Bootstrapper.com - Confessions of Serial Entrepreneurs

 Hi everyone:

 November is quickly approaching, with the promise of Thanksgiving and the winter holidays (and vacation!) not too far away.  For many of us, the holiday season reminds us of great memories of family, friends and yes, great food. 

But for the nearly 1.3 million New Yorkers who rely on emergency food services to feed their family, it’s this time of year that can be the most difficult, offering them a stark reminder about what they are missing.  

 I am writing because I’m hopeful you’ll join me in making a difference in the lives of those New Yorkers most in need.  I’ve decided to join Robin Hood (www.robinhood.org), New York City’s largest anti-poverty organization, as a Co-Chair member of their Food for Good initiative, where they are partnering with Fresh Direct to deliver holiday meals to 120,000 New Yorkers. For just $50, you can purchase a delicious holiday meal, complete with turkey and all the fixings, that will feed a family of eight.  100% of every donation will go to helping to feed people.

I want to invite you to join me on Thursday, November 12th at Robin Hood’s Food for Good event at M2 in New York City from 8pm-11pm.  

Robin Hood is known for their events, and this evening will be no different.  It’ll be an amzing crowd with celebrities and people from every conceivable industry, great music, lots of drinks, and an inspiring message.  Price of admission:  The purchase of at least one $50 holiday meal through Fresh Direct, with a VIP ticket available to anyone purchasing at least 10 holiday meal boxes ($500 donation).   

Even if you can’t attend, I hope you’ll still consider helping those less fortunate this holiday season by going directly to Fresh Direct and donating at least $50

Just visit foodforgood.eventbrite.com to purchase your meal and donate to the cause.

Just be sure to let me know when you donate, so I can keep track of who’s attending the event and ensure that you are on the list, and so I can see how many New Yorkers my friends can help feed this holiday season.

Thank you in advance for considering this request.  I know for many of us, it’s been a challenging year.  Yet I think we all also recognize that we are fortunate compared to so many others who are having trouble simply putting food on the table.  Working together, we can brighten the lives of many people in need during this time of year, and give them some great holiday memories of their own.

I hope to see you on November 12th!

Warm regards,

Richie 

p.s.  And help us spread the word about Robin Hood.  Follow Robin Hood on Facebook at www.facebook.com/robinhood and on Twitter at @RobinHoodNYC (http://twitter.com/robinhoodnyc)

I don’t remember where that line was from but I thought it was hilarious. I was out and someone made the comment “are you ordering from the fucking side of the menu” to which I replied “Sure, that sounds fun”. I don’t remember the context but it was hilarious at the time. And no we weren’t in a strip club.

Hey Everyone,

As some of you might already know, I have been brought in at the last minute as an Associate Producer of a film titled,  How To Seduce Difficult Women, an hilarious comedy in which a smooth, yet flawed, Frenchman writes a best-selling book and teaches a group of loveable losers the secrets of woo’ing women. Definitely a must see film as it is as romantic as it is funny. The film comes out on October 30^th  at The Village East Cinema in New York, where it will be featured there for two weeks before its  nationwide release.

I am helping to promote this film with my dear friend, the amazing Ms. Evelyn YK Lee of www.vinegroup.com. She was invited by the movie’s Producer Mr. Richard Temtchine (at the last minute), to advise on marketing & distribution strategies (because of her seasoned international business experience). Evelyn is a part time New Yorker and global trotting entrepreneur.  I was brought in to work as part of her team. Evelyn said “yes” to Richard because of the fun nature of this movie. We’re helping Richard to spread the word about the film and bring awareness among our friends and members of the media industry. 

Richie

Everyone my good friend Valerie Gurka is on tv today, it’s an awesome full length web tv show about being fearless and going for what you want! http://www.fearlessbusiness.tv

Check it out!

R

Focus magazine covers 25 things they learned about business from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  Must read, if you’re as much a fan of the depraved show as I am.

Two other lessons they could draw from the sleeper success of the show:

• “If you build it, they will come.”  The show languished in the ratings for a while, but kept putting out great content. Eventually, Hulu came along and the show’s popularity skyrocketed.
• As the quotable H.L. Mencken phrased it, “No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.”  The show proudly plumbs new lows of immorality, and it’s always fun to watch.

Nowadays, I always hear the same clumsy phrase on loop:

EVERYBODY’S ___________!

In reality, here’s an alphabetical list of what “everybody’s” doing:

• semi-actively setting personal goals
• semi-passively seeking entertainment
• sleeping or worrying
• thinking about family
• thinking about food
• thinking about friends
• worrying or sleeping

Happy Discoverer’s Day, y’all!

I just saw an interview with Gary V -

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/business/2009/05/15/your.money.vaynerchuk.intv.cnn?iref=videosearch

Gary does such an amazing job that it actually feels like a rehearsed TV infomercial - yet this is CNN!

Watch it and Crush It!!!

Richie

So today I had two great and interesting first meetings. Both with very successful well known people in the community and it was fascinating seeing the different approaches. They came highly regarded and were introductions from people I trust. Both were friendly, outgoing and open - rare if you know the NYC venture community (probably also explains why they are both so successful) yet had different approaches.

My first meeting was with someone with whom i hit it off immediately and in a natural free flowing way that rarely happens. The time just flew (despite it being a normally painful 9AM Monday morning meeting) and it was the first time I can recall that i met with a professional investor where i didn’t feel someone trying to peer into my sole. It was a unique experience and fun. He came off like an ego free corp dev guy looking for the next big thing in an open minded way.

The second meeting was with another interesting fellow. He was in a soccer shirt and looked like he was on vacation. Yet, the first thing he asked caught me off guard and was a very direct question asked to put me on the spot. I could feel him peering into my soul. (He was a former extremely successful banker and i could see why) yet despite the direct line of approach, he had a friendly congenial joking manner, which he artfully used to glean information and assert authority. It was also quite amusing watching him act as a puppet master and attempting to pull my strings (Note: i love when people do, i learn a lot and have to think less). The playful puppet master.

Now, i left both meetings with a feeling of a morning well spent and eager to work with and getting to know both of them.

Was an interesting juxtaposition.

The last post on Waitresses leads into a larger discussion on how to pickup women (or men) while they are at work. It requires a slightly different approach then normal but it brings out something very important to know for any business or personal situation.

The most important thing you can do if you ever want to get to know someone is to ask them their name as quickly as possible. People have a very short window when they are open to meeting new people and it usually is within a few seconds of initial eye contact that people make their initial judgments, which are then challenging to change. The goal is to create a personal bond as soon as possible.

If you are on airplane and you say hi to someone, ask them their name, they will likely ask you your name back and thus you gave a created a personal bond. If you do not create a personal bond, it will be awkward and psychologically taxing to re-engage in conversation later. The mind only really gives you once chance to connect with someone so when you do, make it memorable and keep the dialogue open by making it personal

This post is dedicated to something I’ve started to consider a bit of a sport: picking up waitresses. So if you’ve ever gone to a restaurant then at some point in your life, you have probably seen an attractive waitress. Now waitresses are familiar with being hit on (I’m sure we’ve all seen at least one old movie shot when some old man ogles a waitresses behind) and are generally overworked, stressed and cynical, while at work. The worst combination if your goal is to ask one out. They don’t want to meet you!

The best thing you can do is make a light joke and as she is taking your order, ask her what her name is and then next time she comes by repeat her name in some way and invite her to join you at the table. She will say no most likely. Because most waitresses will get fired for sitting while on shift but you better believed if you do it calmly that she will be flattered. All you have to do is friendly chit chat with her while she’s serving you and when the meal ends say something like ‘I’m sure you get this all the time but you’re interesting and I’d like to take you out for a cup of coffee – when you’re not on shift – what’s your number?” If she counters with “I have a bf” you can re-counter with “I didn’t ask you out for a date or say I want to sleep with you, I just asked you to join me for a friendly cup of coffee so we can continue the conversation.” In order for this to work you had to have been very careful in how you made the initial ask. If done carefully, then she won’t know how to respond and will likely give you her number. (there is a 50/50 chance the BF line was a lie just to get a customer off her back). If she really has a BF, I don’t advocate cheating.

Other interesting responses could be: “Maybe” in which the best re-counter is “Listen, I think you’re interesting and would like to see you but I don’t do maybe’s, a no is fine but a yes is better, so what’s your number?” This often has a high success rate since girls LOVE to be called on their bullshit. Also, note I didn’t actually ask if I could have her number, I just asked for it. It’s also advised to ‘ask’ for a girls number as if it’s a commend rather than a question. A curt ‘what’s your number’ will have a much higher success rate then ‘can I please have your number?’ Yes, contrary to feminine myth and yes some of my dear readers will scream at me for this one but almost all girls secretly love to be commanded around at least a little, like a ‘manly man’ would.

I did a post for Robert on his site…cool stuff

http://myteachermyhero.com/story/133/us/ny/new-york/richard-hecker-dr-dr-dorhoffer/

A guest post from a friend …

Bootstrapping for marketing: Forbes, Dell and MIT

There are dozens of ways you can spend tens of thousands, and even a whole lot more money when when it comes to getting your name out there in the hunt for money, or getting your company exposure or getting your product to the customer’s eyes and ears.

While a marketing budget is eventually needed, there are many ways to get your name on the center stage, and one sure fire method is to participate in as many competitions as possible, and perhaps even win a few. The first benefit is that competitions in general do not cost money to participate –but of course will require a ton of your time. The second benefit is that you get a tremendous amount of free critiquing.

For my product www.MyOnlineToolbox.com, I literally last week just won a Forbes 2009 America’s Most Promising Companies Award last week. In 2008 I won a Dell Top 10 Innovator Award just after my product was launched. And before that I won a regional MIT Best Business Idea Presentation Award. There were others that I entered that I did not win, but who cares since look at what I did win.

There were countless hours needed to update the Executive Summary, PowerPoint, Business Plan, etc., but it forced me to stay on my toes and also forced me to update all my documents when an investor wasn’t necessarily requesting them.

Another benefit is that Search Engine rankings increase when more companies link to your site, which they are bound to do when promoting finalists and winners.

I am now seeking another round of financing from angel investors or early stage VCs and I am sure some will be impressed about how much I have been able to achieve in marketing exposure, especially when I have spent less money than what you would spend on sending your daughters to a supermarket to sell girlscout cookies. It will not be hard to imagine how far I can explode my company’s presence if I could get past the bootstrapping and had some money to support a larger scale effort.

So I’d like to share an email about a tenacious entrepreneur who wanted to meet me and speak at a conference I produced a few months back … here’s the email, enjoy!

PS. Kudos to Ryan from Hubpages.com

Hey Rich, my name is Ryan Hupfer and I have somehow made my way to you after quite an interesting line of introductions. Some people would say that I made it to you through hard work and persistence, but others would claim that I am just some sort of new age, digital stalker. Me personally, I would prefer the former. Not sure if you’re super interested in seeing how I ended up in your Inbox, but I always think that it’s interesting to get to know a little back story in interesting situations like this.

This is why I love the Internet:
Now that I’ve been doing my thing here at HubPages.com for a few months I was wanting to check out the events that I could get us involved in. The first thing that I did was Google ‘user generated content conferences’. Hmmm, I wonder what came up?
At that point I checked out the site for UGCX and first noticed that it was coming up in like a month, which is great for not missing it, but bad for trying to get in involved. The time was ticking…tick…tock.
I quickly scoured the site for panels that I could get HubPages involved with and after a couple of minutes, there it was…right before my eyes. The last panel on the last day: How to Make a Buck? Monetizing Social Media & GC. Yep, that’s the one for me. I can honestly say that HubPages monetizes better than pretty much any social network out there. In fact, we’re basically built around our users creating monetizeable content. Now, how can I try to get on this panel? Hmmm…
I then notice that Chris Chinn from Watercooler is on that panel and I’ve met Kevin Chou, the CEO of Watercooler several times and I’m good buddies with one of their sales guys, Kevin Li. Maybe Kevin can get me in touch with Chris to see if I can sneak in on the panel with him? I guess that it never hurts to ask, right?
Kevin Li ends up telling me that a PR superstar names Maria from Shift Communications is actually who I need to talk to, as they’re the ones who set up the speaking engagements for Watercooler. He copied me on an email to her because that’s what friends do, ya know? But, just when I thought that I was getting close, I’m still just as far away. But, I continued on.
I emailed Maria and told her what was trying to do and who I was trying to get in touch with regarding the panel at UGCX and she replied that she wasn’t the one to talk to either, but her wonderful friend and co-worker Kayla Kooyman had actually been in touch with the panel moderator, who just also happens to be putting the speakers together. She gave me his info - I think that you know where this all goes from here.
I am told that the moderator’s name is Richie Hecker (I think you may know him) and he has a blog that is telling me that I need to be more direct in 2009. Maybe I should be?
I email Richie as a way to beg and plead to see if there is any possible way for me to get included on the panel that he’s moderating at UGCX. I hope that he says yes - HubPages would be an amazing addition.
Rich says that there actually is a spot open and that he would love to have me on the panel representing HubPages…and we all live happily ever after.
OK, so I know that on #8 I actually jumped a little ahead of myself and #9 is just my preferred outcome, but you get the picture. I’m contacting you to see if there is any possible way to get a spot on your upcoming panel at UGCX and to let you know that the addition of HubPages would be something that everyone would be interested in hearing about. We’re a profitable social network that is built on a foundation of highly monetizeable, SEO-friendly user generated content and we’re only growing bigger and bigger. We cracked the top 200 US sites over the holidays and we’ll be top 100 in just a few months from now if we keep up with our current rate of growth. Oh, and as a bootstrapper you’ll love this - we do it all with only 5 people.

Anyways, the is definitely enough for one email, but please take a look over what all I’ve blabbered on about and please get back to me as soon as you can with your thoughts.

Thanks for your time, Rich, and I’ll be talking to you soon -

–
[Ryan Hupfer]
http://HubPages.com
Communicator of Awesomeness!
http://blog.HubPages.com << Duh, of course I blog.

Inc magazine published their list of the fifteen best industries in which to start a business.  The first on their list was candy.

It got me realizing how our love of a quick sugar fix has actually produced a vast marketplace for many stable and long-lived brands.  Somehow, candy brands don’t die.  Necco started in 1847.  The kindly old Werthers grandpa has only been around for a decade, but the company itself dates from 1903.  Hershey’s was founded around the turn-of-the century, and its stock has paid a regular dividend for the past two decades.  I don’t know anybody who enjoys old-timey candies like Circus Peanuts, Wax Lips, Bit-O-Honey, Oh Henry, or the great taste of Charleston Chew, and yet a market clearly still exists for these 80-100 year old candies.

So if you’re one of those entrepreneurial types focused on sustainability and the long term, I second the call to create a new candy recipe.  Caramel wasabi cakes, anyone?

Great news! My friends at Naked Pizza just received a funding infusion from the Kraft family.

“NAKEDpizza has attracted billionaires like Mark Cuban and The Kraft Group and investment interest from around the world - from nutrition experts,medical professionals, film studio executives, NFL and NBA team owners, elite athletes, and major QSR operators - because it transcends issues such as a unsustainable industrial food supply, healthcare reform, health, etc. but most fundamentally, the nature and responsibility of business itself. People don’t simple contact us to inquire about franchises, high-net worth, successful people share their personal life journey, social concerns and ambitions with us.

It’s just a healthy pizza AND it’s a business idea that gets at the fundamental consciousness and sustainability of capitalism at this time of great upheaval and transition.”
- Robbie Vitrano