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.

WhyGoSolo turned 1 on January 5^th, 2009. It’s a hard pill to swallow to know the site has been live for a year and there’s been no real traction on it, yet. Tickets with a Twist was launched in August and nothing much has happened with it either, as of yet.

The move to New Orleans and getting another paying gig is to afford myself the opportunity to rewrite the business plan and shop it around for a seed round. I thought I would be able to do make things happen without a seed round, but I need to put a team together to be successful…and I need to be able to pay that team.

I feel better prepared to raise money, however; it’s a seriously tougher time to do it. Not only is it a tougher time to raise money…but evaluations for startups are down and thankfully I wasn’t thinking about a quick exit, because those are few nowadays and also much less profitable.

This is a good and shitty place to be. It’s a place where either things go to the next level or they come to an end. I rather it was the first and not the latter.

I don’t know how to describe this particular part of my entrepreneurial journey. What I know is that I have to continue to take steps forward…new steps based on things learned and walk in faith.

The next 6 months are going to be quite interesting. I have to walk in faith since I can’t even guess what twists and turns are in store. If I think about it…there’s just too much and I’ll drive myself crazy.

The plan is the rewrite the business plan in the next couple of weeks…keeping it simple, and straightforward. Once the plan is ready, I’ll leverage the contacts I’ve made the last couple of years to get it into the right hands and get prepared for the reactions.

Meanwhile, I’m going to keep things going with Yut Media, keep networking, blogging and exploring the web.

Stay tuned!! I’ll be reporting in what’s happening.

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!!

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.

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!

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.

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.

What I like about his new post: PR Secrets?? It’s Bullshit is that he acknowledges the amount of ground work he has done to establish his community in order to be able to launch his company without the help of PR folks and he points out that anyone can do this.

I wrote a blog post back last August called Who is Your Front man?? The blog post was something I was beginning to realize as an extremely important thing to identify and establish, as I was developing myself as WhyGoSolo’s front man.

What I wrote about back then and what Loic is writing about now is a topic I have been wanting to get into on this blog at some point, but looks like sooner is more an appropriate time than later. And that topic is Establishing Your Foundation: Building Your Personal Brand

I’ll write more about that in the next few days but here is some food for thought…since it is highly probable your first company will fail; wouldn’t time be well spent developing your own personal brand in order to increase your odds for your second attempt???

Back to Loic’s Post and a Comment that helps prove the Point which came from Jeremy Toeman

Loic, I think your assessment is fairly biased to your personal experience. The truth is most companies and individuals aren’t nearly as well connected as you are, and to just dismiss PR by saying “just go build a community” is frankly, naive. Even your business needs *significantly* more users than you have today, and at some point, if you truly want to accomplish your goals, PR will probably come into play.

Furthermore, many startup CEOs are heavily engaged in building their products/services, and don’t have the time to do the outbound marketing work.

There’s more to this than you make it seem. A lot more.

If you are a first time startup CEO let me dissect this comment for you and how you can’t listen to it:

1- It is your job to become extremely well connected. This goes back to other blog posts I’ve written on whether or not you are even qualified to start the startup you’re thinking of starting. If you aren’t well connected – GET THERE.

2- Building a community is a must. Again, your responsibility to excite people about what you are doing and finding your evangelists.

3- Seesmic will indeed continue to need more users, but anyone who is following what Loic is doing knows that he is continuing to grow his community. The main way he is doing this is through PARTNERSHIPS that come from his connections. Loic is bringing big names to Seesmic and those big names he brings to Seesmic have their own following…see how that works. PR is not required. Loic is a very smart business man. Not saying he might never require PR, but what he does is leverage his community, his product, his service and he adds value to grow on top of what he’s established.

4- All CEOs are equally heavily engaged in building their products – it’s not a reason to not build your foundation. Your team is going to turn to you and they’re going to rely on your connections and the foundation you’ve built to take the product to the next level. Which is why it’s best to establish your personal brand BEFORE launch or even better before you start your startup. You need to know what you’re getting yourself into.

5- Jeremy is right. There is more to this…it took Loic a few years to get to where he is and we’ll cover all the steps you need to start taking for you to be able to do the same.

I’m not entirely sold that the vision part is unique to the Tech Guys. I’ve met plenty of business people and entrepreneurs who can’t see past their initial business concepts/ideas…during my stint as a business coach the primary thing my clients needed was a vision.

Taking the idea to market…I have to agree with that, but here is why, and what I think are the real dings on the Tech Guy: Leadership and Creativity.

Leadership – or in this case the ability to motivate, build and manage a team. Our Tech Guy can build the prototype but the ability to take the idea to market requires building a team and surrounding oneself with key people who can move you and the product forward. That’s not an ability that many Tech Guys have…it involves a lot of networking, meeting people, and sharing of information. It’s more for the extroverted types, which the Biz Dev Buy normally is.

Managing a team requires being able to maintain a clear understanding of all the moving pieces…but again – this isn’t just the Tech Guy who can’t handle keeping everything straight. However, he is more likely to focus only on the tech end of things; forgetting there’s more to it.

Creativity – or in this case constantly coming up with alternative solutions and innovative problem solving. The Tech Guy is more logical in his thinking and the Big Dev Guy is more creative. Marketing, sales, and business development requires a great deal of creativity and quick thinking. Creativity isn’t a strong quality in most Tech Guys.

Quick Crash Course On Initial Things to Do

Most import thing for a Tech Guy to start doing is…Networking! Start meeting people and getting out there. Meet more people than just other Tech Types. Grow your network.

Bounce your ideas off the new folks you meet and get feedback right away.

Find out if what you are working on inspires others, that will be critical to build a team.

Ask yourself: “Can you go beyond the tech?” If all you want to do is code; you’ll need a partner immediately or you are better off joining someone who is looking for a Tech Guy.