I put quotes around official because we’re still not sure what the public name of the website is going to be.  The idea we had developed and were ready to use just became less and less appealing as we ran into other companies with similar names.  It’s never a great idea to pick a company name that brings up like 50 different things in Google.  At that point it’s just a challenge to get proper placement in search results.  Whatever we end up with, the incorporation papers needed to get done this week as  we have shares to distribute to investors (I don’t think they want to wait much longer ).  We are now officially Motown Initiative, Inc.

From what I know, in Michigan at least, our corporation name can be just about anything and it doesn’t have to match our website name.   When we get further down the line and make a final decision on the public website name,  I plan to get a DBA (doing business as) form to establish the connection of the website name to the corporation.   That’s today’s work though; tomorrow, the west coast team is off to CES, representing the newly incorporated Motown Initiative.

If anyone was wondering where went, its been crazy the past month getting setup for the new year but we’ll be back on the blogs, twitter, etc real soon here keeping everyone up to date.

Its 2010, and we are nearing the moment of truth, that is whether or not we can actually revolutionize online media.  Of course, I’m quite confident we can pull it off, but it’s really just getting to proof of concept that will tell the whole story.

So I encourage you to stay tuned,  starting mid January  on development, so things will be getting exciting.  Happy New Year! It’s gonna be a good one.

We’re still on the hunt for one more additional funding source, so you folks haven’t missed much over the past month.  Although, I must say the team has definitely learned a lot about term sheets, investment negotiations and company structure strategy.  One great book that has been making its cycle through the team is “The Entreprenuer’s Guide to Business Law”.

It’s a great read and, for an engineer like myself (aka not top notch in the reading comprehension category), it has the right amount of repetition to ingrain all the important information into your head.  From corporation types to term sheet components, everything is explained in explicit detail.  Between this book and a couple other documents, we were able to interpret term sheets presented to us and formulate our own.  (definitely take a look at MIT’s Entrepreneurship documents, http://entrepreneurship.mit.edu/15975/resources/angelreportexcerpts.pdf).

So with that said, I’m going to hop back into investment research so that we can keep the initiative moving forward.  I promise we’ll be checking in more often as we have devised some alternate business initiatives that will support our overall goal and expand the profitability potential for our upcoming online video site. We will share more on this soon. Happy Monday!

Last night we met up with one our west coast Tremor Media buddies in Manhattan Beach at SideDoor, one of our routine after hours spots.  It had been a couple months since we had last seen her, so there was much to talk about.  From the ad production pitch, to our latest investors, we had to get her up to speed so Tremor stays abreast of our next steps.

We actually discussed a subject that is near and dear to the majority of the Motown team; the auto industry.   From ad strategy to product strategy, we really got into the mechanics of how automotive interactive could be so much more effective with the guidance of a true product specialist.   Tremor has been so eager to help us that we just have to offer our auto expertise to them.  So it seems we’ll be doing a little consulting in regards to product strategy and consumer targeting in the upcoming year. As we become more involved with the production of these assets, this will become less of a distraction and more of a differentiator for our service offering.

Our friend also offered to introduce us to some new potential investors.  That’s always good.  Our business plan seems to be pretty air tight at this point, so I’m just looking for an investor to shoot it too. I want to knock some socks off.  I want barefoot investors writing checks (hmm, that’s an odd visual, but you get the picture).

While the team has been working hard, doing what they do, I have been idle the past couple days, just pondering next steps.  It’s amazing how anxious you get sitting around not being physically productive after you’ve become accustomed to working day in and day out.    The break is short lived though. Today, its time to take some matter into my own hands.  I’ve been waiting for investors to introduce us to their colleagues (aka additional investors) and we haven’t received additional feedback from our pitch at Burrell (which we did a couple weeks ago).  Too much delay I tell you.  Time to keep moving.  We’re going to pitch more agencies and find more investors while we await word from our previous meetings.

In regards to investors, I’m determined to get back in touch with Blumberg Capital, as I think we are a perfect match for their fund, and in addition I think its time to find more regionally focused funds that are 100% aligned with our mission to revitalize the economy of Detroit.  I found a great website, Michigan Venture Capital Association.  It somewhat consolidates the investment community in MI all in one place. They single out angel, VC, corporate cap and entrepreneurial services. So we’ll see what we come up with using this great resource.

As far as marketing agencies go?  They’re a dime a dozen, and the majority of them need help in properly executing online video strategy.  It’s really a matter of which agencies have the ideal clients.  It’s kind of hard to top the opportunity Burrell presents, in that they work with McDonalds, Toyota and Tide, amongst other major brands.  We are really going to have to aim at major agencies to stay within those ranks.  Looks like I’ll be taking a shot at companies like BBDO, or perhaps we go straight to brands.  Regardless, the opportunities are endless.

Well writing this entry was good ground work for this weeks work.  I’ll report back on our results in a few days.

Over the past couple weeks the team has been all over the place, but our main focus has been developing a pitch for Burrell, an ad agency in Chicago.  Burrell handles major clients, including, Toyota, McDonalds and Verizon, focusing predominantly on minority markets.  If you’ve seen a McD’s commercial with Beyonce singing or a Tide commercial that looks like it has some of the cast from Soul Food in it, that’s their work.  They also have some great general market efforts for Verizon and Bounty.  In anycase, we have been offered an opportunity to present our online video findings as well as production capabilities.  This is not only a good chance for us to start developing revenue through our production office, but it also will allow us to get feedback on our upcoming website with regards ad placement.

Over the next couple days we’ll be finishing up our powerpoint and integrating some cool reels that should, as they say, “knock their socks off”, for lack of a better phrase.  I’ll post those up sometime in the near future for you guys to see.  We also came up with some example ad delivery formats involving their brands (An example of a Tide in-video interactive module can be seen to the right).  We want to show them the advantages of online marketing and how it can be used to better serve their clients needs.   So i’ll let you guys know how it goes, wish us luck.

Forgive the hiatus folks but it’s been an intense couple of weeks.  We’ve been working diligently on our formal business plan and we finally firmed up a final draft late last week.  I’m sure along the way there will be revisions and additions, but the document is in a form which I’m comfortable presenting to additional investors.  As mentioned previously, we are currently in talks with Ann Arbor Spark, however they let us know that access to their seed fund requires an outside investment match (the source doesn’t matter).  Of course, from my perspective, I think it would be odd to ask another investor to help me match unconfirmed funds.  Thus at this point, Spark funds would appear to be a “bonus” of sorts, unless we some how came up with the funds match on our own terms.

Despite the fact we don’t have money to start formal development on our broadband video project, we do still have a unique set of skills and an unrivaled expertise in online video.  We plan to use this to our advantage to generate start-up cash.   In a few weeks we’ll be going to pitch online video ad consultation and production services to a couple of major ad agencies in Chicago.  This work is a little left field in relation to our overall goals, but without the proper start-up funds there will be no way of achieving them anyways.  I think this work will show our ability to make the most of any situation.  It’s important for our investors to know that no matter what comes of the product we develop, we’re going to turn a profit and succeed at our social mission.  This approach to funding will also guarantee that we retain majority share of our company, which is never a bad thing.

So in the meantime, we’ll be creating a pitch for our prospect clients and diving into some faux creative for a couple of their key brands.  Hopefully I’ll be able to post some of the stuff we come up with in the upcoming weeks.  Happy Labor Day folks.  (back to my weekend off)

Having just finished up my work last night, I decided to keep my “creative juices” flowing and record some music.  Turntable-ism, as I like to call it, is a great hobby to get your mind off things.  At the same time I decided to run a virus check, just to make sure my laptop was up to snuff.  Everything was going fine until I tried to execute one more task.  I hit the function key on my laptop to swap monitor outputs and bam….I was paused up.  I waited for a few minutes, but I eventually got impatient and turned the computer off.  Upon reboot my jaw dropped…… “ntfs.sys not found”.

The computer wouldn’t boot.  I thought to myself “it’s over, this whole Motown thing is over, and it will be all my fault”  I hadn’t backed up the files in 6 months.  No one else involved with the project is housing all the files.   I am the only person who tracks all of the workflow.  Business plans, wireframes, and research, everything…it was all in limbo at this point.
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work..eat..work..eat..work..sleep..repeat

Well there isn’t much of it.  As you can see, blog posts have been sparse lately, but I haven’t forgotten about you guys.  The past couple weeks have been a test of the Motown team’s dedication to the project.  The hoops that we have to jump through to obtain funding, in addition to all the work needed to create a reasonable business plan, are a bit much.  I rewrote our elevator pitch so many times that I was ready to just take the stairs.  However, after much work, I think we now have a great pitch with a perfect plan behind it.   I’ll probably spend the next few days going over the document implementing any needed revisions but then its off to my mecca of inspiration.  The car dealership :-D.

I think every entrepreneur needs an inspiration, and it shouldn’t just be cold hard cash.  This is not to say that money can’t be a factor but an inspiration should have form, even if it is just an object of desire.  Whether you’re inspired by your personal mentor or the idea of buying a house for your family, I think everyone should conger up something.  I personally am inspired by family and successful friends, but one form of inspiration that really stands out for me is automobiles.  It’s my true passion.

One of those "objects of desire"

I love cars, from a Kia to a Bugatti,  I have an appreciation for anything that is well designed and rolls on four wheels.   So after a hard couple weeks work, one of the MI team members and I for some “spirited” test drives :).  This is always the pick me up I need to get my head back in the game.  I’ll post some pictures of what we drive on Sunday, its alway’s epic.  Last time we drove a Honda Insight, Porsche Cayenne and VW CC.  We’ll see what we get into this weekend.  Can you say Aston?  I hope I can haha

The light is coming for Detorit

Everyday I try to read at least one article, blog entry or book chapter related to business.  My desk is simply stacked with reading material spanning everything from Inc. Magazine to MBA for Dummies.  Yesterday, I noticed there was an article about “the 10 best cities to start a business in” on the cover of Entrepreneur.  I opened the book only to be disappointed.  I thought to myself, why have they not cited Detroit?

As I began to read the article, I realized that they weren’t focusing on cities that were ripe for change and advancement; they were more so highlighting cities they thought embodied the entrepreneurial spirit.  Unfortunately, Detroit doesn’t quite do that yet.  I figure they could have at least mentioned Ann Arbor, there have been a number of start-ups there, but much to my dismay no mention of any city in Michigan.   Continuing to read, I started to notice statements like “their unemployment is near 10%” and “the cost of living is more affordable than it has been in eight years”.  Do people not realize the unemployment rate in Detroit is about 15% (50% more) and the cost of living is borderline cheapest in the nation haha.  It really isn’t a laughing matter, but I still feel like people are not realizing the potential of Detroit.

I would call Las Vegas, San Diego, Phoenix or Austin interesting places but not necessarily anything special for entrepreneurs (four of the cities they cited).   Vegas is a great place to party;  San Diego is a nice place to sit on the beach and they have a nice Zoo; Phoenix is super hot if you need a tan; Austin is a great place to meet women I hear;  But I really don’t think any of these places can beat the opportunity inherent in Detroit.  The local talent of Detroit is unbelievable.  Just think, the guy who came up with Google, one of the original engineers of the ipod, and even looking all the way back to Motown music or even the Model-T automobile, Michigan has brought greathings to the world.   I truly believe that with the right industry in place, Detroit can thrive once again and Michigan can began to cultivate and utilize its talented workforce.  I’m not the only one who believes this though, there are a number of great organizations labeled business accelerators that have started in Michigan recently to support entrepreneurship and the revitalization of the local economy.  One group in particular that comes to mind is Ann Arbor Spark.

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