What I Wanted to Learn

This is a no brainer. I really should have taken a closer look at the schedule of sessions before arriving to the conference and done some homework on who the presenters were that I didn’t know and been clear on what I wanted from each session.

I ended up attending too many sessions and not learning much. Had I done my homework a little better; I would have successfully leveraged my time in and out of the sessions.

Going the Extra Mile: If you are very session focused, you could start your blog posts before attending…getting the background on the presenters (or panels), the topics and then wrap up your blog post during or immediately after a session to include all the live twittering from the session.

3. Additional Contacts with Key Attendees

I was in a hurry to get to the bathroom after one of the sessions and coming out of the bathroom on his cellular phone was Guy Kawasaki. I knew he been a speaker on Friday but I hadn’t realized he would be there on Saturday. As soon as I saw him I said “Guy” and shook his hand. That’s it. I said his name, shook his hand and went on my way.

A few steps later I was thinking DOH! Ann, you didn’t even introduce yourself. When I came out of the bathroom I caught up with Geoff who introduced me to Brian Solis. They were both there for the book signing of Now is Gone. I shook Brian’s hand but again, I didn’t make my mark. I might have redeemed myself a little with Brian. I managed to get him to follow me back on Twitter so we’ll see (he has over 6,000 followers and follows only about 400 back). I do plan on building much better rapport with him over time.

An hour later, I was sitting outside when Adam Hirsch and Sharon Feder from Mashable came out and sat with me. We were chatting when Scoble came out. We all went to say hello. Again, I missed the opportunity to leave a good lasting impression. Two other people who were there were ready with a Flip to get Scoble on camera. I had my Flip in my purse but didn’t know what I would have wanted to ask him – on hindsight, I should have just recorded what the other two were recording. Obviously, my mind and ability to react were out for the day.

This all happened on Saturday. I didn’t have my A-game on Saturday because again, I hadn’t prepped myself. On Sunday, I arrived with my A-game and that made a huge difference but I wasn’t able to recoup my missed opportunities from the day before.

I should have prepared myself to meet the key attendees I didn’t already know. Once more, this would have involved knowing what I wanted to say to them and what type of conversation I wanted to engage them in.

Live and Learn

Piss poor planning equals piss poor execution. Yes, I’m an extremely busy person but having taken the time to plan and prepare myself would have resulted in having a higher yield on the investment of my time and money.

Hopefully my experience will help you so that you don’t have to pay the same price for the lesson.

What was I Doing at BlogWorld Expo??

Posted on September 22, 2008
Filed Under Conferences, Entrepreneurship, Event | Leave a Comment

I believe I signed up for BlogWorld Expo back in early July; at the time, I had my set of reasons for wanting to attend…as a matter of fact, I registered with Yut Media, Inc. and not WhyGoSolo. I had anticipated that by the time I attended Blog World I would be heavily involved on the Yut Media Blog and be ready to voice what I was aiming to accomplish with my blogging and social media platforms. That didn’t happen; I have one post from August 20th but I haven’t blogged there since. It’s the entrepreneurial thing - I got really busy with Tickets with a Twist.

On Saturday (first day of the conference for me) I found myself getting very aggravated. My time (and money) are extremely precious to me, so anytime I sense I’m wasting either one or that I could be doing something better I start to get frustrated. Four days of time off from the day job would have been huge if applied towards making progress on Tickets with a Twist.

The more I got frustrated and disappointed in how things were turning out, the more obvious it became that I needed to answer two questions for myself: “What am I doing at BlogWorld Expo?” and “What will make being here worth it?”

@Dayngr answered the question with “Why meeting all the great people of course!”

It was definitely my #1 reason for being there: make contacts, make contacts and make contacts. Problem is that just meeting people isn’t enough. It must be quality contacts that will bear fruits and be helpful towards what I’m working to achieve (although that might sound like a selfish statement – that’s all I have the time for.)

On Sunday, I attended a session called Entrepreneurship for Artists lead by Larry Chiang. As you can imagine the title was a huge attention gainer for me. On the panel were Pete Cashmore from Mashable and Bambi Francisco from Vator.tv – didn’t quite get why. The session ended up taking a turn that I didn’t expect but the saving grace were the few folks attending the session. One person in particular was Michael Paige. Michael is an Indie artist.

After the session, I had a few good conversations with Michael. It looks like Michael and I are going to be doing some work together that I believe will kick off what I’m imagining will generate what I’m looking for and assist Michael achieve his goals.

I met a few other good people at BlogWorld Expo, caught up with some folks I hadn’t seen in a while and learned a thing or two about SEO. However, I did not maximize my time or opportunities there. Read about what I could have done better and how that can help you prepare for the conferences you attend in my next post!

Kudos to American Airline: My Airline of Choice

Posted on September 22, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

I’ve been flying almost every month for the last six months and I’ve been increasingly disappointed in every airlines. It was the first time I got on an American Airline flight in a long time this weekend to get to BlogWorld Expo and let me tell you – Very Satisfied Customer.

The drinks were actually free and they had blankets available (although, I have already started to bring my own). The stewardess were all very nice, courteous and helpful. The flights left on time and as a matter of fact, my last two flights today both came in early. My last flight came in 20 minutes early.

When I arrived to Reagan National, I made a quick stop in the bathroom and by the time I reached the luggage carousel the luggage was already going round and round.

Kudos to American Airline!! They are not my airline of choice.

Also, I booked my ticket through Orbitz.com and I loved receiving the OrbitzTLC Alerts that let me know my flight was on time, from what gate it was taking off and where to pick-up my luggage.

Opening up the Conversational Playing Field

Posted on September 2, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

I have made the executive decision of renaming this blog to make it MY blog. Seems fitting to do so since my name is the domain name!!

I started this blog with the intent of better establishing my credibility as an entrepreneur – my branding. However, in the process of doing so, I lost my voice and the platform for me to just be myself and unload my thoughts.

Since I’m running three other blogs right now that are tied to a brand and serve the purpose of growing a startup or startups depending how you look at it; I’ve decided to reclaim this blog.

The title Incoming and Outgoing Thoughts is exactly what you’ll find here from now on. Expect it to return to more my style…the way I used to write here: www.whygosolo.blogspot.com.

Hello liberation!!

Entrepreneurial Success Resides in your People

Posted on September 1, 2008
Filed Under Advice, Entrepreneurship, Startup | Leave a Comment

What a difference a year makes! Yesterday I was reading my journal and recollecting what was happening in my life a year ago. The biggest thing that was happening was my quest to raise money.

Oddly enough – that’s rapidly becoming my biggest quest again. I was working on the new investor deck yesterday and there was one huge glaring difference in the write-ups I was doing.

Last year, the money was needed mostly for development. We had a development team that was about to start development, but we had no product. Just a concept on paper.

This year, the seed round is needed to prove the concept in DC, VA and MD. The money is mostly for sales, marketing and PR.

Last year I was recruiting developers. This year I’m recruiting sales, marketing and PR people. It’s really awesome to actually have a product that’s ready to serve it’s intended purpose and make money.

I was unsuccessful last year raising money so ALL the development was done bootstrapping…and this time, although I think my odds are much greater to raise the seed round I need; I’m bracing and preparing to do all the marketing, sales and PR through a grass root approach. Even if we raise the money – a grass root approach will still be implemented.

A month or so ago Doug told me I’d have to “do my thing and get people to buy-in to my vision, again.” I sneered when he said that. I didn’t know if I had it in me to be able to do that again. Well, this last week has been completely rejuvenating!

I’ve been talking to a few marketing, sales and PR folks and I’m finding myself totally immersed back into the grand vision and plan. And just like I was blessed to find some amazing developers last year; I’m coming across some splendid marketing, sales and PR people right now.

Again, since we have a product now, when I talk to the marketing, sales and PR people the talk is about immediate action and implementation. Today, I’m brainstorming the initial marketing, sales and PR plan so I can properly assign tasks.

We’re picking up some entirely new momentum. I consider myself having been rather successful to date bootstrapping and taking on a grass root approach because of a strong vision, will to achieve, perseverance and hard work, oh and one other factor: Amazing People.

People are everything to the success of an organization. Most valuable resource = PEOPLE. That’s why I know that money or no money – we’re moving on the proof of concept.

Processing Of Information: The Entrepreneurial Filter

Posted on August 26, 2008
Filed Under Advice, Entrepreneurship | Leave a Comment

I unfortunately don’t have a great deal of time to read a lot of…anything. But, I still scan headlines, read a few blogs, and magazines. I also listen to NPR on WAMU on my commute back and forth to work.

Everything I read and everything I listen to is processed through my entrepreneurial filter. The entrepreneurial filter is like having extensive situational awareness while always wearing business goggles. I constantly seek what opportunities exist within what I just learned? What piece of information is relevant and what will I be able to leverage?

Sometimes it’s obvious and sometimes it’s not until a certain new prospect appears that makes the information I once heard become relevant. Everything you hear and learn has some sort of impact on business – somehow. That’s why anyone serious about business stays abreast of local, national and world news and happenings across all fronts. (Keep a forest view interest while you focus on whatever sector of the forest, tree or branch you’re on)

I think one of the most critical aspects of absorbing all information with the entrepreneurial filter is developing a great ability to think outside the box. My recommendation to anyone who is trying to raise money is “think outside the box”. Be it in regards to where, how and who of the fund raising process.

Someone contacted me today who wanted a little bit of guidance on fund raising. I replied to his question in a way that I know is frustrating to read because it didn’t necessarily have any clear guidance. I was annoyed with my own answer, which had me brewing on proper and helpful guidance for him. I hadn’t put in my email the usual “think outside the box” comment so I put myself in his shoes. Although I have little knowledge of what he’s working on; I started to think outside the box. It didn’t take but about 45 seconds for me to come up with a possible avenue for him to look into. This avenue is paved by a few things I’ve seen in articles and been hearing about on the radio.

He thought it was a great possible way to go. It’s going to take a lot of additional brainstorming to pave the road but at least it’s a real option with potential.

If you’re an entrepreneur or a striving entrepreneur start developing your entrepreneurial filter. Play around with what you hear and read about; find the business implications and possibilities. You can train yourself to start thinking any way you want to!! It just happens that some ways of thinking are a lot more beneficial than others.

Will it be Anti-Climatic??

Posted on August 20, 2008
Filed Under Entrepreneurship, Launch, Startup | Leave a Comment

Last night, I put up the todo list on my whiteboard for the soft launch of Tickets with a Twist on Sunday. Today, I’ve been wondering about what the launch will feel like. Launching WhyGoSolo was such a monumental event to me (us) and this one…like I mentioned in another post, feels so much different.

This launch is different for many reasons. First, it will be a soft launch – meaning, we’re going to keep it extremely low key since we will not have the quantity and variety of tickets I was anticipating. Second, our widgets will not be online and third, the live site will require additional testing. Although it’s being currently tested on stage, when it goes live it will require additional testing…particularly since it ties in and interacts with the WhyGoSolo site.

The other factor that have me wondering about what the launch on Sunday will be like is because of how much of a big deal the launch of WhyGoSolo was to me and all of us involved. The team was much bigger and development had been ongoing for almost five months. I had been prepping for the launch for almost a year and the compilation of all our efforts were finally coming together.

I was also dedicating my full time and energy to WhyGoSolo back then, while for this launch, I’ve been and still am juggling a full time job.

I don’t know if saying that we were over hopeful or just slightly naïve is proper, but I know I had imagined that launching the site was going to make huge things happen over night. I had unrealistic expectations. Now, I feel like my feet are better planted where they need to be.

When we launch on Sunday, out of the original team that at one time soared at eleven members (not including myself), only two original members are left (not including myself).

I’ve been thinking about the synergy between the three of us who have now been together for almost a year. Obviously, all three still see the huge potential in what we’re doing however, we are all wiser of the road we’re traveling. It’s nuts to think that we’ve been chatting and holding weekly calls over Skype with each other for a year.

Darcy was still in high school then and he’s now in his second semester of Uni (as he always calls it – he is Australian)

Michael, who was enduring long commutes back then, has since left his full time job and started a business of his own. I also just found out he is expecting his first child. CONGRATULATIONS TO MICHAEL and HIS WIFE!!

We know bits and pieces of each other’s lives yet, we’re putting full faith into one another. On top of it all, we still haven’t met.

So it’ll be interesting what it will feel like on Sunday when www.gofortix.com is turned on and we enter a new phase. I’ll be talking some more about it Friday night at 8pm EST. Feel free to join me!

Thinking Through Execution: A Mental Run Down

Posted on August 19, 2008
Filed Under Entrepreneurship | Leave a Comment

Last night I was sitting at my computer with a plethora of thoughts rapidly floating in and out of my mind while I stared at my computer screen. I was immobilized and became unproductive. I decided to turn off my computer, turn on some classical music and think through all the things that need to be executed in the next week.

I’m a strong believer in the power of visualization exercises to attract the outcomes you seek. However, what I did last night was more of a mental run through of all the things that need to be done to properly execute the launch of Yut Media and Tickets with a Twist.

The mental run down is like a rehearsal. No detail is left unturn. I close my eyes and go through soup to nuts over the checklist and desired flow. The rehearsal is great to anticipate potential short comings, issues, and concerns.

On a holistic level – the mental run down will trigger my intuition if something doesn’t feel right.  It also allows me to flag things I need to either stew on some more to receive an answer or attract the right people or thing I will need.

It’s an amazing process that proves our ability to create our realities and the massive capabilities of the mind to manage multiple tasks at various levels.

I currently have quite a few things brewing at in the back of my mind and a few requests out to the powers that be for potential deliverables. I’m on the alert, prepared and paying attention to everything that’s happening since I’ve been setting up the playing field.

Today I’ll scrub the todo lists, pass along further guidance to key people I’m counting on and engage more in the must-do-today items. But with that being said, I won’t go to sleep without doing another run down and also visualizing the sweet outcomes I aim to achieve.

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