tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59765831228578759392024-03-03T01:43:54.072-05:00The Corporatepreneur<em>"HELP! I'm an entrepreneur trapped in the job of an employee!"</em><br><br>This blog is for anyone working for the man - who is dreaming about working for themself!Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08489475901335177511noreply@blogger.comBlogger129125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-77801691232244753132012-01-26T19:57:00.002-05:002012-01-26T19:57:29.164-05:00Post featured at 420Creative!My post about how <a href="http://www.daleting.com/2011/11/marketing-a-bbq-smoker/" title="Google adwords vs. the Bullsheet – upset special!">a print ad out-ROIed Google Adwords</a> made it to a design studio blog, 420 Creative.<br />
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See the post <a href="http://420creative.com/blog/entry/print-advertising-can-work-better-than-web-advertising-and-google-adwords">here</a>.<br />
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How neat!Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-74375284686133246362011-11-14T18:28:00.000-05:002011-11-14T18:28:23.832-05:00Marketing a BBQ SmokerOne of the skills I knew I needed to develop after leaving the corporate world was <del></del><br />
how to nap better<br />
marketing and promotions. The easiest thing to do, of course, was buy Google ads. That's what I did for <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.breezebbq.com">Tremore Breeze Smoker</a>. It did very well, generating lots of hits and getting us on many BBQ sites. Overall, it costed about $300 over a month or so.<br />
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I didn't stop there though. My partner and I took a trip to the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Heart-of-Kentucky-Bourbon-BBQ-Musicfest/146407198756872">Heart of Kentucky Bourbon and BBQ Fest</a> to see how the BBQ competition circuit was - we had decided to target competition teams for our smoker. The competitors had just turned in their food to the judges, so many of them were just sitting around enjoying a beer. We learned a ton just talking with them, and they were all amazingly friendly. We asked them about their smokers, what frustrated them, and what made them choose their current smoker. But the best question I asked a team captain was, "How did you find out about the smoker you bought?" The answer was he saw an ad in the Kansas City BBQ Society newsletter (called the "Bullsheet." one other thing I learned about these people is they love their puns). This was an amazing insight; people would buy their smokers based purely on an ad in a newsletter.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.breezebbq.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/photo.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="alignright" height="388" src="http://www.breezebbq.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/photo.jpg" width="260" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;">So I quickly created an ad and placed it in the Bullsheet. The ad costs about $300 for 6 months. Within days of it publishing, we were getting inquiries from our website and phone calls. We probably average about one inquiry a week, I would guess mostly from the Bullsheet ad. The people that contacted us were knowledgeable and had great questions. The return on investment from the Bullsheet ads were much better than the Google ads. We got a lot of website hits, but didn't get any inquiries from them. So we decided to kill the Google ads, and right now we're still reaping the benefits of the Bullsheet ads.</div><br />
I was inspired to write about this after reading a great post on A Smart Bear Blog <a href="">called </a><a href="http://blog.asmartbear.com/cold-calling.html" rel="bookmark" title="Permalink to this post">How cold calling (properly) works better than AdWords</a>. The post also talks about sales, or more specifically cold calling - another skill I aimed to learn. More on that later...Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-43496902784107812882011-09-07T00:18:00.003-04:002011-09-07T00:18:45.761-04:00Google Doodles would've never happened at P>oday Google paid tribute to <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/09/google-doodle-freddie-mercury.html">Freddie Mercury's 65th birthday</a> in what is becoming a very popular feature: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_logo#Google_Doodle">The Google Doodle</a>. Another great Doodle I remember is the tribute to Les Paul, where you could play a tune with strings on the Google logo. Coincidentally, I'm listening to an audiobook entitled "I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59." It's told by Doug Edwards, one of the first brand managers Google brought in, and how he had to adjust to Google's lack of corporate-ness, coming from decades of big corporation experience.<br />
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<iframe style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS1=1&npa=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=wwwnotthebook-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=0547416997" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" width="320" height="240"></iframe><br />
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Also coincidentally, I had just finished the chapter where he talks about the first Google Doodles. The people at Google wanted to have fun with Thanksgiving, Election Day, Mothers Day, etc. by making fun things happen with Google logo. But Edwards fought it, saying it was taught in all marketing books that you don't mess with your brand equity. Fortunately, he lost, and the rest is Doodle history.<br />
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As I'm going through the book, it just reminded me of how frustrating the corporate world is. He talks about how he was taught in his corporate experience that ideas were things to be stomped out before they drained resources, and how Google was so much different. He also talks about how, in the corporate world, you only did what was in your job description, for fear of stepping on toes. Many of the things he talked about wanting to stop or implement from the old corporate world got turned back, for the better.<br />
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No, I'm not going to apply for a job at Google. I doubt they're perfect either. But this really goes to show how the corporate world is broken. I really feel there will be a revolution in the future where big corporations get disrupted. Smaller companies with better cultures will get more out of their people, making them more successful. Hopefully, I'll never need to return to the corporate world again.Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-53302613006017046232011-07-20T07:51:00.000-04:002011-07-20T07:51:00.737-04:00Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy | Derek SiversI firmly believe a good leader knows when to lead and when to follow. I recently came across the concept of the "first follower" on <a href="http://sivers.org/ff">Derrick Siver's</a> blog, and he makes an awesome illustration of it with a<span style="font-family: inherit;"> video clip "First follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy:"</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/fW8amMCVAJQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>I've put this into action a few times. In an organization where I'm an officer, I've tried to use any influence I've built up to support another person's initiative. During meetings, when someone is trying to make a point but people weren't able to hear him/her, I'll say "so and so is trying to make a point" at the next natural break. This allows all points to be heard, which makes the organization better.<br />
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Be the first follower... and recognize people who are YOUR first followers!Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-6733225670692017702011-07-15T23:03:00.000-04:002011-07-15T23:03:50.936-04:00Timely post: What to do with your inactive blogsAnother <a href="http://www.problogger.net/archives/2011/07/16/5-brilliant-things-you-can-do-with-an-inactive-blog/">timely post</a> from Problogger entitled "5 Brilliant Things You Can Do with an Inactive Blog." As I said in the <a href="http://corporatepreneur.blogspot.com/2011/07/blogs-coming-out-of-my-ears.html">previous post</a>, I was up to my neck in blogs... I guess if you're a successful blog on blogs, you must be good at blogging...Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-70743870278387278852011-07-12T18:21:00.002-04:002011-07-12T18:21:55.083-04:00Blogs coming out of my ears!I've got a dilemma. Hoping for some advice from the community.<br />
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I have the opposite issues of what this <a href="http://www.problogger.net/archives/2010/09/21/trouble-choosing-a-niche-start-a-personal-blog/">Problogger</a> post is talking about. I have so many topics I want to blog about that I end up starting myriad blogs. Here's what they are:<br />
<ul><li>Corporatepreneur (this blog) - started with a couple friends to blog about entrepreneurship while working in the corporate world) ACTIVE</li>
<li><a href="http://www.blogger.com/">Nottheblog</a> (notthebookstore.blogspot.com) - to promote NOTtheBookStore.com INACTIVE</li>
<li><a href="http://dalessabbatical.blogspot.com/">Dale's Sabbatical</a> (dalessabbatical.blogspot.com) - to update people about the 3 month sabbatical I was taking INACTIVE</li>
<li><a href="http://wokthisway.blogspot.com/">Wok this Way</a> (wokthisway.blogspot.com) - A blog discussing being Asian American in the midwest (have decent amount of content, INACTIVE now)</li>
<li><a href="http://forevercheesehead.blogspot.com/">Forever Cheesehead</a> (forevercheesehead.blogspot.com) - Blogging about Wisconsin sports outside of Wisconsin (SEMI-ACTIVE)</li>
<li><a href="http://cincyasian.com/">Cincyasian</a> (cincyasian.com) - Where to get good (good enough at least) Asian food in Cincinnati (ACTIVE, but just started)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.breezebbq.com/ask-a-bbq-expert-blog">Breeze Blog</a> (www.breezebbq.com/ask-a-bbq-expert-blog) - News on the Tremore Breeze Smoker (ACTIVE)</li>
</ul>This doesn't include two blogs I consider personal, so not sharing publicly... even though it's findable. This also doesn't include two or three more blog topics I've considered starting, including one on investing in the stock market and another discussing baseball statistics.<br />
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The reason I started so many is because I feel like blogs need to be targeted in order to best get traffic. Each one has its own niche that I was hoping to exploit. But I realize I also need to be dedicated enough to a blog to give it proper content and to promote it properly. Plus, with my personal blogs, I want to keep it semi-private, and also because I'm sure it's a different audience that wants to read about my personal stuff than my public stuff. Or maybe that's not true?<br />
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What I've come up with is one blog that I can just blog about things that come to mind, and ideally have a good tagging system that allows sorting into RSS feeds that people who are interested in only one topic can subscribe to. I'm sure that's not ideal in terms of getting and holding traffic, but I can't seem to garner up enough inspiration to keep all those blogs full of content.<br />
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The article from Problogger was really good. I might go this route for now, and then see if niches naturally fall out of it. Any advice from the blogging community?<br />
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-Up to my neck in blogsDalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-8560398005299878902011-07-05T23:48:00.000-04:002011-07-05T23:48:11.855-04:00Pimp my ROAD office! Best remote locations to workI recently went on a 2.5 week, 14 city road trip out to the east coast (Adam, I almost looked you up but I ran out of time as I had a game to catch in Boston!). I went to see my Milwaukee Brewers play at Fenway Park in Boston and Yankee Stadium in NYC, and along the way visited a whole bunch of places. One thing I enjoy doing is working from different places, in essence showing that one can escape the artificial lights of the cubical world in exchange for more inspirational locales. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.daleting.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="347" src="http://www.daleting.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/map.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
Out of all the place I visited, the #1 place to work was Battery Park in New York City. They had tables near one of the food stands where you had a view of the harbor and to top it off, the Statue of Liberty in the background. I happened to be there on an absolutely beautiful day. The park had free, fast AT&T wifi. You could not ask for anything more.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq2pBVmlu7TJcJFdexX0U2Xm4LrN3oixHzz1MIVGZlM1URO-Dei8-PQxqlyj7HTEPE4uZVMQK2FAi4mZLagMAg3h3NrCjbyk30_P_dCD3KaEsJn98WBo6phRkzqgDz84K0-2GUIsW6jp0/s1600/photo-700432.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq2pBVmlu7TJcJFdexX0U2Xm4LrN3oixHzz1MIVGZlM1URO-Dei8-PQxqlyj7HTEPE4uZVMQK2FAi4mZLagMAg3h3NrCjbyk30_P_dCD3KaEsJn98WBo6phRkzqgDz84K0-2GUIsW6jp0/s400/photo-700432.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Statue of Liberty is in the distance above the left person's head</td></tr>
</tbody></table> I only wish I could stay longer, but alas Katz Deli was calling my name...Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com2Battery Park, Museum Of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial To the Holocaust, 36 Battery Pl, New York, NY 10004, USA40.7028525 -74.01585690000001740.700913 -74.017907400000013 40.704792 -74.013806400000021tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-4468576496884329282011-04-17T09:57:00.000-04:002011-04-17T09:57:33.625-04:00NOTtheBookstore.com - end of an eraThe first venture I created that actually brought in revenue was a website called NOTtheBookstore.com. I started it in 2007. Last week, I made the decision to stop working on it and focus on other ventures.<br />
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I learned a lot from it:<br />
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<u>Outsourcing tasks that don't make sense for me to do</u><br />
I learned to use elance.com, and hired someone offshore to do data entry work that would've taken me hours. That experience taught me how to manage someone offshore, and helped me to think which tasks I should be focusing on and what tasks I should outsource. (Thanks to the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Expanded-Updated-Cutting-Edge/dp/0307465357?ie=UTF8&tag=seefad-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">4-hour Workweek</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=seefad-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0307465357" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> for this concept). <br />
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<u>Working with a site you didn't program is hard</u><br />
I hired someone to program an upgrade to the website for the first time, adding the ability to pull data from Amazon to calculate just how much you'd save over the campus bookstore. But there were all these tweaks I wanted to do, and looking through all that code was daunting. I'm actually pretty proud of myself that I was able to make the tweaks I needed to, because I'm someone who's never heard of object oriented whatchamacallit before. It's because of this experience that I starting learning Wordpress and I'm going to start any new website I create with Wordpress so I have control over features.<br />
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<u>Marketing and promotion</u><br />
I've never needed to market or promote anything before in my life. I started with Facebook ads (back then, they were DIRT cheap) and on a whim contacted the Xavier Marketing Club. That started off a great 2 year relationship, in which I still keep in touch with 1-2 of them. I also realized that a college campus might be a great sales and promotion channel that companies aren't leveraging. You have a bunch of people, similar age, interests, all tightly packed in a small area. Really encourages word of mouth and viralness!<br />
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</u><br />
<u>Continous improvement</u><br />
<u></u>After a couple of semesters of relative success, I stopped marketing at Xavier to focus on the bigger University of Cincinnati. Part of this was an experiment to see if it was self sustaining. It wasn't, as sales dropped a good amount. I learned that you need to constantly be in touch and looking to improve your business. Also, a good company with a low barrier to entry needs to reinvent itself all the time. I think NOTtheBookStore needed to be reinvented to add more and more value to the site. <br />
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</u><br />
<u>Scale up</u><br />
<u></u>I tried to scale the success at XU to the University of Cincinnati, which had 5X the number of students. I went through the same process, worked with their marketing club, promoted with fliers and advertising in the school newspaper. But UC just never took off. I have a couple of theories: 1. A larger campus means a longer build up part of the curve before it tips. 2. On a larger campus, there's a lot more choices and a lot more noise, so your message gets diluted. Or maybe it just needed more time. I don't think I cracked the nut on this one, if anyone has thoughts I'd love to hear them!<u><br />
</u><br />
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All in all, a great experience. It <a href="http://www.blogger.com/">gave me a glimpse</a> of what things could be like. And it made me a real entrepreneur.<br />
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If anyone has more insights or advice as to more I can take away from this experience, please comment!<br />
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P.S. Here's a copy of the email I sent out to my student list:<br />
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<h1 style="color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 28px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 100%; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px; text-align: left;"> Hello NOTtheBookStore fans and friends!</h1><br />
About 5 years ago, I was in year 3 of what turned out to be a 6 year stint in the Xavier University MBA program. I lamented to a friend about the cost of textbooks, and she told me she bought them on Amazon. “But how do you know what books you need for your classes?” I asked her. She told me to find it on the bookstore website.<br />
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In a different setting, one of my friends was talking to me about the Amazon affiliate program. Basically, if someone clicks on your Amazon link and buys something, you get a percentage of the sale as commission. At this point, the proverbial light bulb went off in my head: Why not help students save money on textbooks by showing them how much cheaper it was on Amazon?<br />
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NOTtheBookStore was born. The name and logo came to me as I was trying to fall asleep one night. I woke up, fired up my computer, and created the first logo: A BS with a slash through it. How funny and rebellious!<br />
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What the first <a href="http://notthebookstore.com/" target="_blank"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1303048176_1">NOTtheBookStore.com</span></a> site looked like:<br />
<img alt="" border="0" height="288" src="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/a223168f6d5005c9e62c31f7a/images/NTBSstart.jpg" style="display: inline; height: auto; line-height: 100%; max-width: 460px; outline: medium none; text-decoration: none;" width="434" /><br />
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Over the next 5 years, NOTtheBookstore.com would evolve from a website that looked like an amateur programmed it (because I was an amateur) into something a little less amateur looking but professionally programmed. Along the way, I formed a relationship with the Xavier Marketing Club. They were an enthusiastic bunch, and I wasn’t sure who was enjoying it more: them for having something to work on that was very relevant to them, or me for working with great students and getting all the great publicity! Book sales shot up from about 50 in Spring of 2008 to over 400 in Fall of 2008 after the Marketing Club did its thing. I know for a fact that at least 2-3 people got great resume builders from the experience, and I’m really happy that NOTtheBookstore.com was able to provide that.<br />
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NOTtheBookStore.com was my first business venture. Overall, at best I think the venture broke even from a profit standpoint. But all the stuff I learned and all of the people I got to work with was priceless. That’s why I’m not really that sad to make the announcement right now that I’m closing down NOTtheBookstore.com as we know it. I will leave the site up with our story and to continue to show people how to save money on textbooks, but won’t be adding more books for future semesters.<br />
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It was truly fun while it lasted. There were many students who sent me emails or told me in person how great it was that someone was trying to help them out. One of the things I was deathly afraid of was giving the wrong book information on the site. One day I got an email from someone to tell me that the book was wrong for his class, and I was ready to respond with an apology. But his email went on to tell me what the right book was, and ended with “thanks for doing this and helping us save money!” It goes to show that if you’re sincere in trying to help people, they will not only be forgiving but will help you back.<br />
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Thank you all so much for using NOTtheBookStore.com and being part of this wonderful experience! I now have a company called Wild Ting Enterprises, in which I hope to start more of these types of ventures (<a href="http://www.wildting.com/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1303048176_2">www.wildting.com</span></a>). I also have a blog called the Corporatepreneur (<a href="http://www.corporatepreneur.com/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1303048176_3">www.corporatepreneur.com</span></a>). Please feel free to drop me a line and I wish you all the best!<br />
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Dale Ting<span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1303048176_4" style="border-bottom: 2px dotted rgb(54, 99, 136); cursor: pointer;"></span><br />
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P.S. I also want to give a shout out to the University of Cincinnati American Marketing Association. They were wonderful as well, as we tried to expand NOTtheBookStore.com to UC for a couple of quarters.Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-64541008180583793872011-03-18T18:55:00.000-04:002011-03-18T18:55:42.134-04:00Introducing Wild Ting Enterprises<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi03my3Cs7xHTsp_pL8HlQUBndc3EwIb_DYUvIZsuZN4Zg1MGwDizGNyDvxshA3P9MLr-ddOs-nSanFSsCCpds_QsSfa2cw9unLdjWhUqkNcWaFjVqntrI0JR3ryoOe5JhgcfqqDURz0-I/s1600/wildting+sized+for+web.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi03my3Cs7xHTsp_pL8HlQUBndc3EwIb_DYUvIZsuZN4Zg1MGwDizGNyDvxshA3P9MLr-ddOs-nSanFSsCCpds_QsSfa2cw9unLdjWhUqkNcWaFjVqntrI0JR3ryoOe5JhgcfqqDURz0-I/s1600/wildting+sized+for+web.png" /></a></div>I'm happy to unveil today about a weeks worth of work coming up with the equity for my umbrella company, Wild Ting Enterprises. It was actually a lot of fun because I got to put down exactly what I was thinking. The process of designing the logo was actually extremely helpful in coming up with the equity, so I'll just talk about how the logo came about!<br />
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I wanted to start with the Chinese character for my last name. I always thought it was neat that the character itself looked a lot like the letter "T", which would be perfect for a logo with "Ting" in it. For those of you who don't read Chinese, that's the symbol that's in gold. I think it's neat that if you didn't read Chinese, it would be a neat looking logo. I had one person ask me why every logo design submitted had the "T" written that way. There's your answer Karen! This word is the third easiest Chinese character to write in the Chinese language (the easiest being the character for "one" which is just one line across, and second easiest "two" being two lines across).<br />
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The next part I wanted in the logo was the idea of many random things coming together into one. I wanted a "chaos theory" type concept, where out of randomness comes beautiful order. I'm a very random thinker. I tend to connect things that may appear to be very different on the surface but if you look more abstractly it's very clear. I'm not a detailed planner, I think in this "order out of randomness" style that many institutions tried to straighten out of me. I thought about doing something with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal" target="_blank">fractals</a>, which I still think is a pretty neat idea that I might incorporate into a logo in the future.<br />
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I ended up with a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photomosaic" target="_blank">photomosiac</a> concept... I'm sure you've seen them before, they're these computer generated pictures made up of a lot of smaller pictures. That's what the squares of different shades of red represent. The idea is taking many individual ventures, represented by individual pictures, which really have no pattern to them, and putting them together to form a bigger picture. There are also little squares in the process of coming into place in the upper right to indicate that I plan on constantly adding new ventures to the mosaic.<br />
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The color scheme comes out of the idea of a Chinese <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_envelope" target="_blank">red envelope</a>. These red envelopes are most known for being given out during Chinese New Year from your elders. They symbolize good fortune and contain money... both things a good business enterprise needs! I also like the idea of respecting those who have come before you and helping others who come after you (being a mentor and having a mentor). And finally, it's very fitting because my last day at P&G was on Chinese New Year Day.<br />
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So there you go! Feel free to check out the website, <a href="http://www.wildting.com/" target="_blank">www.wildting.com</a>. There I've listed a few placeholder ventures that I have been working on, or are planning to work on. This list isn't quite complete yet as I'm still converging on what ventures I'll be working on.Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-43155837174836573722011-03-08T13:14:00.000-05:002011-03-08T13:14:19.710-05:00Anti dot.bomb modelAs I'm getting my umbrella entity set up, I'm trying to figure out what my company will stand for, what principles will guide it, and what we're trying to do. One thing I knew I didn't want was to do the dot.bomb business model, but I couldn't put my finger on what the anti-dot.bomb business model was. I think bootstrapping is as close as it gets. I ran across Chris Garrett's posting on Escape Velocity called <a href="http://myescapevelocity.com/bootstrapping-rules">Bootstrapping Rules</a> that hit it right on the head. I like how Chris mentioned how this mentality changes your operating strategy. I definitely plan on incorporating these principles in my fledgling company!Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-19560816683670172011-03-04T21:22:00.000-05:002011-03-04T21:22:04.042-05:00Ta da!Well, after many years of adopting a "don't ask don't tell" type policy for my Corporatepreneurial ventures, I think I'm ready to talk about myself. It's only fitting that Adam let the secret out <a href="http://www.adam-mcfarland.net/2011/03/02/looking-back-its-been-five-years-since-i-left-my-job/">on his blog</a>, as I've used him and others as role models to get myself to the point I am now. <br />
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My name is Dale Ting. I live in Cincinnati, OH and recently left a Fortune 50 company.... Of course, that company would be Procter and Gamble, makers of Tide, Downy, Bounce, Crest, Swiffer, Pringles, etc. etc. etc. (As an aside, P&G owns Gillette, which was Adam's former company's archnemisis. My idea for the product to end this "more blades" war would be to invent an infinity bladed razor. Basically, you have a just a field of billions of tiny razors. Then what would they do, infinity plus one?)<br />
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You'd be hard pressed to find a consumer products company bigger than P&G. I spent 10 years at P&G after graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a Chemical Engineering degree. So I'm another engineer turned entrepreneur. I've just now stopped referring to P&G as "we" - it's a hard habit to break after 10 years there. I've also just recently gotten more comfortable with calling myself an entrepreneur. <br />
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I'm also an ABC - American Born Chinese. This dynamic played out in the fears that I had to get over to make this move. I've mentioned my dad many times before in this blog, and one of the cultural things I had to get over was the strong desire to please your parents. My dad wasn't quite Tiger Mom (thank goodness) but the cultural values were there. I'm happy to report, my dad recently sent me an article that said people who were doing what fulfills them were happier and lived longer. He also has been helping me with one of the new ventures I've started up. So things have turned out great on that front as well.<br />
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I was originally going to go into entrepreneurship cold turkey... No income, only a bunch of ideas that needed vetting out. But I was lucky that an opportunity came along with a company called <a href="http://www.onecareco.com/">oneCARE</a>, a much smaller company (actually 1000X smaller) who among other things licenses P&G brands and comes up with the smaller products off that brand (i.e. anything Bounce that's not dryer sheets, anything Tide that's not detergent). It was a perfect fit as they were located in Cincinnati and could use my experience with P&G. They also were great in providing me the flexibility to work part time so I could work on my entrepreneurial ventures. I hope to reward them for this opportunity by launching a bunch of products!<br />
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I'm hoping this post shows you the real human being behind this blog, and removes some barriers for me in networking with everyone out there.Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-80214158695990638002011-02-23T23:19:00.000-05:002011-02-23T23:19:53.588-05:00Coming out... of the cubicleThis is big news. Almost as big as the unveiling of Superman as Clark Kent. Or maybe Spiderman as Peter Parker. OK maybe not. Before I left my job with a Fortune 50 company, I wanted to keep under the radar a bit about my entrepreneurial aspirations. I made sure to keep things separate from the company, never using company resources to do my side things, and never doing anything that would be considered a conflict of interest with the company. But just to be sure, I wanted to do more of a don't ask don't tell thing.<br />
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Now, with my new company, I've been pretty transparent with my intentions. I work 3 days a week, with the other days giving me a chance to work on outside ventures. So now, I've decided to come of the cubicle so to speak. One friend of mine asked me how that would benefit me... I think it's cool for a couple reasons. It'll make me a little more real to the readers of this blog. And second, I might be able to get some valuable contacts or advice from the people here now that I can disclose the things I'm working on.<br />
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In the next post or two, I'll disclose the company I worked for and where I work now. And if I get brave enough, I'll even post what projects I'm working on! Thanks all for keeping up with the Corporatepreneur blog all these years. I'm really looking forward to this next phase!Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-86103836153621848442011-02-15T21:31:00.060-05:002011-02-15T21:31:00.467-05:00Figuring out everything that's wrong with me - surprise!As I was winding down my time at my big corporation, I figured I'd take advantage of my medical benefits while I had them. I was also trying to figure out what my new years resolutions were, so I figured I'd be data based in my resolutions.<br />
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I had a few things I was concerned about, things that most Americans were concerned about. These things included my weight, cholesterol, and salt intake. I went and got a physical with a full workup. Everything was fine, except the cholesterol might've been a little high, so they wanted to do some follow-up. I asked my doctor about salt intake, and he said if you're not feeling your fingers swell up, that means your body is taking care of it fine.<br />
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The follow up on the cholesterol came back everything was fine. So OK, what do I need to set my New Years resolution to fix? Looking at myself in the mirror, I figured I had some room for improvement on my weight. So I went to the fitness center and asked for a body fat measurement. The lady gave me a thing to hold, and it measured 18%. OK, there's a number I can work on reducing. The only data point I knew about body fat was Shaquille O'Neal in his prime was 4%. I looked on the wall, where there was a poster of body fat percentages and what they meant. 18% correlated to moderately lean. The fitness lady said "Hmm, that's very good." So nothing to fix here I guess.<br />
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The company also offers counseling as a benefit, and people recommended I go see one before making a huge decision like this. I also wanted to work on this issue of mine where I'd never want to start anything. So I went to see a counselor. After a few sessions, I realized I knew and had thought of everything he was asking me about. Was I financially ready? Was I emotionally ready? Recall I had blogged earlier about all the fears I had and <a href="http://corporatepreneur.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-fears-4-months-later.html">how I overcame them</a>. He wasn't really helping with the "never starting anything" issue, so I figured it was something that everyone had issues with and I needed to get over myself. So, no issues here.<br />
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So after a physical, body fat measurement, and counseling session, I came to the conclusion: THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME. The data said so. Sure, I can eat better and gain a bit more muscle and be a more efficient worker. But the way I am now shouldn't stop me from doing anything. I needed to stop thinking there was something with me and using that as an excuse for anything.Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-55070891655864721712011-02-10T08:47:00.001-05:002011-02-10T08:55:39.350-05:00My goal, reward, and punishment for the next month or soGoal: From now until 3/27, not counting two weeks in there where I'm on vacation, I will book 15 hours per week of focused, concentrated work on business ideas. I recently discovered <a href="http://slimtimer.com/">slimtimer.com </a>which allows you to time yourself and tag what the time was used for.<br />
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Reward: My baseball team, the Milwaukee Brewers, play in my current city, Cincinnati, on OPENING DAY 3/31. A friend with season tickets gave me the chance to buy 2 tickets, which I've purchased. If I make it, I will go to opening day. As a twist, I will treat the 2nd ticket to a friend who's been a peer mentor for me in the entrepreneurship world. This will not only get me motivated to complete this, but he will also be motivated to help me!<br />
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Punishment: I will sell or give away the tickets and donate $50 to a charity of a team I hate. I'm thinking New York Yankees right now, I'll hafta do some research on that.<br />
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Thanks again to <a href="http://www.nevblog.com/february-2011-goals/">Neville</a> for providing the inspiration for this type of goal setting!Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-67319911499605113962011-02-04T23:45:00.000-05:002011-02-04T23:45:33.370-05:00A major announcementHello everyone. I'm happy to announce that I've joined the ranks of the people who've taken the plunge. Last week, I resigned from the Fortune 50 company I've worked at for 10 years. Originally, I was going to go cold turkey into entrepreneurship, but I got a great opportunity to work part time as a consultant while doing entrepreneurial ventures on the side.<br />
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More to come. Thanks to all who read this blog (should we call it "Preneur" now?) for your advice and support. It's a little surreal to me after reading about everyone else doing it, that I've done it myself.Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-2976436755959192882011-01-10T01:07:00.031-05:002011-01-10T01:07:00.187-05:00Lessons from a KindleOver the holidays, I received an Amazon <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reader-3G-Wifi-Graphite/dp/B002FQJT3Q?ie=UTF8&tag=seefad-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Kindle</a> for my birthday. I turned it on, took a look at the first page, and swiped my hand across the screen to go to the next page.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8xm8_ZeDCVwMTob8ooewl5U0W2nAZykC920_tmFScfjyTihd-cnGtIoZ9jiUx0Pz5f6JCDDqWHGk8NtkKI-puRL-quJUKkjYWtdj6U41oguIjSUl0m5S-TqbxZZgh63Ibj-svRcK3Uag/s1600/kindle.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8xm8_ZeDCVwMTob8ooewl5U0W2nAZykC920_tmFScfjyTihd-cnGtIoZ9jiUx0Pz5f6JCDDqWHGk8NtkKI-puRL-quJUKkjYWtdj6U41oguIjSUl0m5S-TqbxZZgh63Ibj-svRcK3Uag/s200/kindle.JPG" width="148" /></a> <br />
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It took me a good 3-4 swipes before I realized that I needed to press the ">" button to go to the next page.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8xm8_ZeDCVwMTob8ooewl5U0W2nAZykC920_tmFScfjyTihd-cnGtIoZ9jiUx0Pz5f6JCDDqWHGk8NtkKI-puRL-quJUKkjYWtdj6U41oguIjSUl0m5S-TqbxZZgh63Ibj-svRcK3Uag/s1600/kindle.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div>That got me thinking. The Fortune 50 company that I work for always laments about "Habit Adoption" being such a challenge. Many blamed failed product launches on habit adoption issues. We dump tons of marketing money into helping people form different habits. Why had I formed such a strong habit from my iPhone that it took me that much time to unlearn it for the Kindle?<br />
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Because it's freakin' intuitive. Run your hand across the screen, the page moves with it. It's really easy to get used to something that's intuitive. My Fortune 50 company (and other ones out there) should put the challenge to our design folks to make the product so freakin' easy to use that you don't hafta worry about habit adoption.Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-34217392332345108122011-01-04T20:44:00.000-05:002011-01-04T20:44:54.851-05:00How to answer the "So what do you do?" questionParaphrasing from the movie <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Social-Network-Two-Disc-Collectors/dp/B0034G4P7G?ie=UTF8&tag=seefad-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Social Network</a>:<br />
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<i>Hot Stanford co-ed, getting out of bed:</i> Where do you work?<br />
<i>Lucky guy still in bed:</i> I'm an entrepreneur.<br />
<i>HSCE:</i> So you're unemployed?<br />
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One thing that I've wondered about is if my social status would take a hit if I didn't have a full time job (I don't have that much social status to begin with). How many people would understand I did it by choice? Although analyzing the situation more, the lucky guy was asked that question the next morning. Continuing with the dialogue:<br />
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<i>Lucky guy:</i> You ever heard of Napster?<br />
<i>HSCE:</i> Yup<br />
<i>Lucky guy:</i> I invented it<br />
<i>HSCE:</i> Wow, I slept with the guy who invented Napster.<br />
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The moral of the story: If you don't have a full time job by choice, you can increase your social status by doing something cool, even if it doesn't make money. I.E., if you're gonna quit your job, go invent Napster!Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-54422267830418998582010-12-09T21:41:00.003-05:002010-12-11T16:20:41.194-05:00My fears - 4 months laterFour months ago, I <a href="http://corporatepreneur.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-fears.html">posted</a> my fears for all to see in the hopes of shrinking them down to size. Another benefit to posting them out there was it gave me something tangible to go off and work on. I'm happy to say 4 months later, although I haven't eliminated all of those fears, I've gotten a handle on them and feel really empowered to go after what I want. Here's an update to each: <br />
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Former Fear #1: My dad will be pissed/scared/hurt<br />
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One of the recent "thought experiments" I've done is to imagine I'm 90 years old and telling stories to people. When I say "60 years ago, when I was in my 30's, I..." there were two ways to complete that sentence. 1. <i>I quit my job and went and got my MBA in real life. I (totally succeeded/totally bombed) and learned a lot and had a lot of fun</i>. Or 2. <i>I stayed in a well paying job where they didn't really use my skills and hung out for 30 years because I was afraid my dad (your great great grandpa) would be pissed/scared/hurt.</i> Suddenly, it was clear what life was all about. My dad would get over it.<br />
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It was also very helpful that my younger sister and I are our biggest supporters. My sister, who lives near my parents, told me recently that she started working on my dad for me. She told me the whole line of questioning she used, starting with something like "Don't you want him to be happy? He's not happy where he is... he'll be fine, he's smart and resourceful." She's paying me back for our entire childhood where I paved the way for her (including the time she asked a girl to the Homecoming Dance for me, so when she got to high school our parents would let her go). She basically is saying "do what you need, I'll take care of dad."<br />
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Former Fear #2: I'll fail miserably and hafta take a job that's much worse than the job I left <br />
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In a corporation, they grade on a curve, so to speak. 6% of the organization has to be rated "below expectations." I joined this 6% club, mainly because my organization doesn't value entreprenurial type people. One of the reasons was I didn't use our standard tools for my non-standard projects. Doesn't that actually sound like a reason to promote someone? So I ask myself this question: Why do I need to take this?<br />
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I also put together another thought. If I quit and go get a "real life MBA" so to speak, doesn't that make me more attractive to the type of company I'd like to work at, should I decide to go back to a company? I also went out and talked to all my friends who own businesses to see if there were things I could offer them. One particular friend was very interested. So I'm covered, I won't crash and burn right away at least.<br />
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Former Fear #3: I just don't have the drive to do what it takes.<br />
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This trait of mine still rears its ugly head. I've done a lot of work trying to figure out why I'm like this and what would get me out of it. I recently read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Birth-Order-Book-Why-You/dp/0800734068?ie=UTF8&tag=seefad-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=seefad-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0800734068" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, and it talks about first borns (which I am) and how they're perfectionists. I'm far from a perfectionist, but I read on anyway. Then it got to a part where it talked about another type of perfectionist: a frustrated perfectionist. This person is a perfectionist at heart, but is so afraid of criticism he gives up and doesn't finish things. This point hit home so much. I'm still working through this, and even looking to see if I can get some coaching.<br />
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I tried to work through this issue over the last 2-3 months by doing the <a href="http://corporatepreneur.blogspot.com/2010/08/5-hours-week-iphone-4.html">5 hours a week = iPhone 4</a> method. I tracked my work and booked hours, and I was able to do 5 hours a week for 2 months. After that, I upped it to 6 hours a week for a couple more weeks. This way I didn't have time to think about making something perfect, just book the hours. However, the last 3 weeks I haven't done any work on my projects. Blogging tonight is an attempt to get back on track. I think the issue is my project was to the point where I was close to involving other people; and that's when the fear of imperfection and criticism kicks in.<br />
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Former Fear #4: I'll never find a mate.<br />
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One thing I've started doing was to work on meeting people outside of work. Interestingly, Adam McFarland just put up a great post entitled <a href="http://www.adam-mcfarland.net/2010/12/09/maintaining-a-social-life-after-leaving-the-corporate-world/">Maintaining a social life after leaving the corporate world</a>. I'm not necessarily doing it to find a mate, but more to prove to myself that a social life exists outside of the company. I've joined a minority young professional group (while I can still call myself a "young" professional) and met some great people there. And yes, I've also met a couple of people that interested me that didn't work for my company. <br />
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So things have gotten pretty clear to me. I'm taking the holidays to reflect on my next step, but my biggest fears have been brought under control.Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-20716755985084585912010-11-07T14:46:00.002-05:002010-11-07T15:12:16.103-05:00Fantasy Stats BlogI have started a new online experiment with <a href="http://fantasystatsblog.blogspot.com/">Fantasy Stats Blog</a>.<br />For a few years now, I have been doing my own statistical rankings for Fantasy Baseball and Basketball leagues. Without going into all the bland details, I find that rankings tend to overvalue Points in basketball and HRs and RBIs in baseball. I also use it to balance my teams across each of the 8 normal categories used in Fantasy.<br /><br />So I created this page to sell my rankings and team optimizer. For the few weeks before the NBA season started, I was using Google Adwords to try and sell my program for $9. Various football programs and subscriptions go for up to $25. <br /><br />I sold a few but it did not cover the costs of Adwords. On Dale's advice, I have lowered the price for the rest of the post draft season to $1 to try and build a database of people who are willing to try it. Hopefully if they see the value in it for $1 they will be more likely to pay $9 next year to be able to draft with it.<br /><br />Let me know any of your thoughts or comments. I think right now I have a defined product but need to work on the business model and marketing.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08879215582210633779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-80887256739289456952010-10-23T12:08:00.000-04:002010-10-23T12:08:04.029-04:00A money experiment - CP style!I've been taking some cues from <a href="http://www.nevblog.com/">Neville's Financial Blog</a> lately, including setting up goals and giving yourself a punishment (like donating money to the Chicago Bears charity) for not hitting it and getting a reward (like an iPhone 4) when hitting it. Read about it <a href="http://corporatepreneur.blogspot.com/2010/08/5-hours-week-iphone-4.html">here</a>. I'm taking another cue from Nev today, and that's his Money Experiments, where the idea is you can make money with very little money. Nev's tried a few things, the most famous being enlisting a homeless guy to <a href="http://www.nevblog.com/bottled-water-experiment/">sell bottled water</a> on the street.<br />
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My idea came on a recent trip to New Orleans. Walking down Decatur Street, where there are a ton of street artists, one particular piece of art caught my eye. It was a fabulous, slightly abstract painting of a jazz musician silhouetted against a lampost with "Bourbon Street" painted on it. It was painted on a wooden plank and looked like it would go great on my wall. And that's saying a ton, because I really don't care about decorating my house at all (the only decorations I had before cleaning it up to sell the house was a display of Univ of Wisconsin football ticket stubs from 1996-2000, a Yao Ming jersey, and a stadium chair from the old County Stadium in Milwaukee). The art was fabulous, so I immediately bought one for myself. I asked they artist if he had a website or if he sold his art on Ebay. He said no, it cost too much to ship, and something or other about someone else having a better website. I told him it was great and he should think about doing that.<br />
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A few days later we went back (the food is too good on Decatur Street) and I figured I'd buy one for my sister and one for my parents. Since he had a deal where if you buy 2 you can get the 3rd for half price, I thought I'd go ahead and buy a 3rd one and see if I could sell it on Ebay and make a profit. Hence, the beginning of my money experiment. I completed the experiment today, and I'm looking forward to showing you my results in the coming blog entries!Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-7041911371101626362010-10-13T02:06:00.000-04:002010-10-13T02:06:27.136-04:00Restarting the 5 hour weekly commitmentWell, it looks like @Timothy didn't quite make his 5 hours a week goal. To his credit, he fulfilled his promise and bought some pink Chicago Bears shirts from their charity. Read about it <a href="http://timothynott.com/blog/2010/10/1-week-2-hours-gift-to-bears-care/">here</a>. I'm curious to see where he goes next!<br />
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With that, I'm re-starting my 5 hour a week commitment after taking a week off on vacation. I'm still trying to brainstorm what my reward and punishment would be. I think I'll keep the $100 donation to Bears Care as the punishment. I've kicked around a few ideas about the reward. One was to buy one of my friends lunch. That way, they'd be encouraging me to make it work. Another idea was to offer up a $10 gift card to Amazon to a random commenter if I completed the goal. That way the whole community would be encouraging me! Thoughts?Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-90935772427162350712010-09-29T20:19:00.002-04:002010-09-29T23:37:22.992-04:00Renewing the CorporatepreneurAs a 10 year corporatepreneur and an original contributor to this blog, I have been quiet this past year or so. The recession hurt my business like most, especially considering it was dependent on online ad rates. Having a corporate job did take some of the stress of the recession off, but I am now ready to renew my efforts as a corporatepreneur. My old business is still running at significantly lower income, but I have decided to take what I have learned to look for other new opportunities. <br />It is exciting to start with a blank slate after focusing on the same business metrics for so long. But at the same time it is daunting to think about all of the time, effort and work it took the first time. That is why I have gathered some statistics to support the theory we have all held here about the need for corporatepreneurs. <br /><br />1. Retirement will be the new field of the Haves vs the Have Nots.<br />2. Any job, even a good one may not be enough to fund a modern retirement.<br /><br />When I started in the corporate world, I saw a lot of people retiring at the normal 50-55 years of age. However, what I did not know was that so many of them did not really fund a lot of their retirement. They were the last generation to have pensions and benefitted from a great run through the 90s of the stock market. <br />In 1985 91% of employers offered a pension.<br />In 2005 61% of employers offered a pension.<br />In 2009 only 37% offer a traditional pension.<br />I am actually surprised how relatively high the last 2 numbers seem vs how it feels. However, the message is the same, traditional pensions are dead and everyone is on their own for retirement. And many companies have stopped any 401k matching programs.<br /><br />The primary retirement question used to be WHEN you could retire. With people hoping to comfortably stop working at 55 or even 50. After reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, I thought the question for our generation would be not when but IF one could retire. I thought this shift was 20 years away, however with the recession and a massive debt crushing our economy, we may have already hit the time when a significant portion of the population could not retire at all. In a recent CNNMoney poll, 34% said they may never be able to retire. Even scarier, you can go to INGcompareMe.com to see how your retirement planning stacks up against 100,000 people who have entered their data. The average amount saved at every age group and income seemed shockingly low to me. I consider myself a dedicated saver for retirement and I still worry that I am not doing enough to prepare for retirement. <br />I read a recent article talking about moving the retirement age from 62 to 67 or even 70. They justified it saying it is necessary because of large debt and feasible because people are living longer and our service economy is not as hard as farming or labor allowing people to stay in the work force longer. All fair points, except for the fact that companies would need to want to keep people around until the age of 70. And looking around the office, I do not see too many people beyond 55. That means you may expect to have a 10 year gap between retiring from the corporate world and social security and Medicare benefits. Are any of us planning ahead for this second career? I have heard of people retiring to go into teaching or other types of work. I am certainly not against working in retirement because there are many health and social benefits, I would just like for it to be a choice and not a way to try and make ends meet.<br /><br />The ultimate goal of a corporatepreneur is to have a business take off so that you can be your own boss. Even if that never happens it would be great to have a business fund a proper or early retirement. Or If none of those dreams come true, it would be great to have a business established and running that could ease the tradition into retirement. <br /><br />I have to think in the next decade, we will move from anonymous blogs to whole communities helping each other achieve our goals.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08879215582210633779noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-86010682094204816202010-09-28T21:29:00.000-04:002010-09-28T21:29:38.463-04:00Comment of the year@Timothy said, regarding my reward and punishment for my <a href="http://corporatepreneur.blogspot.com/2010/08/5-hours-week-iphone-4.html">5 hours a week goal</a>:<br />
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Very nice! I was thinking of picking up a Galaxy from ATT. Toys are a perfect motivator. If the toy doesn't work, Bears Cares ought to do the trick, especially since the Bears just handed the Pack a loss.Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5976583122857875939.post-83706061331786960882010-09-26T22:27:00.001-04:002010-09-26T22:29:33.712-04:00This is it!In about 45 minutes, I will have fulfilled my <a href="http://corporatepreneur.blogspot.com/2010/08/5-hours-week-iphone-4.html">5 hours a week of work for 5 straight weeks</a>. The closest I've come to not getting the 5 hours in was the last two weeks. Last week, I was taking a trip out to SF and had no hours booked up to the day I traveled. Thank goodness for Delta's wifi on the plane! I knocked out 2 hours on the 4.5 hour flight out there. I couldn't do more because 1. The battery on my Mac drained, and 2. There was about 30 min of turbulence that was bad enough that I couldn't type straight. Then on Friday, while everyone else was sleeping and I was still on Eastern time, I knocked out the remaining 3 hours, giving myself the 5 hours for the week. Not bad considering I didn't do any work on the weekend. This week the same thing happened. I had no hours booked through the week... just constantly had stuff going on and the messed up sleep schedule caused me to be really tired at night. Well I knocked out 2.5 hours on Saturday and I'm wrapping up the last 2.5 hours for tonight. <br />
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I've been tracking the work I've been doing and the time I've spent doing it. A majority of the time I've used to learn Wordpress for a new website I'm trying to start. It's fun going through the logs. On Sept 5, I spent 30 min at Starbucks downloading Wordpress. Then later, I spent an hour on my couch troubleshooting the wordpress installation (it's NEVER the 5 min installation they say!). But then as I went along, I started picking up what Wordpress was all about... picked a theme, figured out how to change widths of stuff, figured out what "the loop" was, and eventually getting to a point where I could do some stuff on the code level. It's awesome to see the progression!<br />
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I definitely want to keep this level of discipline in my work. I would like to get to a glidepath to get to 10 hours a week. I've been pretty good about the work being real execution work, with minimal brainstorming and theorizing work (I tend to gravitate towards that kind of work anyway, so it won't be an issue to try to limit it). It's still hard to get started, all the self doubt and wondering if what I'm doing is really worth it or not kicks in. But it's a great feeling when you're done with the hour and you figured out that Wordpress issue!<br />
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As for the iPhone 4... I cheated a little bit and bought it last week in SF because I wanted the better camera and video recording capability. But I was still going to make that donation if I didn't get the hours in, and I was more determined than ever to get the hours in so I wouldn't hafta face you guys!<br />
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So I started coming up with hypotheses as to why this was happening:<br />
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Competition. First, it seems like textbooks are a hot topic nowadays. Tons of sites out there are trying to get student's attention. The latest one is Chegg, which is a textbook rental site. As an aside, back in '07 when I was conceiving NOTtheBookstore.com, I also had the idea of a textbook rental business. I chose this model because it required a lot less capital to work with. So maybe there was a lot of competition, and people weren't using my site to buy from Amazon or Half anymore.<br />
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New textbook info requirements. The government <a href="http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20100730/UPDATES01/100730038/College+students+may+get+break+on+textbook+expenses">passed a law</a> requiring a school to post required textbooks and prices at the time of registration. Maybe this meant my site wasn't providing enough value for people to click through to, since one of the discerning features was it showed you what books you need. Now they already tell you!<br />
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Students now know to buy online. This was another value I thought the site brought, that is to tell people to buy online. When I started the site, I had no idea I could buy the same book for much cheaper online!<br />
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Finally, and I think this is probably the 80 for the 20 reason...<br />
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I didn't have any on-campus marketing presence, other than Facebook and newspaper ads. The Marketing Club and I took a break, and initially revenue was doing fine. So I concluded that it was self-sufficient. I'm thinking that conclusion has been disproven.<br />
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Some other supporting data... The drop in revenue corresponded to a drop in traffic. I haven't run the numbers yet, but by eyeballing it, it seems like the revenue per visit numbers are the same. So it's not that students came to the site and was disappointed in it. People who showed up bought something at the same rate. People also saved on average 50% off the bookstore price, which hasn't changed (in fact, I use that number in my ads). So it's not that book prices online have gone up either.<br />
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Conlcusions:<br />
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On campus marketing through the Marketing Club was essential. It's one thing to see something advertised on Facebook or in the school paper. It's another to have fellow students telling each other about it.<br />
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One opportunity for me is to put in a new "killer feature." Educating students on getting books online and having my site be their site isn't what it used to be. People already know about it. I need something to add value for the students to give them an incentive to use my site. I have some ideas, but not sure any of them are "killer." One is to provide a place for students to post tips for other students on whether the books are really needed, or cheapest places to buy the book.<br />
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Next action:<br />
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This is a no brainer. Get back in touch with the Marketing Club. I'd like to run a focus group and test some of these conclusions with them to see if I'm right.<br />
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Any thoughts? Suggestions?Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13907737499735342663noreply@blogger.com1