Click To Hit

After spending several years catering to it, I still closely watch what’s happening in the domain aftermarket. In the last couple of days there’s been a flurry of activity from a Business 2.0 article on Kevin Ham by Paul Sloan. I think the article’s great since it gives some well deserved credit to Kevin and Colin for the fantastic domain empire they’ve built over the years. Although I never had the opportunity to interact with them directly, I’ve been afforded many an insight into how savvy these guys are from a few of the competitors they and I both dealt with over the years.

An interesting thing occurred since that article was posted, the overwhelming focus seems to be a public backlash on the deal they did with the Cameroon government to wildcard the .CM CCTLD. What this means is that any traffic that goes to an unregistered .CM domain (such as sharedreviews.cm) resolves to a page with advertising hosted by these guys out of Vancouver. Although I won’t comment on the brand infringement that could occur from .com domain typos that I find unsavory, overall it was a shrewd business deal and one that I’m sure many an individual are kicking themselves for not thinking of first.

To me, the biggest benefit in the article is the exposure of the light side of the Direct Navigation search market. With our new startup, companies like Marchex, Hitfarm, Demand Media, and many others who are looking to develop their domains into microportals are great targets for us to license content from our startup in order to generate additional lucrative revenue streams for our community. Take a look at a post I made on our startup blog yesterday that touches on the power of product reviews, and what they can do for anything from ecommerce providers, to corporate sites, or even microportals such as those that Kevin, Marchex, and Demand Media own.

In either event, maybe Mark is right… this may have more to do with reader political affiliation than any real issues with these guys directly

Our Press Release went out this morning almost a day after the site went up, but we wanted the extra padding to make sure we had a chance to implement any last minute changes we wanted to do. [inside Voice] Submit your release for distribution a minimum of 24 hours prior to the timing you’re looking for.[/inside Voice]

A special thanks goes out to John who gave us a hand in refining the text, and another to PRWeb for helping with the initial draft.

You can read the entire press release on PRWeb here and our blog here, but there’s an excerpt for you below

Toronto, ON (PRWEB) May 16, 2007 — SharedReviews.com, a product review marketplace, today announced the launch of its website at www.SharedReviews.com. Beginning early next month, the site will accept reviews from signed up contributors on any retail product, ranging from baby cribs to cell phones and everything in between. Individuals can visit SharedReviews.com now and sign up to participate in the site’s beta contributor release, earning direct cash incentives for the experiences that they submit.

We’ve finally launched our startup SharedReviews.com. We’re all exhausted and a bit wiped from burning the midnight oil trying to ensure everything went smoothly today. So far everything’s gone extremely smooth (knock on wood), but there’s definitely a mental note in there somewhere to invest some additional time prepping before the next launch.

We’ve had some blog exposure that’s helped the generation of consistent signups since we opened the doors late this morning, although we do hope to get even more soon. Such a long road, but we are extremely excited to see all of the positive reactions we’ve received to what we’re trying to do.

Here’s a link to our first corporate blog post. The excerpt is below and I’ll keep posting as more developments happen or when I catch my breath, whichever comes first.

It’s been a longer road than I thought it would be to get to this point (isn’t it always), but we’re finaly here and really look forward to throwing our ideas into your hands for some feedback. I thought long and hard about what to put into this first post and decided to start off with the ideals behind what we are attempting to accomplish before getting into the gritty details of how we plan on doing it…

I’m an avid reader of Guy’s blog and I have to say I’m a huge fan. I’ve posted about how my favorites were his posts on the top ten lists of lies by both VC’s and Entrepreneurs that elicited a few smiles to say the least. Although, there was one thing that kind of perturbed me as I read them. It almost appeared to me that he had a bias against or negative perception of entrepreneurs in general.

Now I’m not saying Guy intended this negative tone on purpose. He was on the other side of the table for many a “pitch” by hungry entrepreneurs, and I’m sure a few of them left their ethics hats in the closet that day incorrectly thinking it would get them closer to achieving their dearly needed capital. Although I never agree with a “ends justifies the means” approach, it does happen with the unexperienced and desperate so I could see how facing it repeatedly could lead to some negative stereotyping.

That’s why I found the newest post on Guy’s blog especially interesting. He’s switched sides and became an entrepreneur himself with a new venture called Truemors. His latest post was about a previous request he made for testers, and a few of the resulting comments that blasted the business idea. His new post basically stated that as an entrepreneur you have to take negative criticism with a grain of salt, and if every entrepreneur believed all the ‘naysayers’ then nothing truly innovative would have ever been created. Very true, and it’s great to see that he now sees the playing field from the other side of that table.

I can support that by highlighting some of our experiences. I’d say that out of all the startups I’ve worked on, the new one we’re launching next week has the best foundation from an operational, user value, and potential revenue perspective than the others combined. I know, like I would say anything different, but we’ve had some extremely positive feedback from experts in many Internet verticals so these aren’t just a bunch of pie in the sky statements I’m making here folks. We’ve even been in the unique position (at least for me) of having to turn down investment offers due to a lack of strategic fit. (Disclaimer: We already secured enough seed capital to get to launch so we wanted more on the table than cash alone.)

With all this going for us you’d think the skies the limit, but I’ve been both successful and unsuccessful with investment groups that gelled strategically. No matter how solid your business idea or the fit, you will come across those that just don’t “get it”.

That’s why I can’t extol the need to grow a thick skin more, especially when dealing with critics before your business model’s been tested. Be prepared for those that make negative assumptions without doing their research, those that misunderstand your goals or vision, and even those that will break your efforts down just for the sake of not wanting to see you succeed.

No one will believe in your ideas if you don’t have unwavering faith in them yourself, and for those that will never believe, your proof can always be in the pudding.

One of the first questions I ask during interviews to increase the ranks here at the startup is

“Do you have any hobbies or other ways to vent stress?”

That’s a very important question, and I’m reminded of it more often now that things are ever approaching our new site launch where unmovable deadlines rear their ugly heads. Stress can be a wonderful thing, it inspires heights of production and creativity you can’t imagine, but you have to have the stamina and the outlets necessary to be able to cope with it in a healthy manner. Otherwise, it can quickly run you down and pop any bubbles of grandeur your vision may have portended.

Stress is something I’ve personally always thrived on, if I don’t have stress I feel like I’m slacking or not progressing down the road of goals I’ve set out for myself. I live, breath, and eat stress, and the only times I can truly say I had concerns for my ability to cope at work was when stress was completely removed from the equation. It’s probably one of the biggest reasons I’ve always gravitated towards sales environments where you only get to eat what you catch.

Now stress does not mean conflict, although conflict will happen in any work environment especially when inevitable levels of brow furrowing startup stress builds within the ranks. It’s important that any conflicts that arise are put to good use such as challenging preconceived notions, or communicating your ideas with vigor and passion. That type of conflict I can handle everyday. It’s when you let conflict become the crux of a problem, instead of being used to solve problems that things can go awry.

When any conflict arises it’s important that those involved always take a step back and communicate after the fact to ensure everyone felt things were constructive and helped you down that path to achieving your goals. Copious amounts of communication can move mountains, and especially at critical times like these should be used without abandon to ensure that misconception and miscommunication don’t ruin the great chemistry that you’ve worked so hard to develop with your partners and co-workers.

Remember that stress is an integral part of any startup, and especially for those who are stress junkies like myself; the way you handle it is one of the most important ingredients to being a successful entrepreneur.

So I made the arduous decision to switch blogging platforms as you can tell by the shiny new digs. It was a tough decision but one that was coming for a long time. I still love Blogware, it’s a great platform and something I would recommend to anyone starting out or new to the blogosphere, but my requirements have matured over the years and I felt it was time to graduate to something a little more versatile. With a fantastic supporting community, and really cool widgets / plug-ins I can play with, Wordpress is the new platform I tapped for the next iteration of Sales Mindset.

Needless to say I’m still working my way up the WordPress learning curve, and I’ve lost allot of the links built over the years due to some quirkiness in the way Blogware created permalinks, but thanks to Frank (Thanks Frank!) and his wonderful DNS skills, I at least have my feed redirected and all of my permalinks go to the monthly archive for the original posts so you shouldn’t get lost trying to find the right article.

My next step is to look for a good stats package since the one my Hosting Provider gives by default melds all of the domains I have associated in the account. If anyone can share any recommendations on something free I can try, or something that doesn’t cost too much but does a fantastic job, let me know.

Goodbye Blogware, after over 3 years I’m truly going to miss you (sniff)

The last time I posted about this, I was supposed to call Tracey the next day to find out the status of my delivery. I’m not sure if it was luck, or the fact that my rant is listed number three on Google for “Staples Whiteboard”, but I received a call from Tracey the next morning informing me that their supplier no longer made the specific board I ordered, and that she would try and find a replacement promising a call later that day.

Although I never received a call that day, or the next, or the next… actually, I totally forgot about it again for a few weeks since I made due with some ‘Post It’ Easel Pad Papers, one day last week I received another call from Tracey again. She informed me that they finally found a store with one in inventory and my white board was going to be delivered the next day. The next morning I held my breath in sheer anticipation, and sure enough that afternoon I heard a knock on the door and there was my shiny new white board wrapped in a slinky outfit of sexy brown packing material. I just finished installing the unit and it looks great, so although it wasn’t as easy as it was supposed to be, I’m happy we have it and thanks to posts like these, hopefully Staples will always be listening in the future…