I can't tell you how awesome I'm loving life. I know I'm on to the best business venture of my entire life and it's so cool having a product that everyone from customers to investors want to be part of.
This week I had questions from a restaurant chain that starts with "Mc" as me how the heck I came up with this concept. It kind of threw me. It was not a question I had before. How do you answer that it's a combination of life experiences and it all just came together. It's like that Steve Jobs speech were you can only connect the dots looking back, not forward.
What's been really cool is these national brand chains all start off with the same position, "we have an app already" and then shut me down. Then I tell them, "my app is different, let me show you" and then they see it and typically go "wow". I one case I had the president of the company tell me my app was "ingenious" and then said lets get together to move forward.
These are not small brands, they are major food, automobile, retailers and merchants.
I'm also meeting with people that want to invest. I really want to find the right partner. Someone that can add major value and contribute from a strategy and future fundraising standpoint. Raising money is all new to me and it's been a blast.
It's not unlike selling a product or service, other than you are selling your business to invest in. For me, I consider selling to invest in me is like selling a house. Sales people DON'T sell houses. They think they might, but they don't. People BUY houses. You cannot take someone that doesn't like a house and sell them to love it. You can show a house and either they like it or they don't.
I've had some interesting discussions with potential investors. I have learned so much and it's like being part of a movie.
I had one guy I met be so arrogant and cocky that if he put a million dollars on the table and told me he wanted to invest I wouldn't take it. I was told by my lawyer than often those most interested will take that approach to drive the pricing down. That may or may not be true, but I can say, he "humped" himself because I would not get into business with that type of guy.
He was also funny, I gave him my background about starting a business when I was 24 and my years of experience and he then got all wild and said, "well you know any investor will do due diligence" and I said to him "I have not problem with that, I'm truthful and have integrity". This guy really pissed me off. With that said you can't pay for that type of ride at Disney Land. And there is this small part of me that wants to make this business so successful and stick it up his ass.
Of all the stuff I've done, business seems the most legit compared to doing 12 Ironmans and competition in 3 world championships in my 40's after losing 50 lbs and coming off the fat guy bench. To me my Ironman tails I don't even believe if I didn't have the pictures.
I shouldn't get to wigged out. I ended up googling the guy afterwards and found out he was sued for securities fraud of some sort. The guy actually amazed me because as I was talking with him and reflecting after I was thinking is this guy a "psychopath"? They say in high finance there is a lot of them. Either way, it was an experience that gave me a good story.
I can honestly say I've never had so much fun working. Some would think when I took the yearbook company from start up to huge growth success that I'd have been most happy. It was fun. We created a great team. In fact, I'm getting the band back together on my new venture.
BUT is wasn't as fun as this. I'm not 100% sure why this is the funniest time of my life, I think it has to do with the product, the time of my life, my experience and the fact that I'm the final decision maker.
You know life is good when you don't know what day of the week it is without looking at your calendar.
I finished my last meeting at 6:30 pm tonight and decided to take tomorrow off. With no income coming in, we don't go out much anymore, but tonight I decided we should go to Jersey's and have a few beers.
Jersey's is kind of like Cheers. It seems everyone is a regular. We don't go there a lot but when we do it's the same people all the time. The service is amazing and they do it with like 2 staff. I've seen restaurants and bars with 10 staff not be as good and prompt as the Jersey staff.
I made sure I turned off the computer before I left home, I turned off my phone. I didn't want any access to having beers and then getting online. Nothing good comes from drinking and tweeting, or emailing or face booking. I told Alice before we left, if you see me go for any electronics, tackle me.
It was kind of a crazy night at Jerseys. It was full. We had a few drinks and then it seemed like craziness started to happen.
One person came up to our table to say she was a reader of my blog in years gone past. She was a friend of Adena's (my sister from another mister) and that she would see Alice in the store and recognize her from the blog. In a way it's pretty surreal hearing that. I never really realized how much in years past people read the blog. It was like a whole different subculture.
I will say I have met people that had read my blog and told me it changed their lives. I really don't get it. All I'd write about is what I'm writing about now, nothing. Just what happened in my day.
So this is how it unfolds from what I remember. I met her and then this gay guy comes up to me and I think he wanted to fight me. Then a Russian guy was hitting on Alice and I couldn't understand a word he said and I met a guy in the bathroom and he said he texted me to be friends and then before the end of the night there was a discussion / argument I had with a guy that I can't really remember what it was about and left him my business card.
It was really weird. We were just sitting by ourselves at our table and enjoying ourselves and the next thing I know it became a circus wheel of people and experiences. Turns out by the end of the night the gay guy became my good friend, almost brother like. It was the most weirdest 180, he went from I thought wanting to fight me to loving me. I actually thought it might have been a case of miss-identity. Did he think I was someone else?
The guy in the bathroom I met I started that one. As I was taking my pee I was looking at the urinal and the text and logo of Crane was poorly imprinted. Then I looked over at the urinal beside me and it was printed differently and worse. I think the guy thought I was looking at HIM if you know what I mean.
I wasn't.
I looked at the two logos and said, "Crane is mailing it in". When you build something and can't even get your logo right you have issues. When I pointed this out to the guy, and he realized I wasn't looking at his package, he saw what I thought and mentioned, "they used to be a good company". I agree. It's amazing how something so simple can tell me so much about a company. It basically says no body at crane gives a shit. No pun intended.
So my new bathroom friend and his wife came by our table to say hi, they were very nice. I remember the guy having a puffy coat like George on Seinfeld.
It was definitely one of those nights. It turns out it was also customer appreciation night and they were bringing around free food and they had shots. The young girls from the shot company wanted me to have shots, I said no, my disposition doesn't react well to hard alcohol. It was funny, she heard it, she told me she totally gets that, her boyfriend has the same problem and then she insisted I have one. Now that's a dedicated brand ambassador.
We got home, it was a fun night. It seems I can't lose weight so I'm at the edge of not caring. I'm getting to old to be vain. Who am I going to impress? I may as well have fun.
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