In the next couple of weeks, WhyGoSolo (and Tickets with a Twist) will both come offline. I’m not entirely sure when the end came…however, I do know it was before now; it just took me this long to admit it and come to terms with it.

I feel just as strongly and passionately about the concept/premise of WhyGoSolo and Tickets with a Twist as I did two years ago, but I currently don’t have the resources to pull it off; the most important resources being the money, drive and energy to revive it.  I made some attempts that all lead nowhere.

Two years ago, we were in pace with and in some respect ahead with development – now, we’re behind.  No matter what, the sites would have to come offline for a full facelift and I don’t have the developers or money for developers to revive the technology or to go mobile.

Two years ago I was in the buzz and part of creating buzz…now, I don’t really care.  I’m not done “playing” online by any stretch of the imagination, but my involvement will be different. The echo chamber got old real fast and I got hung up on things that really didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

I’m coming out of the last two years with baggage: exhaustion, guilt from letting people down, knowledge of mistakes I shouldn’t have made and a mountain of debt I’m still trying to pay off. I’m also still angry at some things that happened and things that didn’t pan out.

I can’t even begin to honestly describe how shitty having to write this post about pulling the plug on a dream and vision is like.  People who don’t dream big will never know what killing a dream feels like. This is my second time doing it and it’s much worst this time. I’m thoroughly humbled and awaken compared to where I used to be.

Now that the end is here, I want to close this chapter by acknowledging and sending thanks to all the people who at some point or another got involved in WhyGoSolo, all the developers, WhyGoSolo members, bloggers, DC Tech community, Pownce crew and all others who supported me and our efforts.

Above all, I want to acknowledge and thank Darcy Laycock and Michael Busselli who both really stuck through till the end – literally till the end; they will be the ones pulling the plug and purging the databases.

I wanted success for WhyGoSolo for Darcy and Michael more than I wanted it for myself – I was not able to deliver the grand vision they joined the team to realize and that is the HARDEST part of closing the sites down.

What’s Next?!?! (Four weeks later)

I was still extremely hurt and angry at the thought and need to shut down the sites, a month ago, when I wrote the first half of this post.  I still needed more time to accept what was inevitable.  Now, I’m in a much better place. I’m finally in a place where I can take what I’ve learned and apply it to something new under Yut Media Inc.  Although,   this time I’m going to avoid fighting the uphill battles that have always kicked my ass:

1. Entering a field/area that I have no background or contacts in
2. Being heavily reliant on technology and development to get started
3. Needing investors to succeed – Success makes getting investors a much simpler process
4. Stressing myself with unrealistic expectations and pressures
5. Starting a business that I think will eventually be fun. I’m starting something that will be enjoyable and fun from day one.

I’m in a good place with my life.  I don’t remember ever being this happy or satisfied with my present and the outlooks for the future.

I’m more relaxed, balanced, in-tuned, grateful and knowledgeable/cognitive of what needs to be done to meet my dreams than ever before.  I’m not pressuring myself and I feel I have already had a huge win in my life; realizing what happiness truly is and what it means to live life.

I have a wonderful life NOW. Turns out I didn’t need to realize my dreams to have a wonderful life; it was mine to have all along.  Having a wonderful life does not take away my burning desires to realize my potential/ambitions and build an empire to call my own.  However, now I get to do it and enjoy it a lot more.

Life is a journey, it really is. Life will show you everything you need to know about yourself and the keys to happiness, inner peace and being absolutely content.

You have to grow, act and change your thinking and circumstances for life to bring you the opportunities you’re looking for.  I left DC and moved to New Orleans.  I changed the way I did many things once I arrived to New Orleans – different behaviors and actions have brought me different results and outcomes!! I’m taking that new mindset into business along with everything else I’ve learned – lets see where that will lead me.

In August of 2007, I wrote a blog post called “Who is Your Front Man”. At the time I wrote the post, I was getting really involved in the web, or rather developing a web presence, since I imagined it would eventually pay off in assisting WhyGoSolo get off the ground.

Although I was enjoying being part of various communities; I wasn’t a fan of the popularity contests, and the small, yet loud echo chamber. Then somewhere down the road, I got into “social media” – I mean, you spend enough time online and learning the technology, plus attending events that it becomes second nature to understand how the web operates, reacts, grows and can be leveraged so I wanted to talk about that too. But how relevant was that to what I was initially trying to accomplish?

What I’ve just realized is that I’m actually a big fool that let herself get derailed. I started out wanting to develop and grow a web startup around a concept I strongly believe in and ended up…well, not entirely sure where I ended up. What I do know for sure now is that I don’t need to be known as a big shot social media guru. (Don’t get me wrong – I know my shit when it comes to social media strategizing but I don’t need to prove that to anyone) I also don’t care who in the social media sphere knows me or doesn’t…I frankly don’t like most of the self-horn-tooting-fools who are now calling themselves social media experts these days.

I was wrong about that post “Who is Your Front Man” because the truth is most of the CEOs of tech startups stay under the radar until their startup gets skylined. They network and conduct business with the players that are important to the success of their startup.

I feel like a dumbass for not realizing this sooner, it took taking part of a social media maketing plan brain storming session at SXSW and Dave Shaw telling me “You should do this for a living” to make me think “No, actually I don’t want to do this for a living. I want to develop and grow a business.”

I’m not going to beat myself up about it or the time invested and lost. I also won’t rush figuring out what to do with the Yut Media site and blog, but it will be changed at some point down the road…so will my follow list on Twitter.

That’s another point about being involved in social media…it takes critical time away from the business development (particularly in my case since I need to network with venues offline). My time online needs to be dedicated to doing research and finding the specific people I need to network with.

The social media sphere brought me a lot of aggravation and frustrations, it really should have dawn on me sooner that it just wasn’t the place for me. I’m fascinated with tech and I need to look at the web with those set of eyes.

I’m going to slap myself in the forehead a few more times before going to bed and start a fresh new beginning tomorrow morning with the title Web Startup Entrepreneur; the real brand I want to develop and reach success in.

I will continue to blog here and back on the WhyGoSolo Plug-in blog…where I need to attract new members.

At any rate, what I won’t be telling my dad or what I’m in no rush to tell him, is that on November 1^st , I will no longer have a “secure” job.

My last day (for now) of wearing the Marine Corps uniform ends this Friday, October 31^st. I’m in no rush to tell him because I know he’ll start worrying.

Seriously, how many people give up a good, steady paycheck during a recession!?!? You know at least one – ME.

In May (six months ago) when I took a job back in the Marine Corps – all I had going on was WhyGoSolo. We were in a stalemate and things weren’t going so well. I was burned out on it, so I wasn’t able to be innovative and think of the best next actions to take. I was also under extreme financial stress.

Once I got some new footing under me – I was able to re-engage. We launched Tickets with a Twist and Yut Media, Inc. came alive!

The problem now is that only being able to work on Tickets with a Twist, Yut Media and WhyGoSolo 2-3 hours every other day is making me extremely unhappy. It’s not enough time to get the sites off the ground.

I told my boss a while back that I wouldn’t renew my orders pass October 31^st but I had initially lined up another billet for the month of November. However, that job fell through. At first, I was a wreck and I started worrying and stressing about what I would do. I got a hold of my fears and decided this was a sign.

A sign that it was time for me to give Yut Media a full time go – at least for a few weeks and see what happens.

Instead of 2-3 hours, I can give it 14-16 hours a day. I’m excited about it and I look forward to being back in the entrepreneurial life full time.

But here’s the biggest MUST DO in the next few weeks: MAKE MONEY. I’m being honest with myself…unless I can make money, I don’t have a business. These next few weeks are to test whether or not I really have a viable business.

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!!

Burning the candle from both ends is really wearing me out. It would be one thing to work a regular job, but it’s a whole other thing to be working a job that takes me on the road and requires a lot of coordinating.

As you know from reading the last few blog posts I’ve written lately, I’m jumping through hoops to get two sites online and a new company started. Well one site is on track and on Saturday I had lunch with someone interested in working the independent sales position I’ve been looking to fill – but, we’ll get back to that.

One of the biggest challenges in the last two weeks has been with the company I hired to get the Yut Media site and blog done. Well last Wednesday, because of family issues, the company in question dropped my project all together. Leaving me in a jam to find someone else to wrap up the project and still make the deadline. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal except for the fact that I was jumping through hoops at work trying to get everything organized for the conference I’m currently in New Orleans to attend.

I managed to link up with another company to get a quote to finish the project – the same company who designed the Tickets with a Twist site. Only really annoying part of working with this company is that they are in Croatia and PayPal DOES NOT service Croatia. To get payment to them I have to use Western Union.

So by the time we settled on a quote for what needed to be done; I was already on my way to New Orleans. I got up at 3:45am yesterday morning to catch a 6am flight to get here.

Now, pause for a second. In the mean time, on Saturday I had lunch with an interested party in the independent sales position for Tickets with a Twist. The lunch meeting went well and I was going to get info back to him when I got home on Saturday…except when I got back my email wasn’t working.

Yesterday, once I got to New Orleans, the running around began. We had to get a booth setup and I needed velcro which had me running around town to find. I also started trying to find a Western Union location. Found one but their system was down.

Than the Aide to General Williams called me to confirm he was attending the award ceremony on Friday and would be staying overnight…which meant I needed to find the General and his Aide each a room for Friday night. I also needed to arrange with the conference people a VIP seat for the banquet for the General.

I realized I forgot my cover for my uniform and I also forgot to forward my work emails (usmc.mil email account). This meant I needed to contact everyone to give them an alternative way to contact me.

Today I got multiple other calls for things I need to workout and I have been unable to get an email out to the General’s Aide with the information she requested – I ended up typing all the info on my BlackBerry because for some reason that’s making it through to her.

I still needed to get the Western Union money out so that we might miraculously still be able to get Yut Media site and blog online on time. Since I’m not home in Virginia the tracking of a new location to send money from began. I looked up Western Union locations online and one was at the Harrah’s Casino which is right across the street from where I’m staying.

I went there but they only receive money…can’t send money out. They did however give me other locations to go check out, so I started wondering Canal St to find them. I went to two different stores…both of which only accepted cash and were not the best of places to be in. Walking back to the hotel it annoyed me that I’m here in New Orleans and not home…where it would be easier to do this simple task.

Finally, I came back to the hotel and tried my luck sending the money online…it has failed all other times I’ve previously tried but I gave it another go. It took a call to my bank and a call to Western Union but I was able to get the money to where it needed to go.

Now I need to head to the convention center and ensure everything is running smoothly over there. Not sure what awaits me and I’m not looking forward to finding out. Did I mention I need to get a speech ready because I’m one of the speaker’s for the Youth Luncheon on Thursday?

I have to make sure a Gunny Sergeant is picked up from the airport today, the General’s room is reserved and find a better vehicle to go pick him up with on Friday. I have the Corporal from his office finding out for me exactly where to pick him up and what time.

I hope things start coming together with less hassles. Just having email working properly would be a huge step in the right direction.

I grew my individual coaching practice into a coaching agency for a variety of reasons but the top three reasons are the ones listed above. My reasoning was that I would build an organization and system that was going to be the answers to the most difficult aspects of selling coaching services. My business partner (at the time) put me out of business before I could really test out my theories and methods. However, I did walk away from the coaching agency thinking that selling services was probably not the best way to go.

Products, I thought, had to be an easier and better way to build a business. Not just any types of products though – the kind that was low cost to purchase, impulsive buys, easy to purchase online and that also required some sort of renewal since that creates a solid cash flow through recurring income.

The other reason I was in the mood to test selling a product was to minimize the actual direct and constant interaction with each customer. It’s one thing to provide customer service when needed and a whole other thing to provide a service with constant interaction with all your clients.

With that in mind, I built in those features into WhyGoSolo with the membership cards. I ran into a few issues with this plan and approach as well, to include the partner responsible for the production of the membership cards leaving.

Sooooo…with the new business and concept we’re launching in less than two weeks, I’ve tweaked things again.

The one thing that’s for sure in this though is this – whether or not you’re selling a product or service or a mixture of both you must first have a market to sell it to and interest in your offerings from that market.

Back in May of 2007, I thought I had actually figured out how to make a partnership work and that I had found a good partner. I clearly spoke out too early. I was right on the criterion needed to have a good partnership:

Bottom line when you consider taking on business partners, make sure they bring to the partnership the skills and strengths you don’t yourself possess, make sure they are just as fully committed with their time, energy and financials; also, make sure they have the same values and work ethics. Lastly, make sure you can trust them and know that they are now part of your family.

But wrong on how long it takes to ensure you have road and time tested the validity of those criterion in each of your partners.

I’m not going to get into the details, in this blog post, of what happened with the former partnerships; rather, I’m going to discuss my current view of partnerships. (Note: I’m talking partners not investors)

It Will Be A Cold Day in Hell

Haha!! Okay, not quite that dramatic!! But the truth is, with as far as I am with things, the odds of me taking on a full partner are extremely slim to none. That’s because the odds of a partner bringing to the table real, true, must have value is doubtful. Also, at this point in the game, the odds of getting someone who is just as invested into the venture as I am is next to impossible. There are so many other ways I can get the same value elsewhere at this point.

Hire Talent

I’ll bring on hires, who will get shares as part of their compensation package, but again – those are not quite the same as partners.

It’s entirely too easy to find the duty experts, hire them, learn from them, listen to them and properly leverage their skills and knowledge.

Strategic Partners

The other option is to outsource to strategic partners. Get folks to help you without getting into sticky agreements together. They run their business – I run mine. In order for both businesses to stay in business they are required to deliver. If and when they don’t – you terminate the partnership agreement. This type of agreement can lead to some hassle but there are ways to negate that.

Advisory Board

I still don’t have one but am looking. I’m looking for the duty experts in the fields and areas I lack knowledge to help and mentor me. As well as, assist in making connections.

I know better than to think that I’m completely right about not taking on another partner again…so we’ll see what it would take to see it in another way.

All to meet the deadline looming thirteen days from now, the scheduled launch date of August 17^th. I’m most definitely tangled in loose ends.

How is it all going to come together?? I’m not entirely sure yet. A few folks are on the hook for their deliverables and I’m going to find out how many more hoops I can jump through.

I’m not kidding when I say that when I look back at the past few weeks I wonder how it is I didn’t end up crawled up in the fetal position in the corner somewhere. Pretty sure I put on a few extra pounds in the process though…

It wasn’t bad planning that got me in this situation – but rather taking on a sh*t load. Why did I take on a sh*t load? I want to get back to being a full time entrepreneur as fast as humanely possible and in order to do that I need to generate income and get back into fund raising ASAP. All you have to do is read yesterday’s post to know how hungry I am to finally meet my entrepreneurial success.

So it might have seen like I’ve been quiet the last few months…but you’ll soon see that appearances can be really deceiving.

The best way I can think of to explain what building a business is like to someone who has never experienced building a business goes something like this: Combine your most stressful week with your most exciting week and pack it all in into one day…and that is the closes thing you’ve experienced compared to the day in the life of an entrepreneur.

When you ask the majority of entrepreneurs “What have you been up to?” You get a blank stare back. Same if you ask an entrepreneur “ What do you need to get done?” You’ll also get a blank stare. Why? There is entirely too much they’ve been up to and that they have to do to even fathom narrowing it down and be able to answer!

The vast majority of people have rather simple, safe and predictable lifestyles. Their lives involve school, work, marriage, children, family, yearly vacations and basic, but personalized desires for success and accomplishment.

Generally speaking, the lives of most people day in and day out is much of the same with minor concerns and problems. The pace of life is regulated – the amount of unknowns, and level of day-to-day risk is minimal.

Our entrepreneurs on the other hand are emerged in risk, unknowns and the fast pace rhythm of having to get things done. The environment they operate in is unstable and a day is filled with multiple highs and lows. Work days are 12-16 hours and the week starts but never seems to end.

Entrepreneurs wear multiple hats at all times and they solve more problems and crisis in one day then what most people face over the period of a few weeks.

Entrepreneurs who lead teams and answer to people (a board) are carrying the responsibilities of not just personal success and accomplishment but that one an entire organization.

In the building phase of the business the emotions, the stress, the decisions, the pressure, and the responsibilities are intense; they are also all condensed in a period of time that makes or breaks the entrepreneur and the business.

When you decide to start a business – you’re deciding to put your arm out and inject a serious dose of steroids in your life. All things considered and speaking as an entrepreneur it’s pretty darn awesome…there is never a boring moment.

By the way, this is the main reason why you need a solid foundation before you go into business…you’ll need it.