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May 18, 2007

It’s early in the morning. I was in bed for over an hour when I finally gave up trying to get to sleep. My mind is overflowing with ideas for Follow My Band tonight. I’ve been getting visions of what it will look like and how parts of the website could work. It’s simply invigorating!!

The past few months I have learned a lot about “entrepreneur-land” AND a lot about myself. I’m coming to realize that I am an “ideas guy”. There are some entrepreneurs that are more inclined towards sales, others at managing the organization and people, and then there are those whose minds are constantly inventing…coming up with ideas about the company’s products/services and how to improve them.
That last type is definitely me :-)

Because of this realization, I have started the search for some experienced tech entrepreneurs that can help bring FollowMyBand.com into its full potential. This search may well lead me to Austin or San Francisco. I will keep posting updates here as I am able. The summer should bring some very exciting developments!! Stay tuned.

April 15, 2007 – Driving Home to Dallas

The Burnlounge event is over and I’m back in my hotel room, about to get some rest before Jimmy and I drive back to tomorrow. I think we both made the best of the opportunities before us.  We met with music artists and with executives from several music companies.

I am starting to understand the practicality and necessity of an effective elevator pitch. When I first meet someone, I’m often limited to a number of seconds to get their attention and persuade them to talk with me further. Of course, depending on who it is I am meeting, the elevator pitch should and will vary. If I meet an artist, I may talk to them about how we promote artists’ concerts for free. Whereas if I meet a fan, I tell them how they’ll be able to keep up with their favorite bands on FollowMyBand.com. It takes time and preparation, but it’s crucial that an entrepreneur be able to effectively articulate their idea and hook people in.

A version of my elevator pitch came in handy when I met Jeff Hoffman this weekend (a founder of Priceline.com).  I was quickly able to secure his attention and he agreed to look over our business plan. Mr. Hoffman brightened up when I told him the name of our website was “Follow My Band” and he commented that he thought the name was great.

Another executive particularly lit up when I explained that the website will be “community-moderated”, that fans can add concerts themselves and we use a user rating system to maintain the integrity of the data. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that none of our competitors are truly community-moderated! The closest ones are still “editorial” and review all information before it goes out. But by doing it “Wikipedia-style” and opening up the database for users to change information on-the-fly, we create the possibility for a much more complete database than would ever be possible otherwise. That is the beauty of it.

I’m reading a book called “The Power of Unfair Advantage”. I wish I’d picked it up weeks ago! It talks about being able to understand and pitch your business in terms of the “unfair advantage” you can build. It makes a lot of sense, and puts a lot of emphasis on setting up your business so that it’s hard for competitors to copy what you do.

My experiences here this weekend reaffirm my belief that I’m heading in the right direction. The more I learn to communicate the story, the selling points, and the more I get around the right kind of people….well, it’s only a matter of time now before we get funded and really get rolling!

Jimmy and I hung out with some artists this weekend, such as Kaleo Futurista (an artist for whom Jimmy books shows).  Kaleo is a full on character! Hailing from California with his spiky hair, people warm up to him instantly with his super-friendly and chill persona.

April  12, 2007 – Driving To Atlanta

I’m in the car right now, heading to Atlanta.  Jimmy Swan (FMB’s VP Marketing) and I are going to network at the BurnLounge 2.0 release conference. It’s been a busy week!

This morning I had breakfast with Sam Bloom, who sits on our advisory board and was VP of Business Development for Blockbuster. Sam is well acquainted with online advertising and is in charge of buying advertising for companies such as Southwest Airlines and Blockbuster. He had a lot of good things to say and when I brought up some of the questions we were asked at the Rice Competition, he had succinct responses and told me he could provide data for us to use in the next competition. I feel confident that our upcoming experience at UT Tyler will be phenomenal. We’ll be better prepared and better enthused. I know I will be for sure!

I got a card from Grammy (my grandmother) today. She was telling me how proud the family was of me and how she was showing our newspaper article to the family on Easter. It’s been really nice having the encouragement of friends and family in this venture.

April 6, 2007 – The Launch of FollowMyBand.com

Saturday, March 31^st, marked the launch of FollowMyBand.com and our Tour Syndicator!

[ To clear up some confusion, the Follow My Band website is presently intended for music artists and their representatives. We plan to  open up the site for music fans in fall of 2007! ]

Our programmers underestimated how much more work was to be done and so, the night before our launch, the team was up working late into the morning! We’ll be working out bugs in the site over the next few weeks, and making it more user-friendly.

Tour Syndicator. Right now music artists and their promoters can input a tour schedule into our website. Then each tour date is sent to respective media publishers. For example, if Big Red Rooster (who I’m going to see tonight at Curtain Club) puts their concert info into the site, the information would be sent out to the Dallas Morning News (GuideLive), Dallas Observer, PegasusNews (TexasGigs.com), Eventful.com, Upcoming.org, and a few others.

We’ll be adding a widget feature soon for artists to use on their MySpace page and/or websites. Using this, artists will only have to enter their tour information once, and it is automatically updated everywhere!

Besides overseeing our launch, my other responsibility is raising capital for our company! I’ve been seeking advice of many individuals from the SMU and Dallas community. I’ve learned to be aware of many factors when raising money for a company, such as SEC regulations that can apply, and the different levels of investors.

March 26, 2007 – 2007 Rice Business Plan Competition

Rick Collins, Jennifer McNabb, and I just returned from Houston, TX where we spent the last few days at the 2007 Rice Business Plan Competition. The experience was invaluable not to mention all the people we met! Throughout the three day competition we presented the Follow My Band business plan three times. After the first two presentations, the judges gave us feedback and we were able to implement the feedback in our subsequent presentation. By the time we gave our last presentation, we'd improved SIGNIFICANTLY from our first presentation!

Many people talked to us and told us how they really liked the idea and believed it had huge potential. The music fans, in particular, expressed eagerness to see our website live and start using it.

I feel privileged to have participated. The other 35 teams were from all over, as far as China, India, UK, and Canada. The US teams were from Harvard, MIT, John Hopkins, Dartmouth, and a host of other reputable schools. Although there were student socials each night, we opted to work on improving our presentation each night. The last night we did go out with the other teams, walked the streets, and hung out at a bar. It was great interacting with other smart and motivated students from different backgrounds. It reminded me of Phi Theta Kappa, the honor society I used to be involved with at community college.

Now that I'm back, I will be following up with those I met in Houston, and Jennifer is working on building up a contact list for the bands that were in Austin for SXSW. We'll be contacting these artists to remind them about the launch of FollowMyBand.com and invite them to make use of it.

March 19, 2007