1.)  I thought it was funny to see the vast difference in Hacker News days vs the rest of the month

2.)  California vs the rest of the country

3.)  Silicon Valley (now #2 makes more sense…)

My mood Thursday afternoon can best be described as paranoid enthusiasm.  In everything I do, I hope for the best but consider all potential outcomes.

I thought Thursday would be on of the proudest days of my life.  I’ve been attending startup demo events for months and would always watch the presenters with envy.  I wanted to be the guy on stage.  I wanted a line of people wanting to talk to me about MY company after the demos were over.  Thursday evening, I had the opportunity.

The NY Tech Mixer Demos and Drinks event was supposed to start at 7:00pm.  I left a promotional event in Manhattan at 6:15 arrive on time (for presenters, this means 6:30).  Through the turnstyles at the subway station, I see my train pulling away without me.  “Not a big deal,” I thought to myself, “this train comes every five minutes.”  A half hour and three other trains later, I hope on board.  I’m now late and still waiting to get off and run to the event (btw, it’s also pouring rain – Hard).

As I arrive at the event, I’m relieved to see very few people in the room and people setting up.  I breathe a sigh of relief as I realize the situation isn’t too bad.

We’re schedule to demo first, and that’s when disaster strikes.  That’s right, technical difficulties.  I wish it was a technical difficulty where I can say “Screw It” and just keep going without the screen in the background, but the screen would go in, then out, then in, then out.  Each time I thought we were back on track, the screen would fade out again.  This happened maybe four or five times until I decided “this won’t work” and I need to just talk without a demo.

Instead of the rock star with the crowd of interested audience members, I was the goat standing around hoping there would be some interest.

But there were some people standing around to talk to me.  The people there were my entrepreneur friends who I’ve met over the last three months.  Guys who told me I did a great job fighting through the issues and offered me some inspiration and advice for next time.  I’m really glad I’ve been able to get to events over the past few months and meet so many great entrepreneurs and friends in the NYC startup community.

Here’s two pieces of advice for everyone…

1. Make sure there’s always three backup plans.  We had screenshots ready, but I didn’t anticipate projector malfunctions (#FAIL).
2. Get to events and meet other entrepreneurs.  Not only will it help building your business, but also for distressful failures like this one.

In the end, yes, I was upset.  Yes, I wish we had done better.  But, I’m thankful for the experience and the practice.  I left the venue with a smile on my face and an experience that money can’t buy (would you want to buy it?).

A few weeks ago, I was having a few good business ideas everyday.  Now, it seems that my idea river has run dry.

I am going to take this week to read over Stimulated by Andrew Pek.  I met Andrew at a Product Development and Management Association meeting a few months ago.  Stimulated is about the science of everyday creation and how ideas happen.  It discusses different ways to help stimulate your creativity – your creative genius!

Yesterday, I was reading over Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin (highly recommended).  Seth mentions how great leaders show their genius…

A brilliant author or businesswoman or senator or software engineer is brilliant only in tiny b ursts.  The rest of the time, they’re doing work that most any trained person can do.

It might take a lot of tinering or low-level work or domain knowledge for that brilliance to be evoked, but from the outside, it appears that the art is created in a moment, not in tiny increments”

In order to refind my creative genius, I don’t need to be a creative genius all the time.  I only need to be a genius every so often.  I also don’t think genius just happens.  I think in order to tap into your creative genius, you can take steps in order to be a genius more often.

Enter Andrew Pek.

I met Andrew at a Product Development and Management Association meeting a few months ago.  Andrew is a co-author of Stimulated.(I also recommend highly) Stimulated is about the science of everyday creation and how ideas happen.  It discusses different ways to help stimulate your creativity – your creative genius!

My goal over the course of the next week will be to find my genius – even if it’s only for seconds at a time.  I’m going to read back over passages from Stimulated and follow Andrew’s advice.  I’m going to mix up my habits and venture off to new locations to help spark my creative side.  Hopefully, my idea engine will start again.  Hopefully, it will have more horse power than power.

Brilliance doesn’t happen by itself.  Ideas don’t happen by themselves.  You need to find ways to stimulate your creative genius so you can show the world how much of a linchpin you really are!

Robert M. Cavezza

(Bob)

1. Design graphics for selling area of website
2. Find potential partner for distribution of book
3. Write selling copy for selling area of a subscription website
4. Write a few pages for a non-fiction book
5. Send emails to get in touch with former employees
6. Draft email to send to programmer and designer in the Phillippines
7. Determine type and find developer for a short intro selling video

7 days into 2010, I learned that one of my goals will not get completed this year.  Yes, I received my “not admitted” letter from the Babson College MBA program earlier this afternoon.

Pretty upsetting.

Anyway, the greatest aspect of goal setting  is that they are personal.  The only person they matter to is you.  Because of this, you have the opportunity to change or update your goals each day.

I know I will not be living in Boston from May until 2012.  This creates the potential for a mini-retirement in an exotic country after the successful launch my current projects.  My current mission remains to establish and automate three companies before the end of the year.  Instead of doing so to attend Babson, I am now doing so to create time for a mini-retirement in Taiwan.  I hope to use this trip to learn local customs and return to the US with some  new business ideas.

It is never a nice feeling to get rejected from anywhere.  What matters is your mindset and how you respond.  I intend to use this disappointment to fuel my fire behind my plans for the next few months.

Best Regards,

Robert M. Cavezza

(Bob)

Here are a few steps that I suggest taking if you want to become an author by the age of 25.

1.)  Pick a Subject that You are passionate about which has relatively little competition

I am passionate about fraternity recruiting.  I was a great recruiter for my fraternity in college and loved reading all about different strategies from other national fraternities’ website while in school.

Fraternity recruiting also has little competition in the book market.  There is only one other book written on the subject and I met the authors personally and have exchanged emails in the past.  In this niche, I am reasonably certain that my book will not be competition to the existing authors, but a companion or partner.  My hope is that readers will want to buy both books and maybe we can even collaborate on a project in the future.

2.)  Make sure you can show others that you have expertise in your chosen subject

There are numerous ways to do this.  I had success recruiting for my fraternity when I was in college.  My fraternity increased its membership by 400% when I was president.  This, among other helped me win a chair in the Order of the Diamond Circle, (Phi Sigma Kappa’s highest award for an undergraduate member) and become runner in the Distinguished Man of the Year Competition (2008) at Rutgers University.

This has helped give me credibility in the field.  But, I was also able to achieve credibility by writing a guest blogpost for the blog of the others of the existing fraternity recruiting book.  If you don’t have awards, you can still show your expertise by creating your own blog.  You can write useful knowledge and facts on your blog to help show your expertise.

It is imperative to have expertise in your topic.  If you don’t, then no one will tell their friends on how great your book is.  However, the initial obstacle is showing others that you have expertise in the subject.  If no one thinks you know what you’re talking about, then no one will buy your book.

3.)  Write until your hands fall off.

This is the most important part.  You want to exhaust all of your personal resources.  You want to tell your story and get your hands wet.  Sometimes, you will only get to 1,5,10, or 20 pages.  But if you don’t start writing, you do not know how much information you have flowing through your head.

I was only able to write between 10 and 20 pages when I first started my project.  But this is only the first stage and you want to put down every thought of the subject matter on paper or in Microsoft Word.

4.)  Proofread what you wrote

Read what you wrote after putting it down for a day or two.  You want to read it and make sure it makes sense to you.  You are doing this because in the next step, you are going to send what you wrote to your friends.  You want your friends to think you can write well and that your book will be a success.

5.)  Have 5 of your friends read what you wrote

Maybe 5 is too many, but you want a few people to read it besides you.  See what they say.  Do you think you’re writing is interesting?  Did they fall asleep on the first page?  Make sure they are honest.  This is the only way you will know if your book can succeed.

6.)  Find a way to outsource part of the writing

Find people online who also have expertise or experience in your subject.  Ask them to write in your book.  Maybe you can put a link to their website in their book.  Often, the biggest incentive for someone to write a section of your book is to see their name in print.

For my book, I sent an email to many different national fraternities asking for recruiting success stories.  I want to include case studies where fraternity brothers had success in recruiting.  I want to use these stories to highlight what works and what dosen’t in real world situations.  I think you can talk to a college student about theory all day long, but it won’t matter as long as they don’t think what you are saying doesn’t work in the real world.

7.)  Find a publisher

It doesn’t have to cost you a fortune to have your book printed.  There are many websites that will print as few as one copy of your book on demand.  In a few scenarios, you don’t have to pay an on demand publisher until your book is sold either on your website or on Amazon.com.

The service I plan on using for my book is Lulu.com.

In Closing

It’s possible to publish your own book before you  turn 25.  This is a goal of mine… and I am going to achieve this goal sometime in the next few months.  My goal is to publish before January 31st.  I will let you know if I am able to achieve this goal.

Best,

Robert M. Cavezza

Top 4 goals for this year:

1. Get accepted into Babson College to study entrepreneurship (I will know if I am accepted on January 15th)
2. Achieve over $80,000 in revenues from all ventures
3. Achieve over $60,000 in profits from all ventures
4. Have each venture 85% automated or sold before starting classes in September

Three days into the new year and I am having doubts about some of my current projects.

SmarterDrinker.com is still in its development phase.  Yes, it has been in development for over a year.  I am very uneasy about the possibility of success for SmarterDrinker.com because of the state online advertising.  Revenues have been decreasing since tech bubble in the late nineties.  If I plan on selling one or two ventures in the first half of the year, SmarterFootball.com will definitely be one of them.

2DollarFantasy.com is a new fantasy football website I am putting together.  There is not much information online for dynasty auction fantasy football leagues.  I am building this website with hopes that I will create over 1,000 loyal followers that will be willing to pay $4 per month for access to the website.  Not only is this a niche website with devoted followers, but it is also a passion of mine.  If I can charge $4 per month and find 1,000 subscribers, I will come very close to achieving my goals for the year.

I had an idea for a Fraternity Recruiting Book for some time.  I started writing my story a few months ago.  I write approximately 10 pages and used my work to facilitate a seminar for members of Phi Sigma Kappa this past summer at the annual convention.  Reading an internet marketing book the other day, I had the idea to use other’s stories to help write the book.  I am in the middle of finding recruiting success stories to feature in the book.  I am attempting to use some of Tim Ferriss’s guidelines for this product.  I want to create the product in four weeks or less.  Using this milestone, I want the product to be finished and ready to ship on January 31st.

SmarterFootball.com has made serious progress during the past few months.  Although we no longer have office space, we do have a preview website being hosted at smarterfootball.com.  The coding for the main areas of the website are almost finished.  We now have to integrate the existing code to our new design.  Smarter Football is online software to help guide high school athletes through the recruiting process.  The website will be fully automated once we lunch – that’s exciting!

Pennza Mobile Detailing is our baby.  We started this company while we were still in college.  It is easy to find customers, but has proven to be difficult performing the service and finding employees.  A key need for this year is to find a pool of part-time workers than can complete each job so we can concentrate on building the business.

This is where I am with my existing companies.

Looking at each venture, I can categorize them into a few categories.

Most Likely to make money this month

1. Pennza Mobile Detailing

Most Likely to make money next month

1. Smarter Football
2. Fraternity Recruiting Book
3. Pennza Mobile Detailing

Most Likely to make money before the end of the year

1. 2dollarfantasy

Most Likely to never make money

1. SmarterDrinker.com

After reviewing these lists, my highest priority projects will be Smarter Football, The fraternity book, and Pennza Mobile Detailing.

I will work on 2dollarfantasy.com whenever I have free time and I will only work on Smarter Drinker sparingly.

Keep on the lookout for more updates in the coming days, weeks, and months.