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.

I feel as if I’ve mentioned 4^th Deck Productions (4DP) before, but allow me to give a proper introduction. Based in NY, 4DP represents the content and development arm of the Motown Initiative. From original programming, to lifestyle events and commercial productions, they do it all. In the upcoming weeks we’ll be working on the pre-production component of our first MotownIni video. There will be a series of brand videos that will use to help spread the good word about the Initiative. Currently, 4DP is focusing on their latest client Mitsue artist. I think 4DP is going to be able to derive some exciting content from their work with her.

March 22nd, 2009…I spent the better part of my Saturday sitting in my living room with a white board and a marker, drawing a user interface for this so called broadband video idea I’ve been pondering.  As I continued to review the competitive battleground and our notes from the conference on Tuesday, I began to question the business model that I’ve had in mind.

Now there is nothing particularly wrong with the model; in fact I personally still think its great, but there is a fundamental problem with the direction my business seems to be going.  It looks as if I’m trying to replace cable TV.  Now some of you are saying “that’s a great idea, I wish I didn’t need cable”, but the fact is there is quite the business model attached to traditional TV.  I can tell you right now, major networks and cable providers are not about to part with their billions in ad revenue.

I decided to just start typing down all the potential components of the business model and how they may actually fair in the eyes of major networks and investors.  The list got pretty long, and my mind went pretty numb, so I had to call it day.   To compliment a day’s work, I decided to go visit my friend’s house and they just got a PS3 and Wii….sillyness…

Side note:  I did enjoy my gaming night but it was somewhat discouraging.  Remember the 8^th grade, in your parent’s basement? Yea you do…playing video games until they’d force you to go to bed.  Well I sure can’t do it anymore.  After 3 hours of Street Fighter IV, I not only felt like I just took a 5 mile run but my thumbs were sore too.  In fact, forget past tense, my thumbs ARE STILL sore.  I hope when I wake up my thumbs are back in commission :-/

March 19th, 2009….Yesterday one of my partners in NY attended the VideoNuze conference and he came back with a plethora of knowledge.  We even spoke with our first VC, which was kinda exciting.  An entire report has been compiled on our activities from the event, but I have to keep that document somewhat internal. I will entertain you guys with some very key excerpts though. (follow the jump)

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