Friday, October 5 by David Askaripour in We're Talkin' | 7 Comments
Describe Shoeboxed in one sentence
Shoeboxed.com is an online service that allows people to easily and securely manage their e-mail and paper receipts, helping them take a big step towards achieving financial organization and consumer confidence.
How did you guys get started?
Taylor Mingos, our founder, started actively working on the project about 9 months ago. Most of the team members are current and former students of Duke University, and Shoeboxed was really born out of a series of dorm-room conversations about Web 2.0 business ideas. We worked on campus in the spring before moving to Berlin, Germany this summer to develop the project full-time. With all of us living and working out of one apartment, we were able to get a lot done, and we’ve been blown away by the success we have had as such a young start-up. Right now, we have an office in Durham, NC, near Duke’s campus. We still have lots of students working with us, but there are a healthy handful of full time (read: all the time) Shoeboxers that are making sure everything goes to plan.
How has the original idea evolved and grown?
With the idea of organizing digital receipts from the outset, Taylor and the rest of the team have developed a comprehensive strategy for where we want Shoeboxed to go in the coming months and years. We will be launching an upgrade to the site in the next month or so that will use our receipt functionalities as a launchpad into new areas of the Internet. Shoeboxed is a dynamic project, and we are putting up new features all the time. It’s the kind of thing that you want to check everyday, because you never know what’s coming next.
How large is your team?
We have 25 team members.
What are some techniques that you guys have used to keep such a large team so tight?
Well, this summer, 13 of us lived and worked out of an apartment in Berlin. With two bedrooms and one bathroom, we got along surprisingly well. Those of us that were in Berlin are certainly a tight-knit group because of our shared experience of working so hard to launch the site. But even the new additions to the team that have come since we moved back the U.S. have quickly become part of the group, and it’s hard to imagine how we survived without them! We only bring people on that we think will work extraordinarily well with the rest of the team, and so far, everybody has been enthusiastic, flexible, and hard working. I can’t say we make it a point to do “team bonding” or anything like that… we are just lucky to have found an amazingly dedicated bunch who are committed to making Shoeboxed a success.
What does a typical team meeting consist of — brainstorming sessions, fights, or what?
The flavor of meetings at Shoeboxed is kind of dependent on what part of Shoeboxed we’re talking about. Our marketing meetings are very collaborative, creative and high-energy. Our development meetings on the other hand, would involve a more technical creativity… and a lot of white-board space. I’ve never seen a meeting where there was a “fight.” We’re a pretty reasonable bunch I suppose. We throw a lot of popcorn at each other though…
List 3 totally unrelated (to your business) areas of study that you are into that inspire you as a person / company
Well, there aren’t too many disciplines that are TOTALLY unrelated to Shoeboxed. We’ve found that pretty much every academic field can be applied to our work, and having people that majored in completely different things has definitely been a good thing for us.
What are the percentages behind your motivation — 50% for the money, 10% for the fun, 40% to truly help people or what?
100% for making receipts a manageable, useful and fun part of everyone’s life!
In one sentence, what words of inspiration do you have for someone wanting to take a risk and start something new?
You’ve got to love what you are doing!
If someone offered you guys 20 million to sell your company and never again push forward with another idea, concept, company again, would or wouldn’t you take it and why?
We have way too many plans for Shoeboxed to take any amount of money right now. Plus, so many of us have this entrepreneurial spirit so engrained in our personalities, that we’d be really bored with doing anything else!
Tuesday, January 16 by David Askaripour in We're Talkin' | 2 Comments
Educate Deviate, and blog focused on alternative education, recently interviewed me. Our discussion mostly revolved around entrepreneurship and how students can become entrepreneurs without feeling tied down to what their parents think or how well they perform in school.
Check it out: here
Friday, December 29 by David Askaripour in We're Talkin' | 3 Comments
Jay Phillips is a young entrepreneur who doesn’t wait for success to find him, he goes out and makes it happen. He saw an opportunity in the VoIP sector and developed Adhearsion, an open-source framework that’s on the verge of revolutionizing the entire telephony industry.
Tell me about Adhearsion. How did you get it started and why?
Necessity is the mother of invention. While working with an Internet telephony service provider in Houston, I found a lot of dismal repetition in our day-to-day jobs, and when our boss would get crazy new ideas to integrate the phone systems with something new, we just squirmed in our seats. This wasn’t just an issue facing our little spot on the map– this was an issue affecting the entire industry.
Adhearsion came about as an experimental solution that my roommate Mike and I wrote in our free time. When the going started getting extremely good, we offered to sell the program to our boss (we were just contractors at the time) and legal issues ensued. We left the company and Codemecca was formed.
What exactly does Adhearsion do? What problems does it solve?
Well, the best way for fellow geeks to understand it is to explain that Adhearsion is a new Application Programmer Interface layer to an entire business, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) included. The open-source PBX software Asterisk by the fantastic folks at Digium has really revolutionized the Telecom world and it’s this on which Adhearsion builds.
What makes Adhearsion special is that it employs the linguistic, very high-level Ruby programming language, allows refreshingly pain-free database integration, and most importantly I feel is its extension architecture.
Until now actually trading and merging sophisticated VoIP functionality has been a nightmare. Now one file gets put in your Adhearsion folder, Adhearsion finds that file, and suddenly the code in that file works across the entire framework.
This has provisioned the potential for some really awesome features that will come standard with Adhearsion, making a new (and free!) Adhearsion install more powerful than what most companies have spent tens of thousands on.
Despite the fact Adhearsion is in a private beta phase right now, these features to which I’m vaguely referring have already created quite a bit of industry interest.
The best way for our fellow ungeeky better halves to understand Adhearsion is to say that Adhearsion makes programmers and managers really, really happy.
Have you been able to get Adhearsion in the hands of any big players in the VoIP industry? How have you been promoting?
Promoting something that’s not even publicly spoken about has been extremely difficult, albeit absolutely necessary. The first real time that the VoIP industry heard the name Adhearsion was at Astricon 2006 in Dallas. I gave a couple of small demonstrations of the code I had at the time and spread the gospel by word of mouth. Luckily, I managed to bump into just the right individuals.
I came back with a stack of business cards and started pinging around. Most people didn’t want to cut their deck on potential vaporware, so in this way holding the code private until Christmas has been a thorn in my foot. But Mark Spencer, the CEO of Digium, creator of Asterisk and fellow young entrepreneur, was willing to listen.
I sent him the longest email I’ve ever written and caught him on an instant messenger. It was all uphill from there. Mark’s been my angel investor in a non-financial kind of way — he’s an angel investor of his thoughts and opinions.
When Mark speaks, everyone in the industry listens. One quick, tiny mention of something new from his mouth gets thousands of other mouths talking. I’m not sure how much my own mouth should be talking about my business arrangements, but here are a couple of things I have let out.
Some of the biggest open-source VoIP product makers, names which I shouldn’t mention just yet, have sunk their teeth into my work and will officially include Adhearsion in their product when Adhearsion is public. We’re talking thousands of downloads a day in the first week or so
Adhearsion makes it into the wild. I feel this alone will establish a lot of the much-needed respect projects like this need early on. Companies I’ve privately invited are already using Adhearsion and are reporting great success. This too is another necessity: having companies actually using it.
Adhearsion serves as the VoIP integrator for functions ranging from election-related Web 2.0 apps to in-house auto-attendants. O’Reilly Media, the biggest publisher of computer books, has invited me to speak at their Emerging Telephony 2007 conference in San Francisco.
I’ll be giving a ninety-minute workshop there showing how to transform your business with Adhearsion by example of a fictitious new Web 2.0 startup. This conference is one of the biggest events of the year in VoIP, attracting the real “who’s who” list.
Tickets alone range from $1,500 to $1,800, but luckily for me speakers get in for free. Like Astricon, this will be a pivotal point in Codemecca’s life to network and get people talking about Adhearsion.
But to tie this segue back, social networking has been the number one most important root of Adhearsion’s early success. I can’t stress this enough. Be yourself, show passion, be interesting. If you can establish friendships in your industry, life becomes incredibly rewarding both on a business and on a personal level.
What’s it like being a young entrepreneur doing such big things?
On a personal level, there’s been virtually no difference, ironically. When people ask me what my company does, their ears shut off as soon as I mention technology. If I say I’m a software developer, people associate my age with game programming.
If I say phones, they think it’s silly. If I mention I give my code away for free, people immediately doubt my business skills. I gave up a long time ago trying to find someone who cared.
On an academic level, it’s been rough. I’m constantly having to decide “Okay, should I be memorizing trigonometric identities right now or implementing that new feature that saves VoIP companies thousands of dollars.” Often I side with my entrepreneurial obligations and it does hurt.
On a professional level, being young has made all the difference in the world! When these geezers see this passionate youngster talking to them on an eye-to-eye level, it really portrays my sense of direction. In fact, nearly every good contact I have has started with “Wow, so how old are you, kid–”
Your youth is the best time of your life, and I can’t think of anything more fun than what I do now. What’s more, starting young gives you an advantage throughout the rest of your life. An IPO at twenty-one attracts entirely different responses than an IPO at thirty-one.
Any parting words for fellow young entrepreneur?
Constantly think of your own name and what people should think when it comes to their mind. For me, “Jay Phillips” is something I want the entire industry to know. I want the entire industry to know it thirty years from now. Or even a hundred and thirty years from now.
Set your ambitions high and follow through with them. Networking is the cheapest way of doing this and, truthfully, one of the most effective ways.
Take every networking opportunity that arises and don’t be shy. Our Achilles heel is lack of real-world experience and knowledge, so be a voracious reader to compensate. If you can show youth, knowledge, and passion, you’re destined for great things.
Keep in touch with Jay and follow him on his journey to success as a young entrepreneur — visit jicksta.
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Wednesday, November 22 by David Askaripour in We're Talkin' | 2 Comments
A few weeks back I interviewed the founder, Daniel Scudder, of college classified site Dormitem and since then, guess what, I have come across another college classified site known as CollegeMedium.
At this rate, there will be more college-based classified sites on the net than we can handle. But the question is: Which site is going to reach that critical tipping point? Which site will win this race or can these sites coexist?
Or maybe the real question is: When will facebook step into the mix and create a classified system of their own?
When comparing Dormitem and CollegeMedium head to head, I think that both sites are heading in the right direction and offer equally powerful systems to help college students; but in terms of design, I’m going with CollegeMedium.
Here’s the interview with CollegeMedium founder, Emmanuel Azih:
What’s your case that makes your site better than Craigslist?
Cragislist is a great service that relies on the good nature of human beings. It is with this embedded trust that such a site thrives and succeeds.
CollegeMedium, on the other hand, plays an active role to ensure the protection of our users. For example, since only students are allowed to post items for sale, most transactions will occur on campus, which limits the temptation of crime or fraud based on false identities or interests.
In addition, CollegeMedium has certain restrictions on the site to ensure that Jobs, and Housing can only be viewed by student accounts as determined through facebook or a valid .edu address.
Would you say that you have a superior service that Dormitem.com and why?
It would be unfair to compare Dormitem to CollegeMedium as CollegeMedium intends to connect students with non-students while Dormitem’s simply serves as a marketplace for students.
From a web design or aesthetic perspective, I’ll let the readers come up with their own conclusions.
Aren’t you scared of facebook implementing a classified service and rendering your site among many other college classified sites obsolete
overnight?
facebook is a great utility that we’ve strongly incorporated in CollegeMedium. However, when people go to facebook, they go there to browse profiles and ‘poke’ hotties, not to buy and sell items, find jobs, or roommates.
Furthermore, while integrating a classifieds section onto facebook seems like the next logical step, I strongly doubt that’ll happen. A classifieds site is simply a different form of advertising, which is already facebook’s primary revenue stream. As such, creating a free-classifieds
section would seem a bit counter intuitive.
Why do you think so many college students are focusing on classified services and which are the ones most likely to succeed?
Well the potential is tremendous, and everyone recognizes that. The difficult piece is connecting all the schools together and getting students
to use the site. facebook has successfully done that with their social utility. At CollegeMedium we’re not focused on having a college or student-only classifieds site. We simply want to connect students with non-students, companies, and other students from surrounding schools.
The sites that are most likely to succeed have to recognize that focusing on students alone may seem like a great idea, but to successfully gain
user-generated content it must be open to non-students as well.
Be honest: if you came across CollegeMedium and Craigslist 2 years ago, which one would you use?
Well it depends on my needs. If I’m looking for a student to perform a part-time job, or even a student roommate I’ll wholeheartedly visit
CollegeMedium to fulfill that need. Alternatively, if I need someone with a few years of experience then Craigslist would most certainly be the better
option.
How was it being an entrepreneur at Georgia Tech? Come across a lot of startups over there? Can you talk about any?
Funny thing is at Georgia Tech I never really thought I’d end up an entrepreneur. I was studying Electrical Engineering in hopes of making that
a permanent career. Promptly after graduating, I found a gap between students and non-students and I’m simply trying to bridge that gap.
How have your marketed your service and what has been most effective in getting the word out?
Georgia Tech has been really supportive. They were actually the first to write an article about the site and since then we’ve been featured in a lot
more magazines in the Atlanta Area. I personally believe if you build something that’s worth talking about, people will talk about it.
Monday, October 23 by David Askaripour in We're Talkin' | Leave a Comment
I remember the first day that I told myself that I wanted to become an internet entrepreneur: it was Jan 1 2004 I was 20 years-old. Since that cold winter day, I never looked back and entrepreneurship has become a part of my life in so many ways. Most of you already know my story, but here’s a great interview that gets pretty deep into my life as a young entrepreneur.
Now 22 years-old, recently graduated from college with a degree in English, and living with a few college buddies on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I wakeup every morning and think about new ways on how I can help other entrepreneurs just like myself. I know that it isn’t easy being an entrepreneur and that is exactly why I created Mind Petals: to create a community of young entrepreneurs who can support one another with insights, advice, and experiences from our own lives while we build our businesses.
I’ll never pretend to have all the answers, because I simply don’t. In fact, I’m in the same boat as many other young entrepreneurs: living day by day trying to improve my situation and make my mark in life. I don’t run a thriving business that makes big bucks. I pay the bills by picking up web-related jobs whenever I can. Sure, I have a lot of ideas up my sleeve and would like to implement them, but for now, my priorities are as follows: 1.) Help as many people as I can whether it’s the young entrepreneur on Mind Petals to the homeless person on the street 2.) Make enough money to pay my rent every month by picking up gigs here and there and 3.) Continuing to work on my many other ideas to implement when I have the time and finances to do so – I can’t do everything at once.
My days usually consist of 2- 4 hours of writing and responding to emails, usually other entrepreneurs in need of assistance or advice. A few hours trying to seek web development gigs from various potential clients (this is tough). Some consulting here and there when I’m lucky enough to find someone in need of my advice and willing to pay for it. And, of course, at least a good 5+ hours spent on my (our) baby: Mind Petals.
Whether it’s helping to spread the word of our network, finding new members, or coming up with new and interesting content for the network, Mind Petals is more than a project to me, it’s a vehicle to help the world of young entrepreneurs by sparking minds and enlightening the masses on how they can become entrepreneurs and eventually change the world.
MP Daily News >>
Mind Petals Daily News is a column where I speak to the world of young entrepreneurs about various issues that simply aren’t being spoken about. Things such as running a business while still in school, having parents who don’t support your decision to become an entrepreneur, and how to surround yourself with positive people who can help you grow your business.
You’ll never know what to expect with the Daily News because that’s exactly how I want it – I love the spontaneity of speaking about various issues that can help young entrepreneurs see things a different way and say: “ That’s a great way of looking at it… this can help me out big-time.”
It’s my mission to help as many entrepreneurs – as many people – as I can. Sure, just like you, I want to make the big bucks, have the booming business, and change the world. But I’ll never forget to lend a helping hand to someone in need.
I started my first business in 2001 at the age of 22 (though work started nearly a year earlier). At the time, my decision to take on the hardscrabble challenges of entrepreneurialism stemmed from mere pragmatism. Since then I have discovered that no other life suits me nearly so well the life I make for myself.
Though my first business failed, forcing my to return to more traditional employment for a few years, I found myself irresistibly drawn back into one project after another, until finally the opportunity to start my current business presented itself.
Today I am the Director of 501(c)(3) educational not-for-profit corporation operating on the island of Roatan off the Caribbean coast of Honduras. My company, Steel Pan Alley, provides tuition free musical education to the underprivileged local children and teenagers.
Our service does more than broaden the children’s cultural exposure and provides a much-needed extra-curricular activity to these under-engaged children; the skills we teach also build toward gainful employment in the tourist-dominated island economy.
I hope readers enjoy my “Start Up”-focused column on Mind Petals. As the title implies, I attempt to discuss and elaborate upon the broad stokes and rudimentary concepts of starting a new business. Eschewing advanced details and narrow specifics, I strive to make each column immediately comprehensible and helpful to the greenest of entrepreneurial greenhorns. Look to “Start Ups” for my insights on first steps—the trials, tribulations, and bare-bones basics of small business actualization.
Startup Column >>
- Monday’s Missteps: True stories about my own mistakes, the better to aid you in avoiding them
- Tuesday’s Tools: Highlighting the resources you can use to increase your start-ups’ chances of success
- Wednesday’s Wisdom: Taking a step back to consider the philosophy of entrepreneurialism
- Thursday’s Triumphs: True stories about my own successes, the better to aid you in reproducing them
- Friday’s Fiction: A serializes story about new entrepreneur’s journey into business ownership.
When people ask me what I do for a living I usually like to tell them that I’m a writer. I think it sounds romantic. And, for the most part that’s true. I write many things and get paid for some of them. I earned my degree in Creative Writing, and so I guess I’ve also earned the title.
I consider myself an entrepreneur because I can see the bigger picture, and have turned my writing skills into a profitable business. I am completely in love with what I do. So I’ve decided to take it further than simply “writing.” I freelance editorials and restaurant reviews for a number of publications including Metromix of the Chicago Tribune, and also do commercial copy writing for clients. I write fiction and non-fiction and have about 10 projects going at a time. I must have it that way.
My most recent business venture is yellow Magazine (theyellowzine.com). I created it with my fellow writers in mind. Our core is a group of excellent writers whose voices need to be heard. I’ve been edited many times before and it has thickened my skin. But there’s this great satisfaction in seeing your work printed un-spoiled by the editor’s pen. That’s what I give my writers. I never edit for voice or content. If the story is great we publish it. So our audience gets a really fresh taste with each new story they read.
Helping others gives me this warm toasty feeling inside that almost makes me feel guilty. I’ve volunteered in my home communities for years and have been a member of Americorps – which was probably the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had. So, I suppose I help people because I need to. It’s a bit of a calling. I want to help other entrepreneurs because I’m in their shoes. I can relate to the ups and downs and I know that it can only get better.
Life Column >>
Writing the Life column is really great for me. I talk about it all the time like it’s this big important thing. And I really feel that it is. I think it’s great that entrepreneurs are able to come together in an organized fashion and share advice and experience. I’m breaking into the life category with some pretty general thoughts. I’m setting the pace and the background for future topics.
Since life happens to me every single day, and I deal with business every single day – I would really like to move into personalizing the column a bit more. I work from home and juggle a very energetic 2 yr. old, housework, dinner making, check writing, and clients, partners, employees. I know what its like to NEED to make something out of your dreams and to do it with no money in the bank.
My family is the most important part of my life and I WOULD give up all of this for them. I’m 27 and married with a son, and I come from a long line of loud loving stereotypical Italian-American hand-talkers. I love people, music, food and thrift stores.
Angela Gilltrap is a 27 year old entrepreneur. She is the author of three books, has created two television series’ and continues to produce concepts, ideas and formats for corporations worldwide. Originally from Sydney, Australia she now reside in Manhattan and has previously worked internationally in Tokyo, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, London, Paris, New Caledonia, New Zealand and the US. For more information you can check out her website at angelagilltrap.com
Marketing Column >>
I always try and give practical marketing advice from a variety of industries. Many times I will focus on entertainment which is the industry I am in however, even if I never hit on your particular industry I do find entertainment has so many great examples regardless, these can easily be put to use in any section of business.
William Quisenberry is 24 years old and currently resides in his hometown of Lexington, KY. William graduated high school in 2000 and attended the University of Kentucky following graduation where he majored in Kinesiology and Pre-Physical Therapy.
Having no pre-exposure to business William planned to receive an undergraduate degree and go on to Physical Therapy school despite never having a true love and joy for the field. However William’s whole life changed when he applied for and received a Sales and Leasing Consultant position with a local automotive dealership one summer while out of school, it was here that he discovered his true calling for business, sales, and ultimately entrepreneurship.
Since his successful sales career in the automotive sales industry William has also worked in multiple inside and business to business sales atmospheres which include mortgage services, oil and gas developmental capital raising projects, and also marketing/public relations.
Now by age 24 William has been blessed to create a consulting firm named Net Empire Consulting where he works with consumers and commercial institutions to help arrange financing services for a variety of products such as equipment financing, asset-based lending, medical practice finance, pre-settlement funding, law firm financing, residential mortgage financing, and commercial real estate. Net Empire also aims to establish independent contracting sales and marketing networks with many U.S. firms.
He is also the Co-Founder and Partner of a commercial janitorial and field services business named Crystal Klear Cleaning & Contracting Professionals (”C.K.C.”). William also enjoys writing projects and has created a freelance writing and copywriting firm named N.E.R. Professional Development. Besides looking for new opportunities to pursue William also is finishing up his B.S.B.A. in Finance and is entering the M.B.A. program this summer. Also William plans to pursue an alternate Masters degree simultaneously with his M.B.A. in Dispute Resolution (M.S.D.R.).
After graduation William wants to enter the Private Banking & Wealth Management field or better yet possibly even the fiercely competitive field of Investment Banking. After gaining pertinent experience and connections in the financial services industry, William has a long-term goal of eventually creating his own large financial institution and becoming one of Wall Street’s “Market Movers.”
Innovation Column >>
William joined Mind Petals to help give advice to other young aspiring entrepreneurs and also to receive ideas from some of the countries best and brightest young business professionals. William is also extremely passionate about reaching ALL individuals despite ethnic, racial, or economic backgrounds. Having come from his own humble beginnings, William wants to prove to youth that they can make their dreams a reality and they don’t have to be the kids of multi-millionaires to do it.
Want to join us?
We’re always looking for entrepreneurs to join our ‘Preneur Petal team. We currently have the following columns open:
- Boostrapping
- We’re Talkin’
- Modus Operandi
If you’re an entrepreneur with great lessons, insights, experiences to share, and most importantly: the urge to help others succeed in life, then let us know and we’ll talk further.
And as always, if you run a business/entrepreneur focused site/blog, and think it would make a great addition to the network, then let us know.
Thank YOU
Without you, the entrepreneurs making things happen and not just talking, there would be no Mind Petals. Our collective drive, passion, and ambitions to change the world are what fuels this community. We are brothers and sisters connected by entrepreneurship; a family of freethinkers that is destined to make big things happen and disrupt the status-quo by all means necessary.
Tuesday, October 10 by David Askaripour in We're Talkin' | Leave a Comment
No college student entrepreneur has been successfully able to create a nationwide service that allows a critical mass of college students to sell textbooks, find apartments, or sell other various dorm-related items to students within their school. Many of us have tried, but there hasn’t been anything to talk about yet.
Craigslist still dominates the market, albeit they aren’t solely focused on the college student market. Services such as DormItem are taking a stab at being the first successful college-focused textbook and item selling service.
As we all know, this is the hardest market that any entrepreneur could possibly penetrate, but I and the rest of the young entrepreneur community are rooting for the next college student to really breakthrough with a successful textbook service. Sites such as Amazon and eCampus aren’t making things any easier.
But the fact of the matter is that publishers are many steps ahead of us entrepreneurs as they continue to unnecessarily upgrade school books by the semester, not by the school year; prohibiting students from selling their college books for any significant value because professors are demanding each student to purchase the latest version of whatever book it is.
So how do we as college/young entrepreneurs get around this? What’s the solution, dude? Do we start creating services that allow students to simply “swap” books? Do we partner with the publishers and offer selected chapters from the books in online versions that we push through our blogs and websites for a small fee? How do we disrupt this market? Not sure. But I’m sure that we’ll figure it out sooner or later. That I promise.
Here’s a chat that I had with Daniel about his life as a young entrepreneur and his latest service, DormItem:
How’s entrepreneurial life at Babson?
Babson is a great school for entrepreneurship. I am in the Ugrad business hatchery, and my business, along with 4 others all have offices in the same location. Its fun to meet people with the same business interests, and they are all supportive and helpful of each other. This year, all the hatchery businesses are web based, so we bounce ideas of each other.
Having hatchery space is also a plus because it gives my team and I access to many business resources. I do feel that the best resource that Babson provides is the faculty, as they are all into business and many are experienced entrepreneurs. The freedom and ability to consult professors whenever needed is a great bonus.
Another note is that I am on the Babson Commerce Committee, which gives me the opportunity to license all Ugrad student businesses (not just the hatchery businesses). This is a great time to meet the younger students at Babson who are beginning to develop their own business concepts and give them some guidance. I guess my passion is entrepreneurship, so Babson works for me.
How and why did you come up with the idea of DormItem?
DormItem came to my mind last spring when everyone was complaining about textbook prices, and around the same time Craigslist was becoming popular among college students. I figured I could start a site where students could buy and sell goods – not just textbooks – and connect with each other on the same campus.
I was also very into ‘web 2.0’ and I love the web technology, so I figured I’d take a stab at a site. I wanted to use the best and coolest technology, which is how I envisioned the AJAX live search feature. I also wanted to eliminate the problem of categorization, as many other college classified sites have so many categories and subcategories that it is overwhelming.
Instead, I went with tagging, an easier and cooler (in my mind ?) way of categorizing. My developer (who is at Olin College) and I both have very similar philosophies about the Web, which makes it fun to create something together.
Did you bootstrap your company? If so, how was that process like?
DormItem was and still is a bootstrap company. I actually enjoy this more, as it requires problems to be solved without throwing money at them. It also allows me to be more hands on with everything — I can ‘wear many hats’ as they say, allowing me to save money by not hiring excess people. Sometimes I imagine what I could do with funding, but then I would lose the creative problem solving ability which I like so much. Plus, I don’t like the responsibility of having other people’s money and answering to their concerns. I want to do what I want with the business.
What’s the future look like for DormItem? How do you set yourself apart from Craigslist?
DormItem is doing well, and we are moving fast. We are working on a new product (which for now we will call V2) sometime soon, which will be even more ‘ajaxified’ than the first, and will have some new features that makes buying and selling even easier.
The site also won’t be limited to just buying and selling, but we are looking to add new areas for jobs, apartments, and more. We don’t like to consider ourselves a ‘college craigslist’, because Craigslist will always be ahead of us.
Instead, we want to be considered the best way for students to buy and sell, by solving the specific needs of the college student. We integrated Rapleaf, a portable rating system for commerce, in the hopes of making the buy/sell process safer. We are also working on map features to make it easier to find and locate items for sale. Tackling the textbook problem is our greatest hope, and we have been brainstorming about how to do it better than any site has done before.
Why should a student use DormItem?
As an upperclassmen or international student, if you are moving away, you can sell the goods you no longer need to an incoming freshman at an affordable price. Submitting a listing is easy, with no accounts or passwords to remember. DormItem is fun to use with our AJAX live search and tagging. If what you want is posted on the site, you should have no problem finding it. Rapleaf also adds trust to the buying and selling process, as listings with .edu email addresses receive more credibility. And read our blog, which is usually fun and relevant to college life!
What’s the most important lesson that you’ve learned as a young entrepreneur up to this point?
I would say that a young entrepreneur should never feel they have a bad idea or no chance at business success. In fact, as a young entrepreneur, we have less to lose than anyone else. We can live cheaply, are still in college, and worse comes to worse we get a good experience of opening a business.
Once the real world comes along, you may never have the chance to open your own business, so do it now! It takes a lot of thinking and hard work for no immediate pay, but a belief in the company and a desire to do something that challenges the status quo is what drives me. Mark Zuckerburg of facebook is one of by biggest idols, as he just had an idea, the guts to implement it, and is now living in Silicon Valley in the heart of business. Not that I think I will be there someday, but it is nice to know that a college student actually can do something like that.
Never stop innovating, Daniel. Make it happen!
Wednesday, September 13 by David Askaripour in We're Talkin' | 1 Comment
Wow, I can’t get enough of the Trizoko crew. Their upfront and down to Earth approach to entrepreneurship continues to bring a smile to my face as I read their content on a daily basis. They aren’t trying to impress you or even convert you to their ways of looking at the business world; they are simply telling you how they see it happening. Their amazing business journal, Trizoko, has become more than a blog to me, but a true business guide that helps me see learn more about entrepreneurship, minus the bullshit and fluff.
Tell me about your first entrepreneurial experience and how you came about creating trizle. Is there an explanation for the name “trizle”?
My first business was a sports journal I created when I was around 12 years old. It failed big time. I’ve learned a lot since.
As for Trizle, we started it as a computer business — competing with Dell and HP. Bad move. I brought a college buddy on with me, but we could never penetrate any business markets. Knowing however that we wanted to build something that helps the world in some way — as cheesy and idealistic as that may sound — we then ventured into building software that improves businesses, then with my background in business: finally to providing total business solutions.
The “Trizle” name came from the area I grew up in — a big hip-hop community. Others call it the “ghetto”; I affectionately call it “home”. I grew up listening to Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Tupac, Run DMC, and Bone Thugs. So with Snoop’s -izle talk, I combined that with my last name (It was only me in the business then.). It’s a way of saying that no matter what happens, I’ll always remember where I came from — my roots, if you will.
Not too many of my childhood friends made it out okay, so as weird as it may sound, I feel like there’s a higher calling telling me to give back since I somehow made it through the cracks. So the name “Trizle” will always remind me of the philosophy behind the business.
So you’re in the web development business. Can you talk to us about how you tackle the difficult task of customer service and growing your client base? What works and what doesn’t?
Our site, and we’re totally embarrassed by it, is a little outdated. We’re progressing toward more of a “business solutions” firm. That is, web software is just one of the services we offer to improve our clients’ bottom line.
One of the ways we attract initial customers is offering something we coin a “guaranteeth” (i.e. guaratee + teeth). That is, we guarantee businesses that our solutions will increase their bottom lines, or we’ll refund everything. 100% of our clients are happy references, so things are going okay so far.
But really, something else drives us to want to tackle customer service and grow our customer base. It’s a little warped — well, according to those “business experts” out there. Instead of all the “strategic customer acquisition” and “penetrating markets” crapola, we just focus on one thing: helping as many people as we can.
With the advent of wordpress making it easier to maintain and create large sites, have you incorporated wordpress as starting point for any of your projects? If so, how has that worked out for you and your clients?
Open source applications is definitely opening doors for everybody to compete with larger firms. But then there’s a conundrum: Because you have so much technology at your disposal, how much do you use?
For any tech project, we focus on providing business solutions that boosts our clients’ bottom lines. (That’s our focus, so your company’s purpose might be different.) An increase in bottom line means that we’re helping them improve customer service, become more efficient, manage their finances better, or many of the other things that plays a factor.
Most tech projects provide a negative ROI, and we’re embarrassed that our peers continue to praise tech like it’s some magic formula that improves the heck out of businesses. It’s not. And unfortunately, most businesses are wasting their money on tech stuff that won’t do a thing for their bottom line.
So with WordPress, or whatever else open source technology you use, we urge that you to not use technology for technology’s sake. It’s a path to failure. Instead, know where your business wants to go. Know its purpose, its goals, its strengths. Then, seek them.
And then if a technology product such as WordPress can get you there quicker, by all means: use it.
Where do you see the web development industry heading as it’s becoming increasingly easier for people to create their own sites? Will there still be a need for developers down the line and why?
I think the web development industry is heading toward the direction of how the car industry once went — albeit, on a smaller scale. That is, the basic guts (i.e. “busy” programming) will move toward being outsourced, but the design ( i.e. web design, interface design, strategic programming) will stay with the brightest in the world — whether they live in the U.S., Australia, or Zimbabwe.
So if you’re a web development company in America, and you want to stay in business, don’t let your offerings become commoditized.
Let’s jump into trizoko, your business journal. What separates your content from the other business blogs on the net? You seem to have taken the no-bullshit approach, what was the reasoning behind going that route?
Business is our passion. We love it. We love to study how societies and organizations thrive, and how they unfortunately destruct.
With that said, we felt tired with the get-rich-schemes, and the if-you-don’t-write-a-biz-plan-you-will-fail crowd. We knew business bloggers could offer so much more — that is, advice that actually works. Just because something sounds good doesn’t mean it works.
So, we started Trizoko.
Young entrepreneurs are popping up left and right, what do you make of this sector of new business minds? Are we next to change the world with ground-breaking innovations?
I think if you look back to our economy, you’ll see a persistently thriving society. Ford broke new ground with democratizing the automobile in the early 1900s. Fleming brought us Penicillin in the 1920s. William Shockley brought us the transistor in the 1940s. We saw Sputnik in the 1950s. The 8-track in the 1970s. Then the Walkman in the 1980s. Then of course the Internet in the 1990s.
In that way, it’s more of a “passing of the torch”. With a society that’s geared to perpetually generate new ideas, you’re bound to see pretty cool ground-breaking stuff in the coming years from young entrepreneurs, like yourself.
Talk to me about failure? How does it help the entrepreneur come back bigger and better?
One of our mottos: The more failures you have, the more successes you’ll find.
I think most “soon-to-be-entrepreneurs” are wired a little differently from the rest of the world. They’re the overachievers you see in class, the ones getting straight As on their report cards — “the perfectionists,” if you will. They tell themselves that they’ll start businesses when they find the “perfect” idea, so they’ll wait for the “perfect time” to develop their ideas. That rarely, if ever, happens.
Waiting for perfection drives you to procrastinate, which in turn drive you to do nothing. During that time, somebody else is developing your idea. And before you can get in the game, they’ve captured your targeted market — or worse, your idea will become obsolete — as all ideas will.
If you’re wrapped in the whole “perfection” attitude, here’s our biggest recommendation: embrace failure like it ain’t no thang but a chicken wing on a string. Failure drives you to do something. It gets you acting, and it moves you forward.
Apple still improves its computers. Microsoft still improves its operating system. WordPress still improves its blogging software. 37Signals still improves its project management application.
Embrace their mindset: Forget perfection; settle for something that “works”, then continuously improve it for your customers.
What’s your take on this whole “Web 2.0″ concept? Is it a bunch of “blah…blah…” or does it hold any merit?
I wouldn’t call the “Web 2.0″ concept “blah”, but it’s definitely over-hyped. If you’re doing business as a Web 2.0 startup, it’s better that you understand how people work than learning about XHTML/CSS coding. If you look at MySpace, the design sucks according to the so-called Web 2.0 crowd. But, it’s thriving because MySpace understands how people congregate, how people build communities, and what makes people tick.
Ironically, the next great Web 2.0 startup won’t be the most technologically advanced. Instead, it’ll be the one that understands the human mind most.
What’s an entrepreneur to do: read as many entrepreneurship and technical books as possible or just get out there and do it? Or both? What do you read?
My best advice is just to go out there and do it — then use books to guide you as you’re on your way. As you’re doing stuff, you’ll hit roadblocks. You want those roadblocks. Without roadblocks, you’re probably not challenging yourself enough. When you hit those roadblocks, use technical and business books as much as possible to guide you over those barriers.
I think, while well-intended, most business books are just glorified puff pieces. Most tell you your business can’t live without a business plan. That’s false. The overwhelming majority of Inc. 500s (and Fortune 500s) never started with a business plan. A business plan prevents you from doing. If you’re not acting, you’re not progressing.
So as great as they can seem, take most business books with a grain of salt.
As for the books I read, I usually venture out of the “business” genre. A social psychology book can teach you more about management than 99% of management books out there. Likewise, an Abe Lincoln can teach you more about leadership; Thomas Edison can teach you more about entrepreneurship; and college football can teach you more about marketing.
And a definite must for your library: any good economics book.
Wednesday, August 23 by David Askaripour in We're Talkin' | 6 Comments
Juxtaviews, a new site covering the hottest news on the web, has just launched the most comprehensive interview that I have ever given. Wow, they really dug deep into my head and I held nothing back. From the time I started my first venture roughly 3 years ago to the starting of Mind Petals, it’s all covered.
Here you go: MindPetals Interview - A Blog Network for the Entrepreneural Mind
Friday, August 11 by David Askaripour in We're Talkin' | Leave a Comment
Josiah Mackenzie isn’t scared to accept the rough and rewarding life of a young entrepreneur. At just 20 years-old, Josiah isn’t sitting on the sidelines waiting for success to find him. Quite the opposite. He’s pushing forward with his ventures and making things happen. He believes that the best thing that any entrepreneur can do is: take action! I couldn’t agree with him more. Without actions what do we entrepreneurs have? Not much.
When was is that you realized that you wanted to become an entrepreneur – was there any particular moment in your life?
For me, it was a gradual process. As I grew older, I realized that I wanted more freedom than the typical job allows. Being an entrepreneur is the best way I know to live the lifestyle of my dreams.
How do you see the young entrepreneur sector shaping as the months and years go by?
I think we’re going to see strong growth in the number of young entrepreneurs in the near future. For various reasons, many of the college-age people I talk with indicate their desire to work for themselves. Whether their motivation is to make more money or to have more time off, I see this trend developing even among non-business majors.
For this reason, I predict firms providing services to young entrepreneurs will do very well in the future. I believe this will be especially true of firms that assist people in getting their business started.
What college do you attend? Do you feel that college has anything to do with your current path to success?
This fall I’ll be a junior at Cedarville University, a private school near Columbus, Ohio. I tend to believe that the best learning comes from outside the classroom—it’s hard for a class to compare with real-life coaching, seminars, and experience. I think entrepreneurial college students need to realize this, compliment their in-class study with outside material and activities, and learn to leverage resources at their college. Join the right organizations, meet the influential people, make use of any connections you can.
Remember that colleges exist to serve you, not the other way around. Make your academic schedule fit around your larger life goals, even if it doesn’t look traditional. I’ve already taken two non-consecutive semesters off before my junior year, and they have been tremendously rewarding.
How old are you? Has there ever been a time when you haven’t been taken seriously as a young entrepreneur? If so, how have you gotten past that?
Turned 20 this past week. Since most of my ventures have been internet-based to date, being a young entrepreneur wasn’t a huge deal. Doing business online can provide a certain level of anonymity. In situations where my age could be a disadvantage, I’ve made sure to position myself as knowledgeable, reliable, and experienced. Most people like to see ambitious young entrepreneurs, so if you present yourself well you should do fine.
Tell me about your company and your latest venture Young Wealth Weekly.
Sure—Josiah Mackenzie & Company was formed to provide services to help young entrepreneurs, particularly college students, succeed. Young Wealth Weekly is a free newsletter that I publish along with 9 other young entrepreneurs. It was created as a way for our team to give back to other young entrepreneurs and help them succeed. We try to pack each issue full of fresh how-to articles, exclusive interviews, and reviews of the best books and products our readers might be interested in.
editor’s note: David Askaripour is a contributor to Young Wealth Weekly.
In your mind, what is one of the most important qualities that a young entrepreneur can posses and why?
Without a doubt, action is the most important quality a young entrepreneur could possess. It’s easy to get trapped in a never-ending cycle of planning to the exclusion of taking action in your business venture. Remember, nothing happens until you take action.
What do you have to say to all the naysayers out there who think that young entrepreneurs are in way over their heads and should concentrate more on getting a job, not starting a business?
They need to realize that starting a business is getting a job. Even if you choose not to become a full-time entrepreneur, having a startup on your resume is incredibly valuable.
Talk to me about how you go about networking your businesses. Do a lot of spreading the word at parties, school, or what?
I have a very holistic view of networking. Networking takes place every minute of my day: between classes, in the gym, at parties, and over meals. I try to get to know people as well as I can: their past, their current activities, and their future goals. It’s all about developing strong relationships with other people—rather than making a quick, one-time sale. It’s great because a question about what you do for work invariably comes up, and you can share your news then without appearing pushy.
What keeps you going as a young entrepreneur? What’s the driving force that pushes you along?
People debate which motivator is stronger: fear or pleasure. I use both. I’ve tried to position myself in a way that if I performed poorly, I would disappoint people I respect. This is excellent accountability. Conversely, every day I keep my life goals before me. Is what I’m doing right now contributing to those goals?
Reaching life goals is incredibly motivating for me, as it is with many others. I would encourage any person that wants to become successful to make a list of 100 things they would like to accomplish during their lifetime. Keep this list always before you, and use it as a guide for your daily activities.
Would you recommend that young entrepreneurs start an internet business? If so, why the internet?
Starting an internet business can be best for the first-time entrepreneur, so yes, I would recommend they consider it carefully. Startup costs are low, overhead expenses are virtually nil, and marketing can be easier. Everything is so inexpensive, there’s no reason not to start an internet business. The same business principles apply to “brick and mortar” firms, so if nothing else, it will be a good learning experience.
What’s you advice for all the secret entrepreneurs out there who are too afraid to get out there and start something?
Just start! As Michael Simmons explains in his fantastic book, The Student Success Manifesto: How To Create A Life Of Passion, Purpose, And Prosperity, young people have little to loose by starting a business now. Many of us have a rather large “safety net” if something does go wrong and we loose everything. As we grow older, that safety net disappears, and we take on more and more responsibilities that hinder our ability to take on risk in the form of a business startup. So I would definitely encourage the “secret entrepreneurs” out there to get out and start something.
Please share some parting words for all the young entrepreneurs out there making things happen with their lives – not just talking — and pouring their hearts into something they love more than life.
Make entrepreneurism a lifestyle of rewarding work, reviving relationships, relaxing adventure, and rich generosity. Live your life to the fullest!
Wednesday, August 2 by David Askaripour in We're Talkin' | Leave a Comment
We’re Talkin’ column was created to present interviews and simply talks with various entrepreneurs speaking about their businesses – their advice, plans to change the world, and insights into the world of entrepreneurism.
We can all learn a great deal from other entrepreneurs. My favorite quality of any entrepreneur is the one who constantly shares knowledge and educates others – simply an amazing trait to posses.
Stay tuned.
