saint-rebel

SXSWi08 : Wired.com coverage of panel: “Bankrupt your startup” w/ a Live Unicorn!

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Seriously. There was a Unicorn speaking at SXSW today.

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The dopest T-shity VC wear will never sell

Join myself, Sean Tierney and Andrew Hyde for a complete Train wreck of a panel at SXSW.

PS: grab some biz cards and pimp them for prizes

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Ladies and Gentlemen, SXSW is coming up… you need to go. I hereby present my top 5 reasons why you (My reasons are different) need to go to SXSW.

1. You will look back when you are old and think back to how cool you once were.

2. There is 95% your company will pay for it.

3. Your liver looked at you cross eyed yesterday and needs to be reminded who owns the place.

4. Jeffery Zeldman may gaze upon you… and you will feel like a complete dork for being excited about that, but later realize you are a better designer than him. (I mean Zeldman no dis respect.. see irony)

5. You will bear witness first hand to the antics of some of PHX’s best and brightest Web talent.. Heck maybe be Air Shaler will shake your hand.

Bonus!
6. Because you (what were you thinking?) graduated college in 4 years and thought Spring Break was “such a waste of time”.

Super Bonus!
7. Integrum Technologies is roadtrippin not 1, but 2 full size RV’s to Austin TX… if you cannot respect that level of dedication and go yourself… then… seriously you guys, seriously..wtf?

Triple Word Score BONUS!
8. You may find those three other people that actually says the letters “L O L” when laughing at some stupid Cat photo. You are a fucking dork.

Firebreather Double Dog Bonus!
9. Sunny Thaper will without fail make you feel bad about yourself at least once, but does so in such a manner that you laugh with him and think he is really your friend, until he follows it up with another burn so ruthless, yet subtle, it hits you on the plane ride back and you freak out and your try to storm the cockpit and are brutally beaten unconscious by the entire first 6 rows.

(okay #9 was bit of an exaggeration…)

Wait.. There’s more!
10. What else are you going to do?

Look forward to seeing everyone there.. Could this be the best sxsw ever???

Be sure not 2 miss these 2 uber exciting panels: Bankrupt your Startup in 5 easy steps presented by yours truly, and A Developer’s Cookbook to Leveraging Virtualization by the guys at Jumpbox.com

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Okay kids, it is time to grow up and understand that your problems are not special. Your perceived strife, injustice, and melodrama do not define you.. and here is the kicker: nobody fucking cares about your whiny bullshit. Sounds harsh eh. Yet I can guarantee it is 100% truth.

Your problems are not special. Please stop acting like they are.

I have been exposed to people in my career, and life, some even within my family that have a “condition”, or current predicament, or health problem, or love crisis, or shitty job, or fill in the _______. Regardless of what “it” is, for them it is a means to define themselves, or said another way, something that defines them. Guess what? Everyone has problems, everyone has a bad day, everyone feels unappreciated, everyone feels however you are feeling, and everyone has felt a whole lot worse. There are people in the world (Africa, Iraq, Alabama) that have “it” a whole lot worse than your pansy ass and manage to make a productive contribution to the global medium.

Your problems do not define you. Your clinical diagnosis does not define you, it does not make you special.Your heartache does not make you unique, your inability to drag your slackin ass out of bed in the morning does not in any way shape or form make you special or immune from the expectations the world and society have placed on you. The sooner you learn this the better of you will be.

Truths:

1. Your problems are not special
2. You are not special for having these problems
3. And nobody cares about your problems.. likely because they are wrapped up in their own delusion that you care about their problems.
4. The world does not reward mediocrity

I do not give a shit about your problems. And the world is reinforcing my belief everyday that it does not give a damn about mine. Sometimes I forget, and hold my problems up to the world as an excuse for my own inaction… “I didn’t do this because of that” or, “if you only knew what it was like”… do you care? Does the bank care? Do my employees care? nope. Then why should I? I thank God everyday (that I remember) that my problems are not special. Realizing and embracing that FACT that my problems are not special, that everyone has problems, and that my problems are really challenges and an opportunity for me to stretch and grow is the best outcome for everyone, especially me.

When faced with a challenge I  ask the “How” and “What” questions instead of the “Why’s”

• How can I get out of this?
• How can I feel better?
• What can I do right now to improve this situation?
• What can I learn from this?

Next time you have a case of the “Monday’s”: Please I beg of you: Slam your head into the wall as hard you can, as many times it takes until you understand that you are a being freakin’ pussy. Monday is an opportunity to make this week better than the last. Next time your girl/boy friend leaves you: realize it is a true gift to find someone who will appreciate you for your whiny moronic self. I dont mean to sound so heartless, but I have zero sympathy (feel what you are feeling and agree with your fucked mindset) for you and your problems. I can empathize (put myself in your shoes and get an idea of the challenge you face) with your situation, but if you are looking for pity, or a feeling of self importance because you are going through somthing… just leave. Do not hold up your problem to me as an excuse for your lameness. Your problems are the world telling you it is time for you to grow past your current position.

The universe is not handing you a dead end, the universe is handing you an opportunity to step up and set an example of strength and faith. Every single set back, dead end, pink slip, and health challenge is a time for you to look inside yourself and find the power that was granted to you at conception.The truth as I know it.

Every problem is a God given opportunity to grow beyond yourself.

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Kid is pretty awesome.. extreme wheelchairing.

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What is a sleeper? I think it is most commonly associated with cars. At least that is how I know of it. Imagine pulling up at a red light in your fancy sports car next to an unassuming car that looks like it took one too many trips to the local school PTA meetings, and when the light turns; the car leaves you in a cloud of blue smoke and screeching tires.

The same concept can be applied to a new web startup.. one that slowly does its thing under the radar.

Our startup BestPartyEver.com is sort of like that. We are bootstrapped up to this point and have leveraged our other talents to slowly build our presence. We are opening a seed round to procure that first little bit of outside capital that can help us move things along a bit faster, and in doing so I really started to look at the strategy of some of our neighbors in the space are using to launch their own product/service.

Here is the most fascinating takeaway. If you look at their media “buzz”: all the nifty mentions on the important tech blogs, the articles in the webzines, even the mentions on TV, etc.. They do not have much more of a presence than we do.

Looking at alexa.com and compete.com and comparing our 2 sites, I find that yes they have a slight advantage on us in traffic, reach, and a few other metrics, but here is the difference: we have done it without spending more than $500, vs. they are clearly dropping hard $ on getting the word out.

I think their play is more about getting on the radar of the investment crowd, then building their business. Which makes sense cause they just pulled down some cash.

Maybe it is 2 ways to the same end.

I am also likely consoling myself right now, knowing that without spending any real money, on a razor thin budget, we have built a platform/system that can hang with the “cool kids with money”

And here we are now looking for money ourselves. Yet with an injection of cash, I still think I will play the role of the sleeper. Let the other guy spend money saying how good his service is, I will spend the money on making my service better., and so far it seems to be working. All stats are trending positive, more first time traffic, more repeat traffic, more pageviews, more time on site; week after week after week, and still my only cost is servers and labor.

Popularity: 33% [?]