Do you love the rush you get as you step from the concourse into the heart of an enormous stadium? Lexington web developer Tyler Green sure does, and he has created a new social network, Stadium Fanatic, to connect with other sports fans who feel the same.

“I’ve always enjoyed going around to ballparks, taking photos, and just experiencing the atmosphere, so I thought it would be a good idea to develop a place on the web where people could share those feelings,” says Green, whose site allows users to document and share their sports venue experiences.

Visits, comments, and photos are the main components to the social network. Users are encouraged to mark stadiums in which they have attended an event as ‘Visited’, and watch their name climb the leaderboard as their number of visits increases. Commenting on venues allows users to share their favorite experiences and offer suggestions for future visitors. The final feature, sharing photos, Green feels is the highlight of the site. “I could spend days browsing photos of stadiums. Every venue is different and I think creating this community will help those who are interested explore them in ways they may not have been able to in the past.”

Outside of the online network, users are encouraged to use the hashtag ‘#AwesomeStadium’ when updating their Twitter accounts from a sports venue to group their updates with those of others. The use of hashtags creates a live update stream and allows users, who are either at the same park or not, to read about the various stadium experiences occurring at that moment.

You can start connecting with Stadium Fanatics across the country today by visiting http://www.stadiumfanatic.com.

There’s nothing I love more than walking into a room full of important people or introducing myself to a high-level executive at a certain corporation, saying “Hi, I’m Aaron Fons” and seeing their eyes light up. Not having to explain who you are can come in extremely handy, and when you walk into a room and everyone knows who you are without the hassle of having to give a tired elevator pitch, it provides an instant shot to your self-confidence.

Unless you’re walking into a room full of psychics, however, chances are people aren’t going to know your name without you putting in a little bit of work at the get-go. No one will know your name if you don’t take the extra effort to put it out in the first place, and no one will care about it if you’re not bringing anything to the table. To get your name out effectively, you need to begin by creating some sort of value ahead of time for whoever you end up meeting with.

The first step is to identify your target. Figure out exactly who you want your name to resonate with by the time it’s all said and done; if you don’t know names, at least figure out the audience that you need to address as specifically as possible. For example, knowing that you want the board of directors at a given corporation to know who you are is better than knowing that you want “some execs” to know who you are. Once you have your general audience down, see if you can figure out their names and their interests; figure out what makes them tick.

Once you know who you’re dealing with and have your target isolated, you can more easily figure out how to address them and what interaction you can create that will make you seem different from everybody else. If you know you have a meeting or conference coming up with them, send out an email or pick up the phone a week or so before the conference to introduce yourself. Come up with something more interesting to say than a simple “I’m excited about the upcoming conference.” Rather, add a specific detail that you’re excited about or address a particular issue or interest that you have and hope will be touched on in more detail later. This way, you don’t come off as someone who is looking to kiss ass, but rather as someone who is proactive and wants to learn more. If necessary, include a resume or letter of reference so that whoever you’re talking to can find out a little more about you before the meeting. With one of these documents as well as a letter expressing interest, you are no longer just a name.

The next step is going further than becoming more than just a face. When you finally are in the same room as your target, walk up coolly and confidently and introduce yourself. Everyone else is going to say “Hi, I’m Joe Nobody. It’s a pleasure to be here.” YOU, on the other hand, get to say “Hi, I’m Joe Baller. We spoke this past week about (whatever you spoke about) and it’s nice to put a face to your name.” Watch and see how different their reaction is upon meeting you for the first time than it is for everyone else. Congratulations, they now know your name, and won’t soon forget it.

But you’re nowhere near done. You must follow up. If you said you were curious to learn more about a certain topic, research it and have questions and conversation ready to go on it, so they know that you were serious. Create conversation that adds value, rather than focusing on the same questions everyone else asks. Once your bit is said and done, don’t forget to write a thank you note, and in it address one or two additional topics you didn’t touch on before. If you’ve done your job right, this person will remember you and tell people about you. The next time you have a similar meeting or conference, this person will likely tell other execs about you and make your job a lot easier, but that shouldn’t stop you from starting the process all over again. By the time it’s over with, your name will ring out loud and clear.

Okay, so this whole idea of a week of ludicrous speed business growth seems to be a bit tough for people to wrap their heads around. I feel you….that makes sense.

If someone came to me and said ‘Hey Luke, I’m going get Awesome Inc to go from 100mph to 400 mph starting basically…now!” I would at best be a bit skeptical and at worse just flat out not talk to the guy.

I’d probably be a bit defensive too, “Have you seen how hard we work? I mean, we put on 4 mobile conferences in different cities in 2 months! What…are you going to help us put on 16 in the same timeframe?”

Fine – we get it. So we decided to show you what’s possible in an action packed hour that will simulate just one of the 70+ you’ll be putting in in the 6 days of AwesomeCamp.

We’ll go through the 1 hour long ‘clarification’ process that we do with almost everybody that I help when it’s ‘on purpose’ (read – they actually scheduled some time to meet with me with a clear agenda so we could make some progress).

This session will be just a small taste of what the week will be like, but in it we’ll be able to DELIVER VALUE in a whole bunch of ways right off the bat by helping you with:
Prioritization – What are you wasting your time on that doesn’t matter? THIS STEP ALONE IS WORTH EVERY DIME OF THE CAMP’S COST! It could help you shave weeks off right away by simply NOT doing a whole bunch of stuff you think you need to do but actually don’t.-
Infrastructure – You can’t do every job…so how do you delegate and outsource the others? The answer:  Build infrastructure – we’ll show some examples and help you build some of your own.-
Motivation – Worried that you don’t have what it takes – we’re going to get you pumped up AND we’ll point out several people that have LESS talent and potential than you in a lot of ways that are making it happen!-
Networking – Want to connect with people that are serious about making their ideas happen? Well, why don’t you meet them here? That way you can keep in touch with them and if you don’t go to AwesomeCamp you can just have them teach you everything they learned ;)-
MORE – We’ll have a few fun/funny surprises for you…but that’s all I’m telling you for now….

So that’s it! Monday, June 28th at 6pm - come to a value-packed free event (that we’ll be streaming live and posting later for those that can’t make it). Get a taste of how AwesomeCamp is going to go down and see if it’s something you want to do this summer!

See you there! Until then…follow rule #26 Never let stupid things keep you from doing awesome things.

During my time at Awesome Inc., we were able to reach some pretty big milestones in the social media space as we achieved over 1,000 facebook fans, and 500+ twitter followers; we also began live streaming events on the social web and responding to viewers in real-time. Something no one was doing at the time in Lexington, KY.

At some of our events, we even experimented with the audience live tweeteing their questions on a screen behind the speakers.

I also introduced the hashtag to Awesome Inc. and perhaps its greatest use was on twitter during the Awesome Inc. Mobile Conference in the summer of 2009. A great community was formed and conference attendees were able to keep up with what others were doing during their time in Lexington, KY. The conference was even later renamed and rebranded based on the hashtag #mobilex for “mobile lex”.

My time at Awesome Inc. has indeed been awesome, and it was as a pleasure meeting and interacting with most of you; unfortunately all good things must eventually come to an end.

With the recent birth of a son, my growing design business, as well as Social Media Club Lexington, which I founded in 2008, it’s time for me to gear my focus elsewhere. Therefore it is not without some sadness that I am announcing my resignation from Awesome Inc. I am bowing out gracefully and leaving it in good hands as Dave McGee will be the new Social Media Director. He is very knowledgeable in the space and will do a mighty fine job.

Thank you all for the experiences and conversations. Please feel free to stay in touch.

Kindest Regards and Rule #4,
Adam Martin
http://www.twitter.com/amartindesign

We wanted to answer an inevitable question up front:

What’s the deal with AwesomeCamp?

Now, I’m not going to insult your intelligence by just copying and pasting the information from the page itself (you can obviously read) so I’m going to talk more about the story BEHIND AwesomeCamp and more of what AwesomeCamp will feel like…if you want to know the schedules, mentors, cost, services, etc. – check the actual page.

Okay, so the back story. Needless to say we have a TON of people come to Awesome Inc and just say ‘hey, I’ve got an idea for a company. What do I do?’. We’re happy to meet with these people and sometimes they have a specific request (i.e. funding, marketing, software development) and we can point them to the correct resource and we’re done….but other times it’s not that easy.

Oftentimes they will have no clue what they think they need to do. They’ll just have all these ideas about what they think they should focus on. Their mind is spinning around like a Tazmanian Devil. So we’ll spend 30 minutes to an hour with them helping them get their head on straight and figure out what they need to do, who they need to call, what they need to write, or figure out, etc.

This point is critical because now we’ve been able to:

1. help them get everything out of their head

2. organize all these thoughts and concepts (i.e. people will say things like “I need to design a website, do marketing, make a flier, and get a facebook page up” We’ll help them mentally simplify and ‘chunk’ things so it’s not overwhelming.  In this instance, we’d point out that ‘marketing’ is really the heading, and all the other things they just mentioned go under that)

3. prioritize them

4. clarify what the three most important next action items are.

Everyone that we’ve met with that’s come to us with an idea has said that just this 30 minutes to an hour long session helps them SO MUCH by making the whole ‘business idea’ less overwhelming.  It’s empowering because they know EXACTLY what they need to go out and DO IT.

If they were doing a 2 hour session with us then we’d probably be able to help them knock out the first 2 of their 3 most important action items on their list just through the contacts that we have or the zillion other business ideas that we have tested out.

It’s like the iron is red hot and ready to strike!

Heck if they spent the afternoon with us they might even have a first stinking customer!

But they don’t have all afternoon…they don’t even have two hours….now this doesn’t mean they couldn’t just go ahead and make the calls right there at the conference room table once we’re finished meeting…they could. We don’t schedule meetings for longer than 30 minutes, unless it’s an entrepreneur with an idea – in which case we sometimes give them an hour – but nothing is stopping them from making progress except their own schedules…

They just don’t have time…to run their business?

To pursue their dream?

To take action on that thing that’s been eating at them for months and sometimes years?…No time?…Really?

Well the fact is of course they have time and of course this their dream…and so is eating healthy, getting in shape, being a good dad, student, son, etc.

So other things get in the way – makes sense. Don’t worry, this happens to us all the time.

But what about the things they do make time for? Video games, sports, cards, kids, work, etc.

They are comfortable doing these things. Why? They have LOTS of experience with them. They’ve done them for hours and hours on end so it just feels natural, relaxing…like they are in the zone….

Well, what do you think we feel like at Awesome Inc all day long? Startups are our ZONE! What if you came home and instead of playing video games you worked on your idea and it felt JUST AS GOOD…or how about BETTER than playing video games, watching TV, or whatever else you spend your free time doing?

How Awesome would that be?!

Okay so back to the backstory….we meet with people, get them totally psyched and prepared, they leave right when they are ready to get to work, and never actually get started (although they are completely ready) because they don’t have ‘time’ which really means they are just not comfortable with it yet. It feels like ‘work’, it’s awkward, etc.

Another thing we realized is that almost as soon as we send someone on their way, if they do start making progress, one random piece of advice or feedback from someone (especially someone that is a ‘successful businessman’ but that has never started their own company) and they jump off track in heartbeat.

Even people that have started their own business, pulled the trigger on their dreams and are living them right now come to us and tell me how they know that there are certain parts of their operation that are just plain screwed up…and I mean WAY OFF…they want to get our advice or time, etc. Sometimes we will spend some time with them right there on the spot and try to see if we can get them squared away.

But they often end up not doing anything with the system we set up for them because they have ‘so much other stuff going on’. Translate: ‘they aren’t comfortable with it yet’.  It’s feels awkward.

PLUS we see a lot of the same problems in both the pre-launch and post-launch companies that we know or that come to us for advice.

SO…the thought process went like this “Okay people with ideas all need to go through a similar process to get started. They need to get comfortable with the tools and systems necessary to get them rolling and we’ve got to get them to take action as soon as they are clear about their next steps. But they need more time and probably not just an extra hour because we’ll have to keep recalibrating them for their first few steps or they might fall hopelessly off.  And regardless it will take them some time to be comfortable. The same thing is happening with small startup businesses…how do we rock them more effectively and efficiently and make them not just comfortable with the process, but enjoy it?”

BAM! AwesomeCamp! (details on that page).

Okay great…so that’s the need that we saw and the backstory…now to what will Awesomecamp feel like?!

Here it is in mathematical form for you tech guys in the house:

Party + bootcamp + deepest conversation of your life + most efficient networking event ever + personal trainer pushing you way past your ‘last rep’ + jumping off a cliff with no parachute and a box of metal…planning to build a plane on the way down = AwesomeCamp

If you’ve read about how we came to the idea, what the week should be like should be pretty obvious – we’re going to get you clear and focused, and get you to PULL THE TRIGGER, CRACK THE WHIP, MAKE IT RAIN!!!!

You’ll have super short deadlines to hit multiple times per day. Brian, Luke, and others from Team Awesome will be there to coach you in real time (almost none of the classroom lecture stuff, we will be there guiding you AS IT GOES DOWN – ever heard the phrase, it’s impossible to steer a parked car?…yeah same thing…it’s also the same reason that the UK basketball team doesn’t spend all of every practice session listening to Calipari talk and draw up plays…they GO PLAY BASKETBALL).

You’re going to be in the trenches next to other people that are pushing towards their definition of awesome.

As soon as you need to get a question answered or connected to someone – we’re on the phone with them. We’ve got a list of mentors that have agreed to be on call for the week – willing to answer any emails or phone calls that have to do with helping AwesomeCamp participants.

We’re going to make you comfortable, with all the aspects of starting and running a business by making sure we get you spending as much time as possible ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING and that what you are doing is THE RIGHT THING.

By the time you’re finished you’ll not only be comfortable with moving rapidly on an idea, but you’ll be coached on how to move rapidly IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.

We’re going to take you to some places in Lexington that we guarantee you’ve never been, introduce you to people we know you’ve never met, and most importantly we’re going to GET YOUR BUSINESS FARTHER IN A WEEK THAN YOU COULD GET IT IN A MONTH BY YOURSELF.

You’re gonna be dead tired by the end of AwesomeCamp on Saturday….but you’ll have an IDEA that is ALIVE!

So that’s the backstory. And that’s what it’s gonna feel like.

Any questions? Ask Jay Z…

“I came I saw I conquered…”

Rule #76 No excuses. Play like a champion.
luke@awesomeinc.org

SXSW = South-by-Southwest. “SXSW Interactive features five days of compelling presentations from the brightest minds in emerging technology, scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders and an unbeatable line up of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer. ”

Translation: I had a busy week in Austin with Awesome Inc.

I greatly enjoyed SXSWi 2010. No better place to make connections in the tech startup scene, while chatting with touchscreen UI designers, eating Rudy’s BBQ, catching up with old friends and making new ones, and wishing that AplusK would get out of the way so we could extract a nugget of wisdom from Paul Graham.

My favorite sessions

Ok, so I liked almost every session I attended. These are the ones for which I condensed my notes into sharable length:

• Touch + The Holy Grail of Delight: Met the RazorFish guys, lots of insight on what fits in public places between mobile devices and home web shopping
• The Happiness Project: Reminder that “the days are long, but the years are short”, inspiration to cut back to a 1-sentence-per-day journal
• Roadtwip: met Kurt from CitySourced and heard about his adventure into the near future of America
• Third Coast, How to Be a Startup Outside of Silicon Valley: The CrowdSpring guys from Chicago shared how they did it
• Don’t Move! Build a Startup Community Where You Live: Boulder, Portland, and Omaha talk about how they’re growing w/o going
• Why You Aren’t Done Yet: a little shot in the arm from David Heinemeier Hansson from 37Signals
• How Nerds Can Foster Democracy in Local Government: We use tech, we have different perspectives. Time to use them.
• Zero Waste, The Future of Green: Toyota did it. Austin is ambitiously on their way there. Waste is so 20th century. I’ve started looking into urban composting.
• Moblizing the Power of Interns and Managing GenY: Our rockstars from Team Alpha could have taught this session.
• Student Startups, Entrepreneurship in the University: why wait? Software and ideas are cheap, your time is prevalent, and your co-founders are sitting next to you in class!
• ‘Seed Combinators’, Startup Incubators 2.0: There was energy in this room! But too few women and 40-yr-olds. Most important session for Awesome Inc.
• Pervasive Games and Playful Experiences, Rendering the Real world: I learned this lesson through a chore challenge for my roommates: Points –> Productivity. Games have always been fun. Mobile devices just make it easier to keep score.
• How The Other Half Lives - Touring The Digital Divide: I may not have an iPhone, but most of the world is struggling to learn how to use a mouse and radio buttons. The internet scares them. How do we help? Discussion led by two librarians.
• How to Save Journalism: Led by Lexingtonian and Fark.com creator Drew Curtis, new and old media discussed their strategies for the future. Pay walls don’t sound fun.

Hung out with some cool people

• On the CapMetro Bus: Baratunde, Alexander, Damien
• Monks of Invention Conclave SXSW 2010: Moshe, Shaun, Pek, Tim, Jason, Andy, Julian, Sasha, Brian,Bradley, Cecilia, Russ
• Olark: Matt, Ben, Zach
• David McGee’s crew: Alex, Kennon, Brad
• Henry’s friends and the Chevy Roadtrip Champions from Detroit: Hajj, Brandon
• Student Startupers: Brandon, Ellen
• RazorFish: Steve
• MobileXers: Charles, Adam, Jon M
• Kentuckians: Randall, Will, Luke, Brian, David, Drew, Jon C (now in Seattle)

Closing Thoughts

• Time to relearn web development. I was so cool writing HTML back in 1996, but the world has come a long way. Some UI/UX design insight will help for touch screen apps, too.
• Crowdsourcing some answers for this one: What is more valuable: go through a seed combinator program (get paid, network, create) or MBA (pay them, network, learn)?
• Creativity WILL drive the future. I want to be at the wheel, not just along for the ride.
• HUGE opportunity to bridge the Digital Divide (see above). It will take simplicity on the far side of complexity.

See you at SXSW 2011!

We don’t have interns at Awesome Inc. We have Team Alpha - a well oiled machine that knocks out to-do lists quicker than Muhammad Ali can knock out Sonny Liston. They tackle assignments better than Ray Lewis tackled opponents in his prime. They throw down projects with more authority than Lebron James.

Unafraid of any task – from building sound proof rooms, to fixing ping pong tables, to dominating Google sketch-up, Team Alpha can and will do anything to make Awesome Inc more awesome.

This semester’s class is highly rated among startups nationwide. Allow me to introduce the Team Alpha Spring Class of 2010.

Leading the way is Therese Henrickson. Therese is in her 2nd term and is the captain of team alpha. Some people say they’ll take talent over experience any day. I say, “give me both”. Therese is an all star and will be responsible for three primary initiatives: 1. Managing the team 2. Awesome Space administration 3. Event Coordination

Ashley Williams is our other returning team alpha member. Ashley was our utility player last semester and will be taking on a similar role this semester with a focus on: 1. Awesome Space administration 2. Online and Offline purchasing

Coming in from the University of Kentucky Department of Communication is Bert Berry and Zach Magoto. Investors beware: this dynamic duo doesn’t take no for an answer. Bert plans to focus his semester on the following: 1. Organizing the creation of the Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame 2. Marketing Events Meanwhile, Zach will be dominating these projects: 1. The creation of Awesome Media – the new media outlet for Awesome Inc 2. Awesome Space administration

Another University of Kentucky undergrad, Garrett Ebel, comes in standing 6’2” and weighing 175lbs. He was recruited to Team Alpha through Startup Weekend ’09. Garrett likes to play soccer, work with his hands, and enjoys long walks through the Awesome Space while listening to #3. Garrett has one goal for the start of his career at Awesome Inc – victory over the garage and its team of junk, filth, and disorder.

Two team members come from local high schools through a program called EBCE. EBCE stands for EveryBody Can Execute – and so that’s exactly what this crew does! Actually it stands for Experience Based Career Education but all that matters is that Matt Storrs and Desny Guerrier follow rule #22 – “go big or don’t be my friend”. Matt is spending his time on: 1. Entrepreneur Profile Wall – showcasing our rockstars including the likes of Steve Jobs (Apple), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google), and Jack Welch (GE). 2. Graphics Design Desny has a niche focus on the arts and will be solely dedicated to making Awesome Inc more awesome looking by painting our logo all over the place and designing a giant mural for the art studio.

Our ace in the hole this semester is David McGee. David tweets like his life depends on it. Our online reputation lies in the hands of this young social media expert. His primary focus will be Awesome Inc’s online presence, more specifically: 1. Online Social Media for Awesome Inc – twitter, facebook, etc 2. Website Content 3. Building Community

No team is complete without a video highlights reel. That is where Walker Miller, Henry Clay High School senior, comes into play. Walker can simultaneously record a shoot, mix a soundtrack, and render transitions, all while making himself a sandwich. Walker’s primary focus this semester is to develop Awesome Inc’s video presence into something that Paramount Pictures will be begging to acquire within the calendar year.

Rounding up team alpha are three big names – two more from the University of Kentucky, Hilary Perrine, recent grad and Josh Strange, computer science genius and one from East Jessamine High, Madeline Knoblett. Hilary, Josh, and Madeline are focusing on the mobileX conference series and assisting with marketing, planning, and website development. They don’t let the fact that no one has ever pulled off five mobile conferences in a two month span in various cities throughout the Midwest before even phase them. They just execute. Period.

We have a don’t ask, don’t tell policy at Awesome Inc – don’t ask for extensions and don’t tell me any excuses. Its business 101 – keep a low FF (flakey factor) and a low SS (crap to substance ratio). It all goes back to rules #21 and #76.

So – if you’re part of team alpha, that means you’re launching a series of conferences, building a media conglomerate, inventing a hall of fame…or doing something else equally as Awesome. If you have the guts to follow rule #22 and are interested in being part of the team, we’re accepting applications at: http://awesomeinc.org/information/team-alpha/

Special shout outs to last semester’s team alpha for creating the environment and culture that promotes excellence -

Eric Prince, Chase Bullock, Sarah Frank, and Simeon Kondev.

As I look back on the tools we’ve used to motivate people thus far, we really haven’t used much of #1 or #2, and in the classic sense, we haven’t done much with #3 either.  I’d like to say that the main reason we have yet to use these tools as motivators is because we don’t have the money to, but the more I look at it, the more I realize that we haven’t done a very significant step.  One of the most important things that needs to be in place before we can start rewarding people via #1, #2, or #3, or ringing our victory bell is that we have to have clear metrics/measurements of their success.



At Gray Construction it’s very simple:  One ring for every million dollars of a closed contract.  At Awesome Inc. each person is working on a different project (The Interactive Touchscreen in Labs, The Awesome Inc. Experience, The Awesome Space, events, and then you have the individual companies) and while each company has clear goals and milestones, we have yet to pick which ones are important enough to be celebrated or rewarded with a party, a bell ringing, or anything else.  We need to define ‘celebratable’ success for each department or project. Maybe we should only ring it for every million dollars we make as well?  The point is we have to define which success should get celebrated before we can start throwing parties just yet.



Up to this point we have done a very good job with giving people recognition informally in weekly meetings, or giving small gifts or (and this is hands down the most important and most effective) being frequently and sincerely appreciative of people’s help. But as we move forward, we need to crystallize our definition(s) of success so we can apply more principles of motivation to encourage it…and so do you, that is, if you expect to motivate your team towards awesomeness as well.



Just remember that when you do throw that party, follow rule #17…

“Bring the Fun”

Winners are the ones who fail.

Failures are the ones who never play.
First, the best podcasts on entrepreneurship are the ones found at Stanford’s Entrepreneur Corner, or e-corner (http://ecorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html). Speakers for Stanford’s Entrepreneur Seminar Series include such high profile people as Carly Fiorina (former HP CEO), Steve Balmer (Microsoft CEO), and Mark Zuckerberg (facebook founder & CEO). However, one of the best talks I’ve heard in this series (and I’ve listened to at least half of the 100+ lectures) is by the director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program - Tina Seelig. She teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford and gave a talk on how to do this well.

The part from the lecture that stuck out to me the most was how much she encouraged failure. The ratio of your successes to failures is probably going to stay the same, so the path to more successes is more failures. The same is true in so many other things in life - the salesman with the most sales has probably been told ‘no’ the most, the baseball player with the most hits probably has the most strikeouts, the musician with the most hit singles probably has more “dud” songs than other musicians…and the person with the most successful company has probably had more failed companies and more failures within their current company than the person with the mediocre company.

So, if failure is so important to success, then why don’t people do it? The same reason they don’t go skydiving or ride rollercoasters…the perception of danger. 99.99% of the time, going skydiving or riding in a rollercoaster will not kill you or even hurt you. But people see what could happen and this keeps them from doing it. To a much lesser degree, people don’t embrace failure in life because of the perceived pain as well. Getting shot down by a girl at a bar doesn’t actually physically harm you or put you in danger in any way. Neither does being rejected when selling a product, or putting together an event that nobody shows up to. It’s just not worth the perceived danger or the damage to our egos or feelings.

How do you fight this? How do you create a culture that embraces and celebrates failures? We don’t know yet, but here at Awesome Inc. we must figure it out if we want to build a culture full of winners. This is what we’ve done so far:

- Go Big Friday - fail big every Friday. The risk must have a massive potential upside for you and a very high likelihood of failure. It must be at least somewhat relevant to your personal goals (i.e. contact the president of the most successful company in town and ask to meet with them). Twitter hashtag: #gobigfriday. Website: www.throughfailure.com

- The Failure Dashboard - a large whiteboard in the middle of our break room where you record your failure & the lesson you learned from it. Awards will be given monthly for the largest failure and the highest number of failures each month.
What ideas do you have that would help create a culture that encourages trying new things and embraces failure as a tool to reach success?

That’s right…six new innovation-driven Kentucky companies started by lunch. Not a bad morning’s work. Ten additional entrepreneurs signed-up for vouchers to start their company within the next 90 days.



This was the outcome of a Start-up Slam held in Lexington on Friday, November 20th at Awesome Inc. Start-up Slams are a new experiment of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation (KSTC) and its partners – the Cabinet for Economic Development’s Department of Commercialization and Innovation and the Council on Postsecondary Education…as part of an ongoing strategy to build new entrepreneurial companies in the State. Slams bring together entrepreneurs and business professionals in a high-energy setting to learn, network and start innovation-driven companies.



A similar event was held in October in Louisville at the Louisville Science Center and one is scheduled for Northern Kentucky on March 19, 2010 at NKU’s Center for Entrepreneurship. A potential 25 to 30 new companies could be started as a result of just the Louisville and Lexington events alone. Slams are now in the works for Eastern and Western Kentucky as well.



For additional information or to learn more about the Start-Up Slams, click here or contact Matt McGarvey at (859) 233-3502 ext. 240 or mmcgarvey at kstc.com.

Startup Weekend is coming to Lexington for the 2nd year in a row on Nov 20-22, 2009. Startup Weekend is a 54 hour startup event that provides networking, resources, and incentives for individuals and teams to go from idea to launch. It is all about building community, starting companies and ultimately following rule #22 – “go big or don’t be my friend”. Everyone who attends Startup Weekend goes big in the sense that they commit to making strides towards turning their idea into a company in less than three days. The event is intentionally limited in structure to allow for participants to spend most of their time “doing work”. The primary purpose of Startup Weekend is to DO SOMETHING. Spend very little time talking about your idea and most of the time doing something toward launching your idea.



There are two major benefits to attending Startup Weekend. First is the networking opportunity - You will meet local developers, innovators, business leaders, and entrepreneurs. Over the course of the three day event, meaningful relationships are built and valuable connections are made. The second benefit is to harness the power of community. We expect about 75 participants to attend Startup Weekend this year. So instead of working on your latest ground-breaking idea in the basement of your house, join a bunch of other like-minded individuals at Startup Weekend. For the same reason that people are more motivated while working out at a gym, participants at Startup Weekend reap the benefits of working among a group of other motivated individuals.



Startup Weekend was started in 2007 by Andrew Hyde. The program has traveled to over 52 cities and 12 countries. The program is now run by Marc Nager and Clint Nelson out of Seattle, WA. This year’s event in Lexington is part of Global Entrepreneurship week. Lexington is one of seven cities hosting a Startup Weekend during the weekend of Nov 20th.





Last year’s event had about 65 attendees and 8 companies were formed. One of those companies is called Uvestor. Led by John Williamson, Uvestor is a real estate communication platform where investors, real estate agents, brokers, and landlords can be connected instantly. Uvestor turned out to be such a success that John now runs the company full time.



Get more info at http://lexington.startupweekend.org



Event Details
Date/Time: Friday, Nov 20 6pm – Sunday, Nov 22 7pm
Location: Awesome Inc – 348 East Main Street, Lexington, KY 40507
Cost: $40, includes 7 meals and a t-shirt. Send me an email and I’ll get you a 50% off discount – brian at awesomeinc.org
Register: http://lexington.startupweekend.org/tickets ]]> http://awesomeinc.org/2009/11/17/startup-weekend-lexington-09/feed/ http://awesomeinc.org/2009/10/16/climate-of-awesomeness/ http://awesomeinc.org/2009/10/16/climate-of-awesomeness/#comments Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:39:02 +0000 admin http://awesomeinc.org/?p=1188 By Nick Such

Inventors, idea people, and entrepreneurs converged in Lexington this evening for the 5^th annual Inventors Conference hosted by the Central Kentucky Inventors Council (CKIC.org). The team from Awesome Labs stopped by to talk to gather feedback on the Interactive Touch Screen and our upcoming Engineering Entrepreneurship program. The folks from the CKIC did an excellent job of bringing together a host of local innovators. They showcased products ranging from innovative pet housing, to solar powered jackets, our friend Ken’s novel air purification system, Bill Cloyd’s increasingly popular Newton’s Attic program, and even the pre-collegiate stars of PLD Robotics.

The day began with an early morning at the Lexington Central Library. At 5:15am, about 15 exhibitors and CKIC members talked with Lee Cruse from LEX18 to promote the evening’s event. Everyone reconvened at 6pm, when Don Skaggs, President of the CKIC, kicked off the evening’s festivities with a video showcasing inventors and an introduction to the theme “Climate of Innovation”. This led into presentations from Nick with the Lexington Public Library and Gordon Garrett from the Small Business Development Center, culminating in the keynote address from Louis Foreman, renowned inventor and entrepreneur.

The conference’s common thread, as eluded to by “Climate of Innovation”, is that the recession environment is a great time to start a technology-based business. While this bodes well for Awesome Labs on the surface level, this assertion comes with a few cautionary notes:

1. Problem before solution. If there is no need for your product, you won’t succeed. Utilize free resources (like libraries, biz dev centers) for this research.

2. Revenue must exceed expenses. You will not survive if this fails.

3. Tailor your product to your customers. This means you must take the time to get to know your customers, and that you need to find a way for your customers to get to know your product.

While these are undoubtedly not original thoughts on the innovation commercialization process, it was helpful to have them laid out again. We inventors tend to fall in love with our ideas, while ignoring all the free resources we have available. The best (read: my favorite) advice of the night came via a video featuring the innovation manager from WD-40: failure is good. Accepting that one idea has failed means that you have gotten one step closer to success. It is far worse to deny failure, and attempt to follow through with a lousy idea.

So, here’s to failure, early and often, in the pursuit of Awesomeness.

- iPhone Development or “Welcome to Crazyville, Population YOU” - Nicholas Holland - #bcn09crazyville
Nick came to Awesome Inc’s Mobile miniConference this summer and we hung out again during Nashville Startup Weekend.  His iPhone app Mobile Assassins was a year in the making so I’m interested to hear all the ups and downs he’s experienced in the past twelve months.  If it took that long to get this app in the store, he’s probably faced every hurdle there is.

On Tuesday I went up to Cincinnati for one of the first Cincy Coworks day of coworking.  I realized the strength and vibrancy of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky entrepreneurial culture a few weeks ago at In One Weekend, but I hadn’t seen a semi-permanent gathering of people getting together to do their own thing…until now.  I ended up at Venue 222 around noon, not knowing at all what I’d find.

I was quickly and pleasantly surprised to see art on the walls, a ping pong table upstairs, and a bunch of cool people doing awesome stuff. Here are just a few of them:

Gerard Sychay & Bill Barnett - These guys are the founders of Cincy Coworks - which right now is an occasional gathering of freelancers doing their own thing.  Their “mission as a professional community hub is to transform how people in Cincinnati with ideas get together and make the region a better place to live.”  I got to sit on some bean bags with them for awhile and talk about…you guessed it….Awesome stuff!  In this case that ended up being the visions we had for the things we were doing and why we were doing them.  These guys are both trying to do something that will really benefit their community and they’re doing it for the ‘right’ reasons.  Hats off fellas!

Chris - After mentioning some of the things we’re doing at Awesome Labs, Chris insisted that I check out a hackerspace close by called Hive13. Really cool looking place with some neat toys. Thanks for taking the time to drive me over there Chris!

Everyone that ever worked at zipscene.com - Actually I just met Colin. Gerard works there too, but I already told you about him

Krista from Bootcamp Mobile (among other things) - Krista and I had already met a few times before, so it was a pleasant surprise to get to see her again.  We connected first while I was reaching out to local mobile experts for the Mobile miniConference we had this summer, and then I got to hang out with her again at InOneWeekend.

There were plenty more people there, and overall the event was a huge success and a great time.  Thanks Gerard and Bill and keep up the good work.  Just don’t forget Rule #4 - Always do something awesome over something not awesome!

Last month I went to up to UC for a couple days to start a company.  Yes…start a company in a few days…a weekend to be exact.  Apparently, I’m not the only person crazy enough to do this - there were 100+ other people there that planned on doing the same thing.  And, just to clear up some confusion:
- No - We didn’t know each other
- No - We didn’t know how we were going to make money
- No - We didn’t have a business plan
- No - WE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT BUSINESS WE WERE GOING TO START

The only thing we all knew is that we were sure we’d have something by the end of the day on Sunday.  Fortunately, Elizabeth Edwards (@eedwards), Bill Cunningham, Steve Boord, and Dr. Jeff Stamp had done this before last year.  It was the second annual InOneWeekend event.

So how do you go about getting 100 people to make something from nothing in two and a half days?  Well, I don’t really know for sure, but I did learn this:

- Organized chaos is unavoidable and necessary.

I mean both words.  Organized AND chaos.  Jeff and Elizabeth had a “plan” throughout the weekend.  It started with teaching, and then ideation, and then consistent updates on the project’s progress.  All weekend long we were trying to hit benchmarks and timelines.  However, Jeff was careful not to make the decisions himself or to force us to do anything specific…which meant we spent A LOT of time not having a clue what we were going to do.  I probably heard “I don’t know what we’re doing” about 1,428 times.  The good part is that this confusion and lack of complete clarity didn’t keep people from participating.  The participation, of course added to the confusion and the chaos (if you add 100 people’s two cents up, you’ve got more than pocket change…and a lot of pennies to count) but it ended up creating a REALLY well thought through idea.  No angle hadn’t been considered.  So once we were able to go…we really took off, which made me realize…

- Deciding on what you are going to do is at least half the battle

We started thinking about ideas at around 6 or 7pm on Friday and still hadn’t started “working” in the traditional sense over 24 hours later.  We didn’t even have a name until Saturday night.  BUT once we did clarify what our idea was going to be (Dipidee - a last minute local deal finder for services - i.e. sporting events) we made an amazing amount of progress.  The idea had been scrutinized and clarified so much that when all 100 people were cut loose to start working on it they knew exactly what they were working on.  How far we got by Sunday was what really surprised me the most though…

- It’s amazing what can happen when people set “unrealistic” goals

Yep, 100 people that didn’t know each other or what they were going to do ultimately were able to put together thorough market research, financials, screen shots, basic back end functionality, a logo, and even a short commercial.  It was impressive to say the least, and I really am glad that people like the folks at Neyer Holdings are out there encouraging us to do something we wouldn’t have thought possible if we were doing it all by ourselves…especially not in one weekend.

So sign up for Dipidee to find out more about how this “experiment turned company” grows.

Dipidee - Jump on it!

http://www.dipidee.com/

For three days every year, some of the most brilliant innovators in the world converge in Louisville, KY to attend The Idea Festival - a TED-esque conference that comes in the form of a series of lectures and performances by leaders in all areas of left and/or right-brained professions.  I decided to join them this year to answer one seemingly simple question:  “Why?”



Unfortunately, I found out very quickly that  “Why?” was actually one of the most complex questions I could have asked.  Each person I spoke to had a different answer.  Some were from the University of Kentucky Gaines Fellowship Program or the UK Chellgren Undergraduate Fellows Program.  Some of these students were simply there to broaden their perspective, while others had specific interests in a certain lecture as they pertained to research they were doing.  The University of Louisville School of Medicine had several students attend as well.  Some were attending as musicians interested in hearing Dr. Kogan - a world-renowned psychiatrist and pianist.  Others were attending as clinicians hoping for a balanced life, wanting to hear how Dr. Kogan has successfully pulled off juggling two careers.  The list, of course, goes on.  There were several hundred people in attendance…I only got to ask thirty or so…



…But then there’s the event organizers themselves.  Kris Kimel of the Kentucky Science & Technology Corporation, the conference’s organizer, often answers this “Why?” question with answers like: “to share ideas”, “to make ideas open and available to people”, “to make ideas open source”.  Hmm…no attendees talked like this?



At first glance it sounded like the reason people came to the conference and the reason the conference was put on were different.  This is not unusual.  Oftentimes people come together to make a transaction for completely different reasons.  We go to McDonald’s to buy a hamburger because we’re hungry.  The people that work at McDonald’s are there to make you a hamburger because they want to make money - nothing wrong with that…because everyone ultimately gets what they want.  However, in this case I found that the desires of the organizers and the attendees ultimately did come together if you asked “Why?” and listened long enough.



Why do the organizers put it on?  So that people can share unique realizations (i.e. Dr. Kogan sharing his discovery that Tchaikovsky was most likely clinically depressed through studying his letters, journals, and music)…or not so unique realizations but from a unique perspective (i.e. A.J. Jacobs learning about the importance of focus by Unitasking for four months).  Why do they want to do this?  So that others can hear about them.  Why do they want others to hear about them?  Well that’s where the desires of the organizers meet the motives of its attendees.



The Idea Festival is not about ideas.



Why do people show up?  It’s not simply to be exposed to a new thought, something they’ve never considered before.  Yes, it’s interesting to know that possums have 13 nipples (thanks Mr. Jacobs) but having this piece of knowledge shared with me isn’t why Kris Kimel and his wonderful staff spend all year preparing for this event.  The point of the Idea Festival is to create inspired ideas, that do teach us something but ultimately will change our behavior in a way that benefits the world.



Dr. Kogan played the piano beautifully and I was thoroughly interested in his stories about Tchaikovsky’s personal, professional, and mental life, but what I ultimately took from his playing and his presentation is the realization and the intention that I too can choose to inspire, educate, and entertain the world in ways that “fit” my interests and talents - no matter how unique.  Mr. Jacobs gave me the idea AND the inspiration to spend a month living with my grandparents, something I’ve always wanted to do but thought was too ‘crazy’ of an idea to try.  After hearing about his experiences with living biblically for a year, reading the whole Encyclopedia Britannica, and becoming a woman - taking some time “off” with no other purpose but to learn didn’t sound nearly as impossible or unreasonable.



An Idea doesn’t make the world a better place and everyone that attends or puts on the Idea Festival knows that.  But an idea coming from a person that embodies its principles can ultimately catalyze someone to take action on it in a way that motivates them to change their world.  That’s what the Idea Festival is ACTUALLY about.  Unfortunately for me, the “Inspired Ideas Festival” doesn’t have nearly as nice of a ring to it <

Last Saturday Awesome Labs had their first official event in conjunction with the Central Kentucky Inventors Council and Newton’s Attic called “Invention Saturday”.  The idea was to build a Rube Goldberg machine in a single day, and it had its genesis from the concept of Startup Weekend, where a group of people get together and start a business in the course of a weekend. A little over a dozen people showed up on Saturday morning, ranging in age from 18 to 80 and after a breakfast of Dunkin Donuts, we got to work coming up with what the machine would do and the overly complex series of steps necessary to get it to accomplish this task. Eight hours later we were able to open a door and after six or seven crazy steps, turn on a light bulb. I learned a lot about physics and mechanical engineering that day but I also learned three important things about making ideas into a reality - whether it’s a business, a Rube Goldberg machine, or a ground vehicle aerodynamic-enhancing truck modification (another current Awesome Labs project).

When it’s low cost & low risk, pull the trigger before you’re “ready”. Brandon, one of the UK engineering students that participated in I.S. found some steel cage material and a ball and had the idea of putting in a 3-dimensional ‘kerplunk’ type apparatus similar to The Price Is Right game show. With those 2 objects he decided that was what he would build, and so he just started building. If he would have waited and planned out exactly all the materials he needed, he never would have finished it by the end of the day, because the way it had to interface with all the other things around it had not been determined yet (what would be directly before it? what would follow?).  He had to continually adapt to what he was doing in order to make it fit everything around him. The same is true of any idea. Start working on it now and be ready to change the peripheral details about how you get it done…because those are always in flux.

Getting simple things done consistently is hard. Christopher and Andrew, two other UK students had a very simple idea: have a cylinder swing and knock a hammer backwards, and then have that hammer knock a ball over as it swung forwards again. Seems really easy, but getting this right took A LOT of tinkering, and if it didn’t work it killed the whole machine right away…as it was one of the first steps. The lesson here is don’t procrastinate on the ’simple’ parts of your idea because you think they’ll be easy and take no time.  Odds are it will end up being much more difficult than you think.

Old people + Young people = Awesome people.
There is a lot of talk about how important diversity is and for the most part I disagree with it because when it’s implemented, it is usually diversity for diversity’s sake. However, when everyone is excited about working towards a common goal together, having a range of ages and experiences really comes out in how well things get done and the opportunity for teaching that goes on. Bill Cloyd, owner of Newton’s Attic (a company that offers interesting educational experiences…like this one) was able to offer help and ideas to some of the engineering students there and the students were really glad to be surrounded by professional engineers, inventors, physicists, etc.  The give and take was very apparent…not only in the moral but in the results.

So, in eight hours we pulled it off and made something really easy into something really complicated…but we also managed to learn the importance of an itchy trigger finger, the complexity of simplicity, and the importance of team diversity when trying to do something Awesome!

The ‘hotspots’ of entrepreneurship in your community are simultaneously isolated and integrated.  When I first arrived at the Dublin Entrepreneur Center (the DEC) I was surprised at how little there was surrounding it.  It wasn’t on or near a commercialized strip or even restaurants.  At first this struck me as a particularly undesirable thing (since my organization - which is my only frame of reference - is on Main Street in downtown Lexington), but as I walked through the space and met some of the thriving companies inside, it began to make much more sense.

Parking was plentiful and not crowded, the lack of ‘distractions’ surrounding the building set it apart as a place where you come to do value-creating work, and the space inside allowed companies to move grow much more easily than if they were having to jump from one office to another around downtown.

Avitae, a startup that makes caffeinated water, took advantage of this exact situation and slowly expanded its operation one office at a time on the 4th floor until they had outgrown the remaining space on that floor and had to move…down to the 3rd floor.  How convenient!

At the same time, despite this apparent ‘isolation’ when I walked inside the DEC there were people in your community working together openly and connecting with each other.  I had no trouble meeting people, as many of them were coming up to introduce themselves to me (Kevin Dwinnell of Brand Thunder introduced himself to me right off the elevator)!  Also, I quickly found out that not only were they physically connected in how everyone seemed to know everyone, they were also incredibly networked digitally.  Super connectors like both Ben (@bblanquera) & Sandy (@sblanquera) Blanquera, as well as Rocky Vanbrimmer (@rockson), Jody Dzuranin (@jodyncolumbus), and Jon Myers (@jonmyers) are all connected via social media and seem to really be able to pull together a social gathering of any kind.  Also, the physical layout of the community is connected to each other as well.  I visited  the TechColumbus incubator and the coworking spaces in the area and they all seemed to be right in the heart of the action.

The city is really supportive of what’s going on financially and logistically. Willie Neumann’s 14ninetytwo program (a ycombinator-esque bootcamp/investment fund for entrepreneurs in the mobile and/or web space) is being supported on all levels by local government and community members.  At the event he talked about 14NinetyTwo’s Weekend of Discovery that was scheduled to begin the next day and it sounded like he had put together a great program.

Your community is thriving, both in size and energy.  The DEC is HUGE!  The number of companies in there, the average size of companies, etc. are all impressive.  Also, the number of places that house these communities is much larger than I realized.  As I mentioned, I stopped by TechColumbus and all three coworking spaces in town on my visit.  I spent a  considerable amount of time at Sandbox with David Hunegnaw (@hunegnaw) and Tina Goodman (@tinagoodman) and was really impressed by their enthusiasm and genuine care for the creative and entrepreneurial community of Columbus as a whole (not just of their specific coworking space).



I also stopped by Indiehouse and Qwirk to see how they were setup.  Everyone was very welcoming and it seems like the coworking ‘environment’ on a whole is rapidly trending upwards, as each shop has similar stories and timelines of growth.

The energy of your city also shows itself in the turnouts it has for its events. Jon Myers’s launch party for his his company’s first iPhone app Cornhole Allstars was well attended, and both Columbus Startup Weekend events had some of the highest turnouts I’ve ever heard. Hats off to all the people that have contributed to and been a part of this growing, welcoming, and energetic community. A special thanks to Ben and Sandy Blanquera, & Rick Copland for their help in making sure I was able to get as thorough picture of the Columbus technological, creative, and startup communities in 24 short hours!

- Luke Murray,  Awesome Inc.



Rule #17 Bring the fun.



P.S.  A blog summary of the Local iPhone and Mobile Innovation & Development event, as well as a video interview of Jon Myers, Adam Winter (Joe Metric - great idea, btw), and myself can be found here courtesy of Sandy.  http://columbustech.blogspot.com/2009/08/local-iphone-innovation-cornhole.html

The Silvacola Farm provided a nice relaxed setting to enjoy cocktails, excellent food, and priceless networking time with some of the most accomplished and esteemed individuals in the Bluegrass. The Forge community is represented by a wide diversity of individuals ranging from first time business owners to seasoned professionals.

Networking and great food aside, Forge invites a guest speaker to each event to give a brief talk about their achievements in business. For this event, Drew Curtis the founder of Fark.com was invited to speak. Curtis is the author of the Amazon bestseller, It’s Not News, It’s FARK: How Mass Media Tries to Pass off Crap as News.



Fark.com is a news aggregator and an edited social networking news site. According to the site, it receives 2,000 or so news submissions daily from its readership. The site was the first indie blogs to earn one million dollars a year in profit. Curtis has been featured in Business 2.0 and similar publications highlighting his success and accomplishments.



Despite the huge success of Fark.com, Curtis to this day lives and runs his business from Lexington, Ky. Curtis explained the cost benefit of living and working in Lexington versus relocating to the Valley or similar communities. Drew explained the importance of the community and its relaxed culture that surrounds business startups. He talked about the absence of this notion to “hurry up and fail” so that you can move on to your next venture. The culture in the Bluegrass allows you to take your time and grow your business at a much more relaxed pace.



Curtis went on to explain that Lexington really isn’t as disconnected as people claim. If he were to receive a call at 7:30 one evening he could realistically be on the West Coast by the next morning for a meeting. The low cost of living in Lexington allows him to expand at a much greater rate for significantly less money.



Overall, one can conclude that the Bluegrass is a great place to start and maintain a business. The low cost of living and demand for innovative jobs allow entrepreneurs to expand their businesses and prosper much quicker than in most other regions of the country.



Forge Lexington truly is a unique gathering of entrepreneurs, investors, innovators, thought leaders and supporters of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. I urge any entrepreneurs or investors reading this blog to attend the next Forge event to discover its true value and worth.