3DS – An entreprenurship lesson in 60 hours
A couple of weekends ago I had the honor in participating in one of the most eventful, intense, passionate, and valued experiences of my life. I was selected as one of forty participants for this year’s 3 Day Startup program. Here is a description of the event from their website:
“The idea of 3 Day Startup is simple: start a technology company over the course of three days. We rent work space for an entire weekend, invite 40 students with a wide range of backgrounds, cater food, drinks, snacks, and coffee, pick the best idea for a software startup during the Friday brainstorming session, and release a minimal prototype by Sunday night. The goal is to build enough momentum among a network of motivated people to sustain the company beyond the weekend.”
The experience, knowledge and network I was able to gain during this weekend by far surpasses anything I would have learned in a classroom. But, I do have to mention that those techniques and theories discussed in class were applied during this weekend and will be applied moving forward. Here is what 60 hours of passion and drive can teach you:
- Passion will not override business knowledge – Just because you are passionate about something you have to understand the business part of it to make it work. You have to understand the components necessary to add value to your customers and make money to attract the attention of investors and take a percentage of the market share.
- There are people out their to help you – Never think that you’re alone in your adventure into entrepreneurship. There are tons of networks and individuals out there that want to help your idea get launched. All you have to do is find those people, because most of the time they will not find you.
- Act quickly when you realize you have failed is the first step in changing things around and meeting a deadline – As I stated in an earlier post, understand that failure is part of success. Our team ended up hitting rock bottom Saturday night, but a couple of red bulls later we were up and running, putting together a presentation that got all the investors excited to learn more.
- Involving yourself in a tech-based startup requires you to build a relationship with your programmers – No matter how smart you are, you have to build a solid relationship with the people that are going to make your idea a reality. They share your passion, so never forget that.
- Passion never sleeps, it only takes naps – Being an entrepreneur means that you spend countless hours working on your passion. But, I came to realize this weekend that the passion and drive you have needs some time to nap. Getting some sleep allows you to refresh your mind and get back to what you love doing.
I highly recommend anyone wanting to get into entrepreneurship to check out the 3 Day Startup program. I can guarantee it will open doors to opportunities you may have not thought of before.
Man I wish I thought of this sooner!
[blip.tv ?posts_id=3227858&dest=-1] After weeks of waiting the anticipation is finally over, Glass has been released. You’re probably still wondering what the heck it is, but I think I have figured out a way to explain it to you. Glass is sort of like taking a highlighter and scribbling all of over a web page, but not tampering with the content on the page. Think about the last time you saw something interesting on the Internet and wanted to share it immediately. Or the last time you were on a web page and you had a great idea! Like many others you probably posted a link to your Facebook or Twitter statuses. But, what if you wanted to share something immediately with your friends you know would enjoy the content. I bet you will not send a mass email to all your friends about what you found.
Enter Glass.
Imagine the number of emails it could decrease in your Inbox!
[blip.tv ?posts_id=3242888&dest=-1]
Although, it is important to note that Glass is still in Beta so we are trying to figure out all the kinks and adding features to make it better. So obviously, feedback is essential. If you’re interested let me know and I’ll hook you up with an invite!
Check our Catalysts Facebook Fan Page! I have to say we kind of rock!
What an independent book publisher has taught me
When people start talking about publishing a book, they think they know everything about the process. Many people have this glorified imagination that a publisher will pay you millions of dollars to write a book and take care of everything else for you. This is mainly true, if you’re a celebrity, but if your just like anyone else, publishing a book takes a lot of time, money, and patience. I have to admit I was one of these very naive people that thought I knew everything about the industry, but let me tell you I was completely wrong!
Having the opportunity to work for Greenleaf Book Group last summer, I have had the ability to understand how the industry works and what it takes for a book to become successful. Although I have only interned here for two months, I have been able to work with different parts of the company to understand how these pieces come together to create a bestseller. In my opinion, the following are four aspects of the book publishing industry that many people need to understand.
1) Understand that your book may fail. An estimated 1,500 books are published each day. There is no guarantee that your book will become a bestseller or it will sell 10,000 copies. When you invest in your book, there is a chance your investment will not break-even.
2) Listen to the advice of your publisher. Publishers realize that you put a lot of time and work into your book and your passion overrides anything. They want you to be successful because it makes them successful. Many publishers have hands-on 
experience in the industry, so listen to their expertise even though it may hurt your feelings on what they have to say.
3) Going along with number 2, be open to any criticisms about your book. Many authors approach a publisher thinking that they know what is best for their book and no changes need to be made on it. Take note to what your publisher advises you about your book and understand it is meant to improve the overall product. But, don’t just agree with everything that the publisher asks you to do, compromise on the things you can agree on and stick to your guns when you absolutely can not change something in your book.
4) BE PATIENT! Getting a book in the stores sometimes becomes a long process because of the different steps a book has to go through. But, if you show a high degree of patience and trust in your publisher, I promise the process will be smooth and the end product will hopefully be a money-maker for both parties.
Do you as a publisher or author agree with my thoughts? Anything you think is also important?
[Disclaimer - The above post is strictly my observations and opinions after working with a book publisher. The opinions do not reflect those of Greenleaf Book Group. I suggest speaking with your own publisher about the topics I discussed. Thank you.]
Being a Campus Catalyst & Glass
For the past month now, I have been tweeting about a new product called Glass (a collaborative add-on to your web-browser, still in production but will be released soon). As mentioned in my “About” section, I recently acquired an internship with BorderStylo as a campus catalyst helping to get the name out about Glass. The company has hired 16 other interns from other colleges across the United States; all with the same mission and objective. The challenging part about this internship is that it is a remote internship, because the company is based in Los Angelos, California. But, I see this to 
be more of an opportunity than a challenge. I think this is a great opportunity for me to use the different tools I already use in order to build relationships with people I may likely never meet in real life. For example, I plan to use social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Gchat, and this blog to connect with people using Glass. My goal is to use the different tools to share ideas, problems, and methods with the other catalysts. In addition, I want to use these tools to build a two-way communication channel between those using Glass (our customers) and me (the company representative). The other catalyst and I have already started communicating and throwing around ideas about promoting Glass on our campuses by using Facebook groups, Gmail chat, and a Twitter list. We are not only conversing about our new job but we’re creating friendships along the way. We really couldn’t ignore these channels because from the start we had to use them to locate one another. For example, our first task was to identify the other catalysts around the nation. Here is a great description about Task 1 from one of the catalyst at Tufts University, Jenn Bollenbacher.
The best part about the internship is getting a chance to learn the business benefits of Facebook and Twitter, and not just the leisure side of these social networks.
Now, the company has been a little secretive about the product, but they have been slipping some hints about its functionality and uses. I see nothing wrong with this because the high-level of competition tech companies engage in. But, they have recently released a sneak peak of Glass. I wasn’t able to embed a video from Vimeo, but please click on the link and watch the short video (less than a minute). I would be interested to here your responses about the application and if you think you would ever use it (Please let me know if you know how to embed a video from Vimeo to WordPress.)
I personally am looking forward to using Glass and writing a review about it soon.
.jpg){kind=small}
