“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm” ~Winston Churchill

Welp, the hits just keep on coming…

We had been planning for this for quite awhile now.

Our very first official “launch” campaign where we’d start to get some real-life, paying members!

Quick background – on top of their content marketing expertise and experience – our third co-founder was brought on largely because they’d been for over a year or so, cultivating a fairly sizeable list of folks that were interested in contributing to notable blogs or being a guest on prominent podcasts – essentially exactly the service that our platform provides. These people had opted into receiving a straight-forward excel sheet chock full of contact info for various blogs and podcasters that were known for accepting guest contributors/interview guests.
All three of us were convinced that these type of folks would absolutely flip their lids over something as robust as AwesomeGuests compared to that simple little csv file. As accurate and long as that file is (and the many like it available online); it didn’t necessarily mean that the hosts listed on there were interested in hearing from whomever was randomly pitching their publications/shows. So although a resource like this is definitely a step in the right direction for finding opportunities; it’s not the same as an active matching type of environment.

So obviously, these 1,000+ folks looking to connect with bloggers and podcasters would be blown away with the opportunity to get in on the ground-floor of such a game-changing tool like ours, right? Right?!?!!

Oh man, were we wrong!

So fucking wrong.

We got seven paying members.

Seven. Out of over one thousand.

Yuuuuppp.

Turns out that we seriously misunderstood these people entirely. Now like all of my past business blunders; it’s all rather elementary and obvious after the fact.

Even though yes, all of the folks on this patiently amassed email list were all so very enthusiastic over a world-class tool like ours to greatly aid them in their quest for much better exposure; they were largely an amateur-level group of professionals. That is to say, not really actively dedicated to achieving the growth they stated that they wanted.

How did I arrive at this conclusion? They wouldn’t even pay seven dollars a month to access this sophisticated tool compared to the free list they initially were drawn by.

Wow, not even seven dollars.

Understandably, right now I’m feeling like this launch (and hey, maybe even our entire platform) is he biggest damn waste of time ever.

Despite how this all feels, I can see how these are precisely the kind of lessons that anyone doing this type of schtuff receives in droves along the way. This type of reaction is also why I only put a meager amount of stock in trying to grow truly new and innovative ideas via the “MVP” model since showing interest is rarely the same as actually putting down realy money. Even if you ask folks and they say they’ll put down money – you don’t have a real thing until they actually do. And so who will actually part dollars on something that is barely working (ie. a MVP). I can see how the MVP philosophy might work for some things out there but not for a solution or an experience like we’re promising.

Right now, I’m super raw from getting our asses handed to us like this. I think I can afford to lick my wounds for the next day or so and then I’ll put on my big-boy pants and have to start thinking better and faster to ascertain if there is indeed a real market out there for our robust, world-class platform.

Oh but wait, this week got even better…

The double whammy for me is that since I was feeling pretty good about all of the progress we’d made thus far with our platform and was juiced from all the activity in prepping our launch; I had decided to finally reveal the specifics of AwesomeGuests to a group of fun entrepreneurs and a world-class, bona fide influencer – the inestimable Pat Flynn!

Pat is absolutely one of the forces for good in the world of entrepreneurship. Out of the goodness of his heart, he convenes a monthly meetup here in San Diego where lots of entrepreneurs gather to hear the latest about what he’s learning as well as trouble-shoot each other’s pressing issues – all at no cost!

Well, we had launched our campaign earlier in the week and so this Wednesday, I had the group take a look at the platform as well as try out my initial 30-second elevator pitch-spiel thingy. I stumbled on my words, probably wasn’t very concise of benefits-focused in my introduction of the platform and for the most part, did a pretty good job of helping the group not care about what they were about to take a look at.

But hey, this group is always rather generous in spirit and so everyone took a look. And then they basically all ran into various issues with the website. And even when it did work – most just didn’t understand how this would make their life any better. And in the ways that they understood what it did – they all pretty said they’d have a hard time paying for the service at all.

Just a quick review: our platform saves podcasters/bloggers an incredible amount of time in finding high-quality, unique and compelling guests (1/10th of the make up of the group). And for those that want to grow their reach and influence as thought leaders (pretty much the entire group fits this category), our platform dramatically improves their life and efficacy by matching them with hosts that are actively looking for guests.

So with the above factors in play in terms of who was checking out AwesomeGuests for us that afternoon – it was disheartening to say the least that pretty much everyone was like “meh” to what they just experienced.

This sucks… I love everyone in that group but man, did I not enjoy my time with them at all this week. Shit man, why can’t people just fall in love with this damn thing?!

So for those of you keeping score at home; two freakin’ huge pieces of humble-ass pie for Joon versus no wins.

Damn, this was a rough couple of weeks… I’m sure I’ll stop crying and get back to the grind over the weekend.

But man, this hurt.

A lot.

See you next time true-believers!

I’m in between companies and so is one of my favorite students (the Christine McDannell!). She’s the kind of student every business trainer should have. Also happens to be a true blue serial entreprenuer – on her 4th business now?! WOW

So why does this split?

holy shit.

naac board. learned a ton.

verison, att, chase, sempra, etc.

watched all of them. ALL. even i have not done that! whaaat?!?!?!

too many pitches all the time. “speaker guy” is not useful for them. panels (what, what? easy money). keynote for sponsored conf. never have to shill for them – harder in panel, easy to avoid in keynotes. downside is i bet more than half will be social media of some sort – i’ll try to steer broader into innovation but shit, hate those presentations. half of my paid gigs last two years were social media even thouhg i’m not any platform “guru” “influencer” etc – maybe that’s why they like me a “business owner who actually grew business via social media” instead of “expert” talking about how to use social media. meh.

post mordem.

it’s a grind

having set intro, outrs, segments great idea.

expert minute SEO!

costco – my dream show is coming true! the data supports it (kind of). thousands!

YT is the winner but not 100% b/c of itunes cloak and dagger shit. man, real commerce dependent endeavors must hate this shit.

200 typical so that’s good – not world-famous or anything but getting in frotn of a room with consistently 200 attendees for 30 mnutes is prety awesome.

not a big fan of dslr shoots b/c not long-form. since only one camera (great workhorse that it is!) – had to let it cool sometimes or not get on a roll – rarely filling time but having to cut off. stinks man.

wonder how long listeners would tolerate – longer in audio form vs video? generational tendencies for each medium?

podcasting medium is great and tons of potential; no big interest in blowing up this way but when think of women, asian-americans – there should be a LOT like us right now whilst still new/avante gard. not sure other than costco how i’d get back in.

welp, about mid-way through our first (and only?) season. lots of work. doing multiple episodes on one day definitely requires enthusiasm breaks, power through. wardrobe changes. can tell the middle episodes – i think christine and i are uneven in energy to each one so that’s good?

have about 90 viewers. folks have asked so we’ve broken our silence and mentioned it here and there. no viewer mail!!!

also, infusionsoft (vs my “go to” aweber [LINK]) is such a pain to customize. i get why they have such strong loyalty amongst infopreneurs but man, if you need/want anything specific to you – sucksville, usa man!

and bad news is so many of my episode ideas were closely related (the downside to typical brainstorming endeavors) we’re out of fresh/captivating topics/ideas. i think we’re going to deep dive each other. not good. other ideas might be social platforms, advanced version of most popular previous shows. favorite companies and why (christine and i have pretty different idols – respect each other’s for sure but different taste for sure!)

okay, it’s out there. real show on two itunes channels. our own yt channel. feels like such a big boy thing! oh and forgot to mention that we found the KILLER spot at Hera hub – the exact look i had envisioned in my head and it goes unused during the day (actually covered) so no one knows it’s there – a secret spot even. nice!

i’ve added some very esoteric start-up corner stuff. who knows.

great rapport, christine needs to defer less/interupt/interject but she’s just a very thoughtful person in general and maybe especially to me?

now we’ll wait and see which picks up more audience natively. itunes sucks for this kind of stuff – we’re tracking it in a very round-about/semi-unreliable way on both versions of show there. stupid apple – this is no way to dominate the podcasting indistry (or is it precisely b/c they are the only game in town?).

i’m betting on YT (unreliable itunes stats not withstanding) b/c of the seo whereas someone has to really want to find us on itunes.

your biz rocks. cool rocket ship logo (took forever to decide on whcih rocket ship version).

BUT THE COOLEST THING IS BEING CARTOONIZED!!!! i feel like i’ve made it in life; really, really made it.

the eyes blink!!!

http://yourbizrocks.com/

structure: main point. expert minute (seo). viewer mail (our own composite of typical questions we get/got that week in-between tapings since christine and i interact with like 20-50 entrepeneurs every week.

no marketing, no launch announcement amongst network, etc. chritine would make this thing fly if she decided to give it a go. probelm is not either of our brand’s going forward.

speak on stages and such – who knows where this goes!

itunes and youtube. itunes let’s us have two channels! 52 episodes, here we come!

ok, it’s a “go!”

my favorite student/serial entrepreneur of all time. hook up at hera hub – genius founder and very unique aesthetic/vibe. not super excited about the filming options though as there is dedicated studio/conf room space but feels too stuffy/common like most business folks could pull off. feels like there’s gotta be something better but don’t want to have to hunt forever.

tim’s in, like usual for anything new media/experimental/creative/innovative.

both christine and i general buisnes faq’s – good news is easily have about 35-37 episodes outlined. bad news is what else?

so i’m a little bored. i’ve also started to be fascinated by the whole podcasting phenomenon. the corporate gatekeepers are gone. it’s free to publish on YT and itunes!

i don’t think i’m ready for this to be a f/t thing – i’m no media personality if there ever was one. but i do LOVE to experiment…

so now i need an easy to understand idea, a producer (for video), cool set (like one of those where people walk past window, etc), some fact-finding parameters and most of all a quick on her feet co-host. oh and music. shti, how does music royalties work on YT/itunes? do they even scan for this kind of stuff? would suck if they don’t now, we get HUGE and then we have to pull everything down. shit.

Amidst a lull in my professional career; I decided I wanted to learn as much about the emerging technology and culture of podcasting.

To that end, I gathered an intrepid team and we set out on a 52-episode journey to find out what we’d find out over the course of a year.

It’s not my intention that we’ll continue with the show after this initial year-long experiment but who knows, right?

Also, doesn’t seem to be a lot of Asian-American presence in the podcasting space as of