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A case for Shark Tank

So let me preface this a bit, I am a big fan of Jason Calacanis’ spinoff “This week in …” show called This Week in Startups, and it’s not for the obvious reason of humorous floating appendages (guests often wear black and the backdrop is black giving a floating appendages on screen feel), though I do genuinely enjoy a good floating head, but that’s not it.

The reason I love this show is because as you listen to the ideas that budding entrepreneurs come up with on the episodes, and add to that seeing Jason and the guest take that idea and tweak it just a bit to the point where they (and you) get excited for the entrepreneur, it serves as a personal catalyst for ideas. I often find myself mimicking the exercise Jason takes guests through with my own ideas and thoughts to get it to a point where it’s a bit more marketable or ‘pitch’ ready after watching a few episodes.

This is interesting to me because the creative process isn’t really something you can teach, but it is something you can learn. As you watch the methodology take shape, and the different questions asked you start to develop a sense for ideas, and a sense for identifying opportunity, and when you start to take notice, it’s pretty dang awesome. But in my experience, this only comes after being around creative people, or via the beauty of the interwebs, watching creative people work through the process time and time again. This is why this show is so valuable to me.

Which brings me to my next point, Jason does a shtick on the show called Shark Tank where entrepreneurs call in and pitch him their idea. A great section of the show that’s a parody of sorts of ABC’s show Shark Tank, but before every installment he does two things: first, he relives the painful memory of how he was not picked to be on Shark Tank which ends with a spirited assault on their (the show producers) mental capacity, and second, a comment on how bad the show ended up becoming and how glad he is that it’s canceled. After these are done, he moves into the pitch and we go on. So here’s my thing, I’ve watched every episode of TWiST (33 and counting) as well as every episode of ABC’s Shark Tank and the reason for doing so is because when you hear ideas people have, when you get the luxury of being walked through how they identified an opportunity and built a product or service around it, it rubs off on you a little bit, a priceless side effect.

Well after one season, ABC canned Shark Tank, never to be seen again, a fact that frustrates me just a skosh. Our country needs to be taken back to its roots of innovation and creativity, that’s where the ladder out of this economic mess we’re in resides, and the fact that we had a show around entrepreneurs and startups during prime time was a win for all things creative. Granted the entrepreneurs-in-residence that sat behind the huge desk on the show were a little ridiculous (Jason makes good points around their treatment of entrepreneurs), and to his point with the addition of Jason to the show, we would have at least been more entertained, the fact that America wasn’t interested enough in the creative process to support a single show through more than one season saddens me.

So to Jason, I say first, thanks for doing your show, I used to not see myself as an idea guy, I was the manual labor, but over the course of about a year of concerted effort in identifying opportunity and trying my ideas against the process I’ve picked up from different shows like this, now I’m totally the idea guy. But secondly, Jason quit disparaging efforts, no matter how meager they are, to invigorate creativity and ingenuity in America, cause right now any effort in that respect is much needed.

So honestly, I’ll miss the prime time venue, but if you’re interested in entrepreneurship I highly recommend you check out Mixergy, both great assets for ideas and, like I said, learning the process.

Christmas experiment…. books for kids?

So I tried something new this year for Christmas.  I have 20 some nieces and nephews and am the sole remaining single uncle, so there’s a bit of pressure on me to be the cool uncle each year.  Traditionally, I’ve given nothing to these wee little kids during the holidays because a gift to one would require a gift to all, and I’m not made of money you know.  But as I’ve been around the family a bit more the last year and a half, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend…. Nintendo DS.

As kids turn 7 it’s some kind of a rite of passage now in school, kids get a DS.  Now we had gameboys back in my day, but it wasn’t anywhere near this bad.  I swear these kids can sit with the head crooked at a certain angle staring at a 3×3 screen for days, and when they finish their game they are no better or more interesting than 3 days ago when they started.  So as their uncle I decided I had to at least try something.

I invited the older kids on a date with the uncle, borrowed the sisters suburban and piled in 7 kids over the age of 8 with the oldest being 13.  We stopped into Burger King for a dollar menu dinner and then went down to the KC plaza and we walked around to see the lights.  That was pretty fun, but then we got into the Barnes & Noble on the plaza.  This was actually a really fun experience, being 3 floors high, we worked through floor by floor with the kids seeing the most books in one place they’ve ever seen (excluding a library, well maybe not, this is Missouri)  The rule, they had  a cap of $20 to spend on their Christmas present and it had to be a book.  I could have given them a gift card, but I wanted to ensure it got spent on a book, and not a game or a poster or whatever else they could find, I wanted them to read a real live book.

So?  It mostly worked.  The younger kids (8-10) ended up missing the point a bit.  They saw it as a value game, ie what’s the most expensive book so I can get to get the most out of my $20 rather than what book do I want to read.  Also, puppies on the cover were like kryptonite to the girls, and removed them from being able to follow my perfect logic of why they should get a nancy drew book.  But the older kids (11-13) hit the nail on the head, they got excited about the books, the genres, Sam was wowed at the coffee table books about WWII, Annie found a collection of Jane Austen books in a collectors edition and ooogled at it, and on it went.  As an uncle, I was in heaven watching the older kids pick out their books, I felt like santa.

By the end of the night, I was out maybe $150 bucks, but I got all the kids a present, and a present that would actually excite them about something worthwhile.  The side benefit is with some of them I now have more to talk about as they read through some of my favorite books from my childhood.  So the verdict is I’ve found a new tradition.  They loved it, it was cheap, and anything to break that Nintendo DS stare is money well spent in my book.  Thanks B&N, I’ll see you next year

The payout - kids reading after presents

Cruise went well :-)

Had an epic adventure, my good friend Geoff here wrote a masterful report, I encourage you all to read it and give him comment love.  I hope you laugh a proportionate amount to how much we laughed through the experience.

Link – http://theshippinglane.blogspot.com/2009/12/cubans-on-hot-tin-roof.html

Ode to Canada and the good things thereafter

Alright, so let’s get started. June ’08 I took a good job with a great team over @ Symantec corp obtaining one of my favorite titles thus far – “Senior Principle Partner Manager” it was glorious and grand. Really it was a tough job, but I made some great friends while I was there and it was in Orange County, which was interesting as well (I’ve posted some about that). Well they moved me to Boston so I could take over some eastern responsibility and after a big drawn out move on my part, I settled in, spent 4 days total in Boston before I got the axe from them. It was a pretty sudden move, but with 3 prior RIFs I wasn’t completely shocked, just mostly.

I took some time and went a traveling a bit, then came back, packed my car up, and moved up to Toronto with my ole boy Dave Mifsud. An old mission buddy of mine and we decided to start up the businesses we’d been meaning to do for a while.

Blood shot eyes and cheesy grins

We did, we started EnviropureSolutions.ca with friends Ken and Robin, which is a great little venture that cleans and deodorizes using ozone. It’s an easy product to get behind because it takes care of mold, mildew, etc, and it’s quick and painless. Simultaneously we did Steadfastwealth.ca around Dave’s end goal of doing finance full time. We also started some database projects that are still in the works, and then lastly we did a quilt shop.

What’s that you ask? A quilt shop? Why of course, and when you look at me the first thought you have is “this man’s a quilter” I mean at 6’7” and an IT extraordinaire what else would I be? Actually, no, I’m no quilter, but this has been a fun project to do and I’ll tell you why real quick.

I started it for a good reason.

Dad works for the newpaper industry and the writing can’t get much bigger on the wall, they’re running scared and his job ain’t safe. So me and my sister went in on a building on the main drag of our small town of Hamilton, MO. Which reminds me of another reason I’m doing what I am; this town is dying slowly, and it’s obvious as you walk the streets, people are leaving in a vintage French flee-the-farm-for-the-city fashion, so that’s the other benefit – our community is excited to see something created…. and have that something working out. It’s encouraging to see that not everything is failing.

The shop a year ago

That was one year ago we bought the building and opened up this little shop.

MSQC 1 year later

So while in Canada, Dave and I decided to help juice up the Missouri Star Quilt Co and built the site Missouri Quilt Co using some work from a Ukrainian (those language skills are so handy sometimes) developer we sourced with, then the rest was me and Dave, 20 hour days, and 24” monitors.

This is my favorite because it’s an industry I knew nothing about, not a clue, and a demographic I was not necessarily in tune with, and in the course of about 7 months we have really been able to close that gap. Our first iteration of the site was a flop, no sales after 1000 page views, so we did a revisiting of the design, and it got better, then again, and again, and again. As we work with my sisters and mom on understanding the culture/demographic/preferences of the industry, we continue to customize, SEO, innovate, and implement, and the best part is the results are instant. We can see what the effect is if we change a header in a matter of hours. Also we’ve found that a lot of the tribal knowledge from other industries has an application in every niche, it’s just a matter of learning to apply it. So now the shop employs about 7 women in our community and our post office ladies, Christy and Betty, are in love with us (more-so when we started printing our own postage)

See the world… via cargo ship?

Cargo ship travel takes you around the world

I want to do this…. and bad.  The depressing thing is I’m crazy enough I might just try it.  Anyone want to spend 45 days in a dirty room eating stew out of a can and stopping at every port up the yellow river, or hitting every island in the south pacific?  Let me know if you want in, I’ll work you into the itinerary.

Let’s catch up

I was talking to a buddy of mine, Josh, from Hawaii the other day and we were catching up just over the course of the last two years and when I got done he asked “are you blogging this anywhere, I’d love to read along with the story” and honestly, I’ve been so busy with life, I haven’t bothered. So for my one dozen fans out there, I’ve decided I’m going to catch you all up on life in a quick series of posts that will pick up roughly 2 years ago as I finished school and detail my journey thus far.

Be prepared however, as I begin to blog again, I may catch the bug…. I hope I do anyway…. and I’d love to hear how things are going with you, so either comment here or drop me a line – billnye [at] thenyelabs.com

Let's get caught up