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.

At a recent event in San Diego, I was wandering through a mixer in search of food (and a drink ) when I bumped into my good buddy Miles from Tremor Media.  He had been our main contact there for some months now but just recently he switched to a new company, Double Verify.   We still have a good relationship with Tremor regardless of his prescense, but Miles wasnt there to talk about the past, he was thinking about our future.  He kindly introduced Double Verify’s key investor,  Dave Blumberg.

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.

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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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I’ve spent the entire day reading about Content Delivery Networks (CDN) and I’m burnt out.  Every broadband video company needs a CDN solution; after all, that’s how the data is propagated through the internet.  We’ve been considering developing our own CDN solution, but there are a few issues with this approach.  It is the CDN that ensures video is delivered in a timely manner. It is also the CDN that is responsible for website analytics, but most importantly the CDN handles Digital Media Rights (DRM).   While I do believe that we could create a functional delivery mechanism to create our unique video experience, and we could utilize a 3^rd party service for analytics, it’s the DRM portion that concerns me.  To keep our content competitive and fresh, we’re going to need to form relationships with major network content distributors, and I bet money that they will be less than interested in an unproved DRM methodology.  If we can’t protect our partner’s content, then they won’t want to be a partner at all.  This is why I’ve decided it is best that we look for proven services to deliver our content.   As long as an outsourced CDN doesn’t interfere with website functionality as we envision it, I think it’s the best way to go.

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The whole New York trip was definitely meant to be all about work, but of course on the flip side work must be balanced with play.  Thursday night the whole team decided to head out to PS450 near downtown Manhattan.   A lot of folks from college we invited out showed up to have a good time, but without doubt we were bound to run into people we hadn’t seen in years.  That’s just the way New York works, you’re walking down the street and all of sudden its someone you haven’t seen since school.   One of the people that showed up was an old friend of mine, Vinnie.

Educated at Univ of Michigan’s B-school (and the streets of New York haha), Vinnie has cultivated himself into quite the number man.   I remembered he was doing financial work for PriceWaterHouse Coopers, so we chatted about that for a second, however it turned out he no longer worked there.  He is now actively working on his own financial consulting firm, Four Corners.  He has been working with a couple of other starts-up, helping them to develop pitch decks, financial forecasts and relationships with investors.  Now how lucky is that?   One of the last missing links to the Motown Initiative is team member with an accounting and revenue strategy background.  I just had to invite Vinnie down to the office for a sit down.

The next day, we had about a four hour conversation.  It was a mixture of catching up on the past and discussing opportunities of the future.  All said and done, Four Corners is now going to be working with Motown Initiative to ensure that we remain adequately funded and inline with our revenue goals post website launch.

Over the past week, the entire Motown team has been extremely productive, meeting with potential partners and pushing the initiative forward to meet milestones.   With everything that has been going on, its been hard for us to keep up on blog duty but I think the experiences we’ve had will make for good stories in the coming weeks.   One thing that NY has, that I haven’t found many of in other places, is motivated young visionaries.

Of course these people exist everywhere, its not just a city thing. You could be from the country and still be a thought leader, but considering we brought three new valuable members into the Motown Initiative within one week, I’m gonna tip my hat off to New York.  With that said, none of these people are actually from New York.  In fact, two of them are from Michigan (the other is from Dubai).   While they are all very motivated and experienced, most importantly I see potential for them to be true visionaries.  This is the primary requirement to be apart of our team.

To have vision is to essentially see the future.  Furthermore, it is the ability to actively work towards creating the future. In the business we’re in, we can ill afford to have people that confine their thought process to what exists today.  When we sit down to talk with team candidates about the MI project and how they can be involved, we look for a few key characteristics in conversation.

-Firstly, does the person add value to conversations. I’m not a fan of uneducated questions, and stories about what a person has done and what their friends do.  If I sit down and talk to a person for 2 hours and I remained engaged as a result of relevant questions and new ideas, then I know the person is onto something.

-Secondly, can the person create without bounds. To be a visionary constraints have to be the last thing on your mind.  If i tell you we’re creating a revolutionary way to target consumers with ads, then it should be clear that no framework exists that can help you complete the final product.  Everything is a work in progress.  You have to understand the targeting models of today but you have to then take that knowledge and create the tomorrow.

This is a really brief explaination of my point of view on vision, but these are the key characteristics I look at, the rest is just gut feeling.  This is where the phrase “Game recognizes game” originated.  Its the understanding that everyone on our team ads value and is capable of creating a better tommorow.

June  11th, 2009….Earlier on last week one of my partners brought a pitch opportunity to my attention, but it wasn’t the ordinary gig.  Not to my surprise, America is adopting another rip off of a British reality show.  This time it’s the Dragon’s Den, but the show here will be called “The Shark Tank”.   Its funny I had so much trouble coming up with a pitch line for MI, cause for this I can easily describe it as “American idol of Entrepreneurs”.   While I didn’t know who I would be pitching to, I did know casting call was June 6th and I only had a few days to get myself together. (follow the jump)

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April 26, 2009…..Today I attended a marketing conference called Driving Interactive, which basically was a select collection of agencies and client side reps. coming together to discuss the state of the interactive landscape, as well as where it’s going. With that said, this was the first conference of this kind I have attended, and it was quite eye-opening.

The initial presentation just spoke about basic market strategy integration with playful pics of purchase funnels and simple strategies brought together. I really think the most impressive part of the work people presented was the fact they got their organization to buy off on the integrated approach. Either way, the first day was about as exciting as the last two paragraphs you read, it wasn’t until the cocktail party that I began to see the benefits of this event.
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