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.

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.

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!

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).

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.

One tip for those who plan to do investor business over the phone, make sure you have a good phone in hand.  I love my phone, but had it not been for the fact that my partner and I were conference calling right across from each other, we may have lost the call.  After the call began, things were going great but my phone battery died in the middle of a sentence.  This happened to take place while I was explaining the basis of the Motown Initiative.  I quickly reached across for my partner’s phone and politically informed the party on the other end that my partner had to step out for a moment.  After about 3 minutes of talking, the potential investor simply said “you know, my decision was made before we spoke today, but I wanted to hear more about the project from you guys, you have confirmed my intuition, how can I transfer money”.   My mouth kinda dropped, I can’t lie.  I always heard that investors making their decisions off the bat, but I had never experienced it first hand.  All the work on the pitch deck and executive summary had paid off.  Someone gets it!

Yes folks, we have our first private investor and from the sounds of it, there may be a couple more on the way.  This was just the confidence booster I needed to get back on my feet to find more private funding while we await final decision from large VCs.

The Presentation Room

In an effort to generate some working cash flow for Motown Initiative, the team set off to Chicago to meet with a couple marketing agencies for production work.  Using 4^th Deck, our production arm, along with the knowledge of online video we have developed over the past year, we compiled a compelling presentation for potential clients.  We saw this as the only logical route to generate additional revenue in meantime.  Our main meeting was with Burrell, a well known agency that has an expertise in minority market strategy.

Early Thursday morning, the team met up in the basement of Burrell’s building on Michigan Ave.  It was an ideal location, with its plethora of restaurants.  At this point, just a couple hours before the meeting, we had not had time to actually do a group run-through.  This was the first time we’d coordinate who is speaking on what slide and how to manage transition between speakers.  To add to the challenge of preparing for our 10:30am meeting, our laptop batteries starting running out and the coffee shop we were at had no plug. Can you imagine?!? Its no wonder we were the only people in this place…should have got a clue I guess J.  Either way, we were able to complete our slides and vaguely plan out our presentation strategy.   Our next stop was Dunkin Donuts, because we didn’t want a hungry audience.  Not to mention, I miss Dunkin Donuts after being on the west coast for four years.  After spending an unbelievable amount of money on pastries and coffee we were off to the 29^th floor (we spent $75 btw…dang coffee is expensive).

We had come on a unique day because this was one of those rare times that a major client was in office; McDonalds to be specific.   This was good and bad.  Bad because it made it a little more challenging to get everyone we needed in one room (although we pulled it off). However, it was good because we could speak to online marketing relevant to McDonalds and perhaps get some needed traction with Burrell’s creative group.

Our presentation got started about 5-10mins late, but we made up for time in delivering an engaging presentation.  The whole time we were speaking, people seemed a bit passive, so I tried to ask questions of the group to peak their interest.  Their faces were neutral.  To give you an idea of how silent they were, after the first 15 minutes of the presentation there were really no additional questions.   After completing the final slide we thanked them for their time and asked if they had any questions.  Silence for a moment….all of sudden there was one smile…two smile…and so on.  People were pleased with what they saw.  “That was a great presentation, very comprehensive”.   We were in shock, I was convinced we bombed the presentation, but hey I guess hard work pays off.   They asked us to stay and present different portions of the presentation to other departments that were not present the first time.  It was quite a day.

"Maybe $75 in donuts was a bit much"

Currently, we are still in the initial engagement stages of business, but I’m quite confident that the Motown / 4^th Deck team will come up with online video campaigns for some of Burrell’s major clients in the near future.  It was nice to take all of our knowledge and experience to a respected agency like Burrell and be well received.

Not sure what an investor was doing in Coronodo Bay with a bunch of marketing managers at a brand summit, but then again, what was I doing there haha.  Ah, I remember, a free stay in a five star hotel with great food, not to mention the opportunity to learn and teach in an environment of my peers.   In any case, we got to talking and it turned out that Dave is in the market to invest in digital media.  What a coincidence, I have a digital media start up.  This was an exciting conversation as it was the first time I actually got to use my elevator pitch in a real life conversation.  All the practice had paid off.

Later on last week I took a chance to look over his website, review his staff and their common mission.  I was in shock.  Here was a Silicon Valley investment group that was the opposite of the norm.  Just reading thier mission gave me goose bumps haha, I said to myself,  “this group is the perfect match for Motown, its uncanny”.  Take a look for yourself….

“We strive to collaborate with exceptionally talented entrepreneurs with disruptive ideas and scalable business models to drive innovation and economic growth.

Blumberg Capital initially seeks to invest between $250,000 and $2,500,000 dollars and is a lifecycle investor. We structure syndicates with other like-minded groups to increase reach and reduce risk for our investees. Our global team brings industry expertise, relevant operational experience and strategic relationships to be a value added investor.”

Does that not sound like the perfect model investor for a company that is focused on business model and strategy versus just product at early stage?  I really hope the Blumberg team take an interest in the Initiative cause I think we can do great thing together.  We’ll see what they think of our executive summary that I’ll send out next week.  Keep your fingers crossed, and toes if you can :).

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.

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)