Conference Call with Mike Piper

Great call with Mike, it gave me a much better understanding of the process we will need to go through in order to make this venture successful.  Wow, that was a lot of info to digest.  Even going through the notes below is pretty cumbersome.  I am first giving my overall reaction to the call, then below that I have detailed notes of our Q&A.  Take a deep breath and get ready…

Summary of my analysis after the call:

Advantages of our Frugal Book idea:

• We have a straight-forward topic that potentially appeals to many people
• We can easily search and find ideas for generating creative content for the book
• We both have a good working (and successful) understanding of the material we are covering

Challenges with our idea:

• Will need to create a successful blog in our topic area
• Will need to convince readers (as well as other bloggers) that our material is worth buying and contains significant value over what readers can find on other blogs or through internet searches

My quick analysis of book topics in general:

• Evaluating the viability of a topic (I am doing my best below to break down each model here)
  • Mike’s Tax Topics:
    • Complex topics, niche target (people that want to do their own taxes) with objective answer/solutions –> Mike is compiling answers and simplifying it in a short resource book
  • Mike’s Investing Topics:
    • Complex topics, broad subject with subjective answers/solutions –> Mike is compiling data and proposing a viewpoint for a solution
  • Our Frugality Topic:
    • Simple to moderate complexity of topics, broad subject with subjective answers/solutions –> We are attempting to compile proven ideas/solutions to saving money and presenting as a quick resource guide that guarantees results
  • Our Job Interview Topic:
    • Moderate to Complex Topics, niche subject (sales jobs) with subjective/objective answers/solutions –> We are compiling the most common questions and presenting researched answers/solutions to them
• Of the topics above, the tax topic lends itself best to this business model and surprisingly, the job interview muse (and possibly a book?) actually looks pretty good on paper…

Action Steps for us to make a book successful:

1. Create a website to market the book
2. Write book
3. Format book
4. Send it out to proofreaders (7-8 people)
5. Revise Changes
6. Design Cover (outsource this)
7. Convert to PDF and send to Lightning Source
8. Approve the proof (will eventually show up on Amazon)
   1. Amazon publishing can take from 2 days to 2 months
9. Find people to review the book on Amazon

Notes: Steps 3-8 may take a couple months

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Q&A Notes

The rest of the info below are notes from the conversation with Mike:

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JetSet Life Interview

An amazing example of what creating a successful muse allows.  The most impressive and inspiring thing to me from this interview was Melissa’s answer to the question: What do you have coming up next year?  This is not your typical 20-something year old’s response:

I plan to find a contract job in London for 6 months or so to learn how to live independently and get to know the city better as someone who lives here rather than a tourist. After that, I would like to learn Italian and perhaps get an outdoors job there during summer. I will probably go back to Australia to work on the next growth stages of the business and after that, possibly move to New York.

Simply awesome.  I would love to be able to have a similar answer to an open ended question like this.  The full interview is here:

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This month’s 20 questions is a case study in Jet Set Living. This girl is the real deal. Kim and I met Melissa in a random chance meeting outside a club in Mykonos at 7am. She said “I think I follow you guys on Twitter“. What has evolved since then is a fantastic case study of how you can have a muse in place, abandon the deferred living concept and live a life of total excitement.

Background: Melissa was born Melissa O’Young in Australia and lived in Sydney until she was 23. When in Sydney, she got a degree in Commerce (Finance and Marketing). Afterward, she worked in marketing for 2 years at Unilever.

Feeling suffocated following the conventional path of buying a place, accumulating a mortgage and focusing on the next promotion. She opted instead to abandon comfortability and complacency. She quit her job, bought a one-way ticket to London and threw her self out of her comfort zone to see how she would react.

So many questions…….

1. Why does a girl with a perfectly good life in Sydney suddenly quit her job and buy a one way ticket to London?

I wasn’t inspired by anything anymore and every day that went past seemed to be the same. I didn’t want to use my savings to buy a place and accumulate a mortgage, as I knew I would trap myself in Sydney for awhile. You’re only young once and it was the perfect time to do something like this. I have been influenced my whole life by the society that has shaped me and I admit that I was a bit sheltered. So, I thought it would be interesting to see what I’m like without the influence of those taking care of me.

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Follow up with Mike Piper

I had told Mike about several of my ideas and he sent me the following email after our interview:

• BuildFingerStrength.com is available :)Also, the sites that I read for ideas on search engine marketing are seomoz.org and seobook.comHere’s a pretty good resource for beginning to learn SEO: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/rewriting-the-beginners-guide-the-outlineWas good talking to you. Seriously, please do keep me updated as things come along. I’m eager to hear, and I’d be happy to help whenever possible.

MY REPLY:

• Awesome Mike, thank you so much for ‘opening the door’ in the first place by taking action and showing me that you can actually succeed.I will definitely be keeping you in the the loop, as i hope you will do the same for me.  Lets see who can quit their job first!  The race is on!-Mike NewtonP.S. do you even consider investing anymore?  I mean, hell, you turned about $1300-$1500 approximate cost for ISPN #’s and book expenses to about $20K+ annually?  It would take $400K in conservative investments to equal that.  Thoughts?

MIKES REPLY:

My last day was Nov 21. I win! 😛 The business income definitely doesn’t replace the job income yet. But, due to the business’s income over the last year, we have about 9 months of living expenses saved in cash. And, as you said, the return on investment is nuts. (Essentially, if you consider my foregone job income–plus benefits–as the opportunity cost of the income stream I’m building, it’s a no-brainer.)

And, no, over the last year we’ve just saved everything as cash for exactly the reason you stated. That said, once the business income is greater than our expenses, I do see us going back to funding the IRAs etc.

Newton: Really, you left on November 21st?  Any particular reason?  I’d be very interested to know!  The IRA’s certainly make sense after that, especially for tax purposes.  I guess congratulations are in order on leaving, great job good sir!

Piper: Nope, there was no reason that the 21st was the magical date or anything like that. Kali and I just decided that we had enough cash saved up that it made sense for me to try working the business full-time (at least for a while) to see how much I could grow the income from it.

Newton: pardon my french, but you are *&^%%$ awesome.  that is so encouraging Mike, congratulations on making it this far.  If you had been busting your ass on this project, how quick do you think you would have been able to get to this point?  I remember you saying you were working super passively/part time.

If you wrote a book a month and put them up on Amazon, what would happen?  I know it takes a while for the books to get selling, but how could I speed up the process?

Piper: Hmm.. Great question. It’s hard to say exactly. The first book took a long time because I had to figure out how to make a website, how to format a book, find a printing company, etc. (Oh, another thing I just realized I originally outsourced was the cover art. I was pretty happy with how it went. That said, I’m now doing my own just so that I can make changes easily whenever I want.) And yes, I was working on it very part-time.

As to putting a book up on Amazon per month, I guess my question would be whether or not that’s even the most effective way. I feel like what I’m learning right now is that each product has provided less revenue than the one before. I almost just wish I’d stuck with 1 or 2 products and really just cranked at drawing in traffic to the website.)

….Alternatively, if they were about totally separate topics, it might have worked better. The problem now is that it’s one website about taxes, and it has to draw in enough traffic to start and keep three books selling. It might have gone better if it was one book and site about taxes, another book and site about some totally different topic, etc.

As to actual timeline, it depends a lot on the type of product. Are you specifically considering books like I’m doing? (There’s a lot of pros about it, but a lot of stuff that sucks also…)

Newton: I would probably have many different subjects.  I wonder if it would be better to have 1 website per book?  I thought most of your sales came from Amazon traffic, vs sending people to Amazon from your website.  Or was it that you need people to go from your site to Amazon to get the first sales?  Thoughts?

I am just brainstorming subjects.  They are all over the place.  I will probably stay away from investments and the market.  I might be overly eager to jump in, but if you jump in do it with both feet right?  I just want to try as many things as possible (especially considering the low startup cost) and see which work out.  Anything from the So There I Was… book to the instructional videos, i am ready to run.

Piper: Well, if you don’t have 1 website per book, you at least want a way to completely separate the traffic within the same website. Otherwise you run into the typical sales problem where you present too many options at a time, and the person ends up buying nothing at all.

Yes, most sales (like 90%) come from Amazon’s own traffic. However, I’ve definitely noticed that a slowdown in clicks from my site to Amazon leads to a disproportionately large decline in sales. I suspect it’s a function of how amazon’s recommendation system works. For instance, if in a given week I have a few less sales, it causes me to slip to a lower position on various recommended lists in Amazon (like the “Also bought” or “Ultimately Bought” lists on other products’ pages).

And I’d say yeah go for it and get started. Just pick one of your ideas and go. But make sure to give a product a fair shot before giving up on it. In my experience, things don’t completely take off right away.

One more thought: I’d try to find something that people are actively searching for. It’s (probably) easier than trying to sell entertainment. That is, no matter how entertaining a book may be, what keywords would you want to rank for in Google in order to sell a book like the “So there I was” book? In comparison, it’s pretty easy to figure out what keywords to target if you’re selling a product about making fondant flowers. (That said, I’m sure there are effective ways to market an entertainment product. I just don’t have any experience with them.)

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Follow up with Mike Piper

I had told Mike about several of my ideas and he sent me the following email after our interview:

• BuildFingerStrength.com is available :)Also, the sites that I read for ideas on search engine marketing are seomoz.org and seobook.comHere’s a pretty good resource for beginning to learn SEO: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/rewriting-the-beginners-guide-the-outlineWas good talking to you. Seriously, please do keep me updated as things come along. I’m eager to hear, and I’d be happy to help whenever possible.

MY REPLY:

• Awesome Mike, thank you so much for ‘opening the door’ in the first place by taking action and showing me that you can actually succeed.I will definitely be keeping you in the the loop, as i hope you will do the same for me.  Lets see who can quit their job first!  The race is on!-Mike NewtonP.S. do you even consider investing anymore?  I mean, hell, you turned about $1300-$1500 approximate cost for ISPN #’s and book expenses to about $20K+ annually?  It would take $400K in conservative investments to equal that.  Thoughts?

MIKES REPLY:

My last day was Nov 21. I win! 😛 The business income definitely doesn’t replace the job income yet. But, due to the business’s income over the last year, we have about 9 months of living expenses saved in cash. And, as you said, the return on investment is nuts. (Essentially, if you consider my foregone job income–plus benefits–as the opportunity cost of the income stream I’m building, it’s a no-brainer.)

And, no, over the last year we’ve just saved everything as cash for exactly the reason you stated. That said, once the business income is greater than our expenses, I do see us going back to funding the IRAs etc.

Newton: Really, you left on November 21st?  Any particular reason?  I’d be very interested to know!  The IRA’s certainly make sense after that, especially for tax purposes.  I guess congratulations are in order on leaving, great job good sir!

Piper: Nope, there was no reason that the 21st was the magical date or anything like that. Kali and I just decided that we had enough cash saved up that it made sense for me to try working the business full-time (at least for a while) to see how much I could grow the income from it.

Newton: pardon my french, but you are *&^%%$ awesome.  that is so encouraging Mike, congratulations on making it this far.  If you had been busting your ass on this project, how quick do you think you would have been able to get to this point?  I remember you saying you were working super passively/part time.

If you wrote a book a month and put them up on Amazon, what would happen?  I know it takes a while for the books to get selling, but how could I speed up the process?

Piper: Hmm.. Great question. It’s hard to say exactly. The first book took a long time because I had to figure out how to make a website, how to format a book, find a printing company, etc. (Oh, another thing I just realized I originally outsourced was the cover art. I was pretty happy with how it went. That said, I’m now doing my own just so that I can make changes easily whenever I want.) And yes, I was working on it very part-time.

As to putting a book up on Amazon per month, I guess my question would be whether or not that’s even the most effective way. I feel like what I’m learning right now is that each product has provided less revenue than the one before. I almost just wish I’d stuck with 1 or 2 products and really just cranked at drawing in traffic to the website.)

….Alternatively, if they were about totally separate topics, it might have worked better. The problem now is that it’s one website about taxes, and it has to draw in enough traffic to start and keep three books selling. It might have gone better if it was one book and site about taxes, another book and site about some totally different topic, etc.

As to actual timeline, it depends a lot on the type of product. Are you specifically considering books like I’m doing? (There’s a lot of pros about it, but a lot of stuff that sucks also…)

Newton: I would probably have many different subjects.  I wonder if it would be better to have 1 website per book?  I thought most of your sales came from Amazon traffic, vs sending people to Amazon from your website.  Or was it that you need people to go from your site to Amazon to get the first sales?  Thoughts?

I am just brainstorming subjects.  They are all over the place.  I will probably stay away from investments and the market.  I might be overly eager to jump in, but if you jump in do it with both feet right?  I just want to try as many things as possible (especially considering the low startup cost) and see which work out.  Anything from the So There I Was… book to the instructional videos, i am ready to run.

Piper: Well, if you don’t have 1 website per book, you at least want a way to completely separate the traffic within the same website. Otherwise you run into the typical sales problem where you present too many options at a time, and the person ends up buying nothing at all.

Yes, most sales (like 90%) come from Amazon’s own traffic. However, I’ve definitely noticed that a slowdown in clicks from my site to Amazon leads to a disproportionately large decline in sales. I suspect it’s a function of how amazon’s recommendation system works. For instance, if in a given week I have a few less sales, it causes me to slip to a lower position on various recommended lists in Amazon (like the “Also bought” or “Ultimately Bought” lists on other products’ pages).

And I’d say yeah go for it and get started. Just pick one of your ideas and go. But make sure to give a product a fair shot before giving up on it. In my experience, things don’t completely take off right away.

One more thought: I’d try to find something that people are actively searching for. It’s (probably) easier than trying to sell entertainment. That is, no matter how entertaining a book may be, what keywords would you want to rank for in Google in order to sell a book like the “So there I was” book? In comparison, it’s pretty easy to figure out what keywords to target if you’re selling a product about making fondant flowers. (That said, I’m sure there are effective ways to market an entertainment product. I just don’t have any experience with them.)

Read Full Post »

Amazing Interview with Mike Piper

I had the chance to speak with Mike Piper of Piper Tax yesterday for a good 30 minutes and interview him.  We spoke in depth about publishing books via Amazon, passive income, and many principles from 4HWW.  Here is a summary of my notes form our conversation:

• Mike had trouble monetizing the tutorial b/c Google coundn’t find the file- also couldn’t link out

His biggest takeaways from the 4 Hour Work Week was actually how Tim Ferriss went about promoting that book.  A few key points Mike saw

1. Do guest blogging on other peoples websites when your book comes out (have posts pre-created)
2. That makes the bloggers job easier and allows you to link back to your site to drive traffic
3. Email bloggers 1 chapter of your book and allow them to post it, then talk about it (much easier than sending them the whole book to read which takes too long, plus people can get a taste of the book and go to your site to buy the rest.
4. Coin a phrase and own it (long tail, lifestyle design, etc) that people will adopt virally and associate with you (your concepts that you can bundle into a phrase)

We then talked about his tax books and how they are doing.

• Not suprisingly the first one is doing the best, 2nd one is 2nd, and 3rd one is 3rd- due to how long they have been on the market.  The books follow an exponential curve in that the longer they are out, the more they sell due to other books linking to them on Amazon, more traffic on his website  Simple Subjects, etc.
• Aside from writing the book, everything else is outsourced using Elance: the editing of the book, the cover design, the printing, shipping, and essentially all the sales traffic.  It is literally 100% hands off.
• Aside from having to buy the initial group of ISPN #’s, each book costs approximately $200 for everything above.
• Each book is pulling in about $7500-8000 annually AFTER ALL EXPENSES.
• He said that once google links up to your site and recognizes it, the rest just kind of happens

I then shifted the interview to web traffic and tactics he uses

• He has his tax site setup like a blog, although he doesn’t actively blog on it.
• His new site, The Oblivious Investor,  is up and he does regularly blog on it to bring in active traffic.
• He links out to other blog sites and in turn gets links back to his site which drives traffic.
• He doesn’t pay anything for advertising.  He tried adwords but it doesn’t work well with his site because the sale doesn’t actually happen on his site, it happens on Amazon.  Because of that he can only track traffic up until the point they click through to Amazon.  He can’t track anything beyond that and cannot see who bought from Amazon and who didn’t.
• For the most part, Amazon provides all the traffic due to the sheer volume of people going there (as Mike put it, people are visiting Amazon to buy things and shop in the first place)
• Adwords would work well if you sold straight from your website.  Then you just need to fine tune the search terms to maximize traffic.  But for him, it would take a TON of traffic to equal the amount of sales he gets from Amazon.

I then asked Mike what comes next after he replaces his income.  “I’m not sure what comes next.”  He said he will reach a point of diminishing returns with writing, where it will become more profitable to spend time promoting the existing books instead of writing new ones.

I finished up the conversation by asking him what 2 books he would recommend and he said Bseth godins “the dip” and “the cow”- not a how to but conceptual.

Read Full Post »

Amazing Interview with Mike Piper

I had the chance to speak with Mike Piper of Piper Tax yesterday for a good 30 minutes and interview him.  We spoke in depth about publishing books via Amazon, passive income, and many principles from 4HWW.  Here is a summary of my notes form our conversation:

• Mike had trouble monetizing the tutorial b/c Google coundn’t find the file- also couldn’t link out

His biggest takeaways from the 4 Hour Work Week was actually how Tim Ferriss went about promoting that book.  A few key points Mike saw

1. Do guest blogging on other peoples websites when your book comes out (have posts pre-created)
2. That makes the bloggers job easier and allows you to link back to your site to drive traffic
3. Email bloggers 1 chapter of your book and allow them to post it, then talk about it (much easier than sending them the whole book to read which takes too long, plus people can get a taste of the book and go to your site to buy the rest.
4. Coin a phrase and own it (long tail, lifestyle design, etc) that people will adopt virally and associate with you (your concepts that you can bundle into a phrase)

We then talked about his tax books and how they are doing.

• Not suprisingly the first one is doing the best, 2nd one is 2nd, and 3rd one is 3rd- due to how long they have been on the market.  The books follow an exponential curve in that the longer they are out, the more they sell due to other books linking to them on Amazon, more traffic on his website  Simple Subjects, etc.
• Aside from writing the book, everything else is outsourced using Elance: the editing of the book, the cover design, the printing, shipping, and essentially all the sales traffic.  It is literally 100% hands off.
• Aside from having to buy the initial group of ISPN #’s, each book costs approximately $200 for everything above.
• Each book is pulling in about $7500-8000 annually AFTER ALL EXPENSES.
• He said that once google links up to your site and recognizes it, the rest just kind of happens

I then shifted the interview to web traffic and tactics he uses

• He has his tax site setup like a blog, although he doesn’t actively blog on it.
• His new site, The Oblivious Investor,  is up and he does regularly blog on it to bring in active traffic.
• He links out to other blog sites and in turn gets links back to his site which drives traffic.
• He doesn’t pay anything for advertising.  He tried adwords but it doesn’t work well with his site because the sale doesn’t actually happen on his site, it happens on Amazon.  Because of that he can only track traffic up until the point they click through to Amazon.  He can’t track anything beyond that and cannot see who bought from Amazon and who didn’t.
• For the most part, Amazon provides all the traffic due to the sheer volume of people going there (as Mike put it, people are visiting Amazon to buy things and shop in the first place)
• Adwords would work well if you sold straight from your website.  Then you just need to fine tune the search terms to maximize traffic.  But for him, it would take a TON of traffic to equal the amount of sales he gets from Amazon.

I then asked Mike what comes next after he replaces his income.  “I’m not sure what comes next.”  He said he will reach a point of diminishing returns with writing, where it will become more profitable to spend time promoting the existing books instead of writing new ones.

I finished up the conversation by asking him what 2 books he would recommend and he said Bseth godins “the dip” and “the cow”- not a how to but conceptual.

Read Full Post »

Mark Cuban – What a great example of an entrepreneur

“when I die, I want to come back as me” – Mark Cuban

Great interview with the legend.  It seems like Mark can’t go wrong in anything he does.

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Chris’s comments:

Great interview, I have an infinite amount more respect for this guy after seeing him speak and get interviewed at TC50.  Here are some notable quotes from his interview with Jason Calacanis.

On his past goals:

I “retired” when I was 30. My goal was to drink with as many people in as many countries as possible. I sold a company and all I wanted was a lifetime pass for American Airlines. They had them for $125,000 for two people. I used to go into bars and ask women if they wanted to go on trips.

On ideas:

In the past people used to tell me to shut up a bit. But what I believe is to put out your opinion and let everyone else react. If I’m wrong I’m wrong. People are afraid to put our their opinions and get push back.

On entrepreneurial advice:

Ill tell you what I learned from Bobby Knight: everybody’s got the will to win but when it comes time to doing something, it’s always about someone else. Not many people have the will to prepare. You got to be willing to know your product and environment better than anybody. No matter what you do there is someone out there trying to kick your ass. You got to be the smartest guy in the room about your product. Then you need to have a revenue source. You need a company with a revenue to make money. Concept, competition, and where the money is — plus something you love doing. I’ve never had a day of work. When I die I want to come back as me.

On educating himself:

Pre-internet: stacks of books and magazines. I have PCweek magazines going back 10 years. I would read 2-3 hours per day of regular stuff.

Now online: I need a break because I spend so much time reading. If theres something I get into, I won’t stop. I read a lot of industry trade publications for cable now.

On reaching out to him:

Send me an email and in three paragraphs or less, tell me about your business. Dont say you need an NDA or want a call. Just tell me how youre going to make money and how I’m going to add value. Give me a URL if you have a website, I’ll figure it out. 5% of the people will hear back from me.

On assembling a startup team:

I’ve always been a driver from a tech perspective so it’s been easy to find people who complement me. Finding someone who you trust and who complements you is important. It’s easier to find people you trust who are cheap and can be trained. Believing in the business is important too. The worst place to hire is the Silicon valley because everyone’s a hero in their own mind. There are great people everywhere you can find. The poeple I dont like to work with are people like me. I need people who can compliment my skill set, people who can do the nitty gritty with me. People who will be good verse look good.

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Mike Meinzen Conference Call on Project Mixxer

Conference call took place tonight.  Very infomative overall.  After speaking with him, a lot of light was shed on the what it takes to bring a food/beverage item into chain grocery stores.  The big take away was “Even if you build a great mouse trap, you can’t guarantee the people will come”.  The big challenge will be manufacturing, distribution, and marketing.  It may be a more invovled venture than we originally though.  A more thorough marketing study may be needed to verify the feasibility/profitability of this product.  Below shows our original list of questions, and below them is the answers from Mike in blue font.

-Chris

Question/Topic List

• What is your experience in the food and drink production/processing industry? 
• What are some barriers to entry?
  • Access to quality/cheap water source (raw materials in general)
  • Retailers exist to lease space to vendors (Grocery stores are more of a RE business)
    • kickbacks, forced marketing programs, product placement on shelves
  • Beverage Industry is a very croweded one
  • May have to goto smaller stores
  • Delivery method to stores can be a challenge
  • Cannot assume a good product will be seen by public
    • Established companies will make sure they dominate shelf space
    • This has forced smaller companies to market through the internet, small retailers, etc.
    • Dealing with kickbacks, pecking order (ankle level first)
• In creating a new product, is it wise to consult the help of a professional lab?
  • Find a co-manufacturer to work with, and would be a good idea to private label
  • get manuf, marketing and distribution system in place
• Competition is prevalent in the drink mixer category, we are going to try to differentiate through the use of Sugar Free (only done successfully by one other compeitor – Baja Bob’s) and through strategic marketing?  Is this enough in your estimation?
• Are their any resources to do a peer group study of new product ideas?
• What is your opinion of private labeling an existing product and focusing more on the branding and marketing instead of worring about manufacuturing and quality control issues?
  • Mike has done it with a beer and gave it an Indian name
    • margins were good, tested for 2 years, bottling company when out of buisness
    • Schlafly wants guarantees, etc before working with them
  • Supplying company has to be able to support the volume generated
    
  • Guy in KC has a virtual company, 
    • 3 marketing people, no offices, etc
    • undercuts private labeling competition at SafeWay, Aldi’s, Shop ‘N Save, etc
    • negotiates contracts, made to spec, guarantees pick up times
    • no upfront money tied up in equipment, salaries, RE, etc.
    • uses manufacturers to produce product
  • Would be a good way to start to see what possibilities are
  • Don’t fully expose full nature of idea, just gather info
  • Try to get 2-3 manufacturers to bid on the job

 

Follow up: Conference call with John in near future?  He is attempting to become “the hot dog man of St. Louis”

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Mike Meinzen’s Profile
Relation: Dominique’s Father
Experience: ER Doctor, Owns India’s Rasoi Restaurants, Owns 5 gas stations, Others…
Contact Info: 636.458.4380 (home)  636.346.4851 (mobile)

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Tim Nikolaev Conversation 9/6/08

This is the Tim Nikolaev post for the conversation that will occur 9/6/08.  With the upgrade to WordPress, it will be very easy for us to collaborate on this post by editing and updating it as we go along.  This post will consist of a list of questions that we come up with and the answer that we get and we can keep this as a reference indefinitely.  In the future, we may consider keeping notes of all of our interviews online and building personal profiles for resource and networking purposes. 

 

Question List (preliminary, will adjust as we go)

·     What is your idea in elevator pitch form?

•  
  • We simplify booking complicated travel for groups in many locations. (I didn’t ask this question to Tim but this would be my uneducated version)

·     What inspired the idea?

•  
  • Trying to schedule a group trip with friends from around the globe was a huge burden.  The task usually fell on one person to be in charge of it.  There wasn’t an easy way to check everyone’s calendars without massive quantities of emails/phone calls.  Trying to organize when each persons flight would leave, how everyone could arrive relatively close to each other, what prices were good for each person, etc. was an absolute nightmare. 

·     At what point did you know this was the million dollar idea?

•  
  • After doing research and finding that 40% of travel is still booked through a travel agent.  These types of bookings are usually the difficult multi-person or multi-destination trips with many variables that people are too busy to deal with.  I found out that the margins of commissions are really good on travel sites and no other website is able to do this.  I thought that for large group trips and corporate clients this would be a win.  Orbitz only gives a group discount to 10+ tickets, and even then it says to call or email for details on the discounts.

·     What type of feasibility study have you done to validate your idea?

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  •  I did some research on existing travel sites and they are all very profitable.  I spoke with several people at a TechStars meetup in Boulder, CO that had industry/startup experience and they all thought it was a win.  I also had an in depth conversation with Tyler Crowley at Mahalo and he said it was a definite win, and could be scaled well on top of being private labeled.

·     What resources will you utilize to begin the project?

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  • I will be going after venture capital from VC’s that I meet and partnerships with top entrepreneurs in the Tech community.

·     What form of funding do you plan to utilize to build the business?

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  • VC

·     How will you go about acquiring this type of funding?

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  • Meet VC’s and develop relationships through involvement in Tech Crunch 50 and relationships with people at Mahalo.

·     What is the extent of your knowledge/background in the field (tech?) you are pursuing?

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  • Not very much, I will bring on a TCO to handle most of the tech background/issues

·     How will you look for a staff to build the business?

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  • I will learn as I go, but this type of business isn’t necessarily people intensive.  I learned from a past customer that a good business is one that doesn’t have inventory, a need for large office space, or lots of staff.  With this in mind I would need to start off with myself as CEO, a CTO, and probably 6-8 coders/developers.  Then add sales staff as we build.

• ·     Other helpful notes:

  •  
    • Tim created mockup screen shots to present in a classy binder.  It shows a step by step path through the site with different features that he has considered which show that he has thought through the idea in depth
      • A feature that runs through everyones electronic calenders to find an ideal time to plan the trip
      • A  voting system for people involved that helps select a place (country, city, etc), type (snow, surf, mountains,) accommodations (hotel type, price, etc)
      • When booking the tickets, it would be interactive and show who is taking what flight, when they all arrive in the same airport for meeting up, scheduling tickets so people in different areas have layovers in the same airport/time so they.  That way someone could be on the same flight

·    —————————
Profile:
Tim Nikolaev (Homepage) (Blog)
Experience: Cutco FSM, Worked at Several Small Startups, currently working on a startup
Contact Info: tim@timnikolaev.com

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