I’m merging my business and personal blog now that I’m in school.

This site has moved to: chaskell.wordpress.com

Hope to see you there!

If you stand in front of an artwork of even medium value, you really have to spend some time cleaning your mind of words utterly, and just begin to look, and keep yourself as blank as possible, for as long as possible, and you’ll begin to see the relations of things, how they fit or don’t, and eventually you’ll be able to see the object whole, and then you can start letting words come in again, and they will be the right words. If you do the same thing on a street corner it works too, by the way.

How does this apply to working with your customers? or the projects-goals you track against?

Does everything fit or align to the direction you want to head in? Where should you edit?

Seed Bombs, Distributed through old gumball machines. Brilliant!

Candy machines repurposed to vend garden seeds. Who thinks of these things?? Brilliant!

Los Angeles-based Common Studio, Greenaid, has coined the term “guerrilla gardening” and is targeting many forgotten grey spaces of the urban world, including sidewalk cracks, vacant lots and parking medians. Toward that end, it has reclaimed a series of old, quarter-operated candy machines and converted them instead for use selling seed bombs—mixtures of clay, compost and seeds that can be thrown anonymously into derelict urban sites to (temporarily) reclaim and transform them.

Sort of like humans finding a way to take on the role of ancient Bison, I suppose – with less fuss and mess.

Greenaid invites business owners, educators and concerned citizens to purchase a machine—pricing is about USD 400 each, with potential income generation of between USD 1,000 and USD 2,000 per year. Greenaid will then develop a seed mix and a strategic neighborhood intervention plan in response to the unique ecologies of the particular area. The purchaser can then simply place the machine at a local bar, business, school, park or wherever it seems likely to have the greatest impact. Greenaid supplies all the seed bombs needed to support the ongoing success of the initiative.

Common Studio explains: “Greenaid is equally an interactive public awareness campaign, a lucrative fundraising tool, and a beacon for small scale grass roots action that engages directly yet casually with local residents to both reveal and remedy issues of spatial inequity in their community.”

Similar in many ways to Anthropologie’s recent initiative featuring seed bombs produced by Cincinatti studio VisuaLingal, Greenaid is currently focused on its hometown of LA. One to partner with or emulate in other parts of the urban world?

Website: www.thecommonstudio.com/index.php?/project/greenaid/
Contact: info@thecommonstudio.com

The Art*O*Mat

A cool, hip new business idea, funky enough to appeal to a sophisticated crowd, yet marketable enough to eventually also convince the global masses to part with their dollars, yens and euros. So what’s it all about? Art*o*mats!

Art*o*mats are retired cigarette vending machines that have been converted to vend art. Currently, there are 49 active machines in museums and various locations throughout the US. The experience of using the stylish machines is quite a thrill, but you also walk away with an original work of art.

Approximately 300 contributing artists from 10 different countries are currently involved in the Art*o*mat project. Work from participating artists has to be the exact size and shape of a pack of cigarettes, and is sold for five dollars or less to everyday consumers.

Think painted blocks of wood, stained glass, poem decks or clay sculptures. On each art package within the Art*o*mat the artists have the option to include information about themselves: if buyers like the artwork, they can e-mail or call the actual artist to request more art. The economics? The artists get 50% of the revenues, USD 1.50 goes to the company/venue hosting the machine, and the rest goes to Art*o*mats.

Opportunities

A no-brainer if you’re a budding artist, if you work in a museum, or run a gallery, shop, restaurant, bar. Get exposure or turn your customers into ardent art-buyers. Art*o*mat is still very US-centric, but would obviously do as well in Sydney and Seoul as it does in New York and LA. A global roll-out would truly bring art to the masses: give it a shot by contacting Art*o*mat at www.artomat.org.

Want to be an Artomat artist?
There are around 400 contributing artists from 10 different countries currently involved in the Art*o*mat project. We are always searching for fresh work. [ submission process ]

SoupCycle, unique model supporting other local businesses

Bicycles have been used to deliver a variety of products–from groceries, farm produce and laundry. Now? Organic soup, made from locally grown produce and delivered each week to subscribers. Three soups are typically on the menu in any given week at SoupCycle. Consumers who live or work in the Portland, Ore., company’s delivery area begin by checking out the selections for the following week and placing their order by midnight on Friday; rustic bread, salad and dressing are also available.

With a list of subscribers in hand, SoupCycle then buys the necessary produce from local farmers. Their schedule looks something like this:

• Monday: Cook Soup
• Tuesdays: Begin deliveries

Pricing: USD

• $18 for a quart of soup plus bread and salad, serves 1-2
• $45 for quantities that can serve six
• A la carte options too
• $3 delivery charge applies for orders under USD 18; otherwise, delivery is free.

Loaves and … soup containers

Each of SoupCycle’s trailers can carry some 40 soup containers, 40 bread loaves and 20 salads at once, it says. Since SoupCycle first launched about a year and a half ago, it has delivered more than 10,000 orders of soup, spent USD 33,000 with local farmers and saved 3,000 gas-powered miles by using bicycles instead. Some 150 subscribers now enjoy its weekly deliveries. One to emulate locally for some piping-hot profits of your own…?

Website: www.soupcycle.com

Contact: yesplease@soupcycle.com

Hollywood-based Forza Migliozzi and New York’s The Ad Store are the two firms behind the venture. They’re asking (legal-age) fans of Pabst’s 25 brands to pledge between USD 5 and 250,000 each towards acquisition of the company. Money will only be accepted if the full purchase amount is reached, at which point all contributors will get “a crowdsourced certificate of ownership as well as enough beer to match their pledge”.

While BeerBankRoll promised the crowd control over the business plan for a pub and brewery, no crowdsourcing of decisions is mentioned on the BuyABeerCompany website (in fact, Pabst owns brands and outsources brewing to MillerCoors). Still, if figures on the website can be trusted the idea is going down like a cold beer on a sunny day—over USD 11 million has been raised. It could be that fans of the cheap-but-hip Pabst Blue Ribbon are just the crowd to go for community ownership, though whether 60 million will stump up five dollars each remains to be seen.

Website: www.buyabeercompany.com

For just USD 19.95, disgruntled childless workers can get what The Office Kid calls a “kid in a kit,” including a framed picture of a child, original kid’s artwork for cubicle display and a welcome letter with suggested starter excuses. Customers can choose the gender and ethnicity of their child, and optional extras—ranging from USD 5 to USD 10—include sports team photos, doctor’s notes on “official” stationery, and additional kid’s artwork. The Office Kid explains: “No muss, no fuss, just a seemingly tangible excuse to hit the road early for 9 holes, sporting events or a ticket to do absolutely nothing.”

The Office Kid Kit

Ethical questions notwithstanding, there’s no doubt The Office Kid provides an innovative solution to a perceived inequity that’s long been part of the office world. The lesson? Find an itch, scratch it, and sit back while the orders come in!

Website: www.theofficekid.com

Why not an assortment of ice creams from Mollie Moos? Milk Made does it. They have a Manhattan members club for artisanal ice cream.

The principle? —food produced in small batches and delivered locally to pre-paying customers is better for you and the community. Kind of like the old time market square, right to your door.

Dulcinea is a young baked-goods company, also based in New York; they deliver ‘a wholesome indulgence’ every Wednesday. Customers subscribe per month, paying USD 28 per week.

Past deliveries include half dozen jumbo rhubarb muffins, a blueberry lemon pound cake, and a half dozen strawberry scones. Dulcinea uses produce from local farms, choosing organic and sustainably produced ingredients as much as possible.

Like the new trend in roaming restaurants Seattle is seeing, the subscription/members model used by Dulcinea and Milk Made is a great way for fledgling entrepreneurs to get a foothold in the food business, creating a steady income and a client base for other parts of their business (Dulcinea, for example, also does catering). Entrepreneurial foodies in other cities—what are you waiting for?!

Websites:

• www.dulcineabaking.com
• www.skilletstreetfood.com
• www.MilkMade.com

Tom founded Lead411 in the summer of 2001 and is mainly focused on marketing and management of the overall business. Prior to Lead411, he co-founded BlueChip Resources, a tech recruiting firm serving Silicon Valley and Southern California. Follow him on Twitter!  

Tom uses several components to create his online strategy:

Public Relations: Twitter and blogging to be part of the greater community connect with other bloggers/columnists about topics he cares about. In particular, Tom has taken a lesson from the Zappos CEO (who several years ago resolved a customer support issue through his blog and won a lot of free press); Tom resolves several support requests via twitter and enjoys the close contact with customers.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) highlighting a “Freemium” business model à where part of our content is free so that search engine and people can find them more easily, AND part of their content is behind a paid subscription. Using Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the BTS411 blog is able to get traffic into their site which brings in more awareness of their products/services.

The Challenge?

The idea for starting his business come came to Tom when he ran a recruiting company. He was in charge of finding partners to work with and instead of cold calling, Tom went to press releases and business articles to find companies that had just got venture capital funding, announced they were hiring, or opened a new office. 

The Opportunity?

After that he found the right executive to contact and connected with them to see if they were interested in recruiting services.  He knew that other sales people were doing the same thing in different industries in order to find new business so in 2001 he built a website which provides all of this data in one place.

Here is a little more from my conversation with Tom.

What do you do? 

I am the CEO/Founder of Lead411 so I basically oversee all operations.  I also handle a lot of marketing efforts.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome to start your business? 

The biggest challenge was not having any money when I started.  That was the toughest time. But it has huge benefits.  This is when I learned the most and it is also forced us to be profitable immediately which is definitely a “great” thing.  I knew within 4 months whether or not we had a viable business.  Venture funded companies are flying blind.  Also, I never considered venture capital financing at that time.  I didn’t want anyone controlling where my company was headed and I knew I could make it on my own.  That might have made it harder, but I learned so much from it and I still own the company. I think the other “challenges” have to do with me personally.  I needed to learn how to move faster and make quicker & better decisions.

What’s the most satisfying thing about running your business? 

Knowing that I provide a quality service at an inexpensive price.  Users need our service which makes me and my company desirable.

How do you define success? 

Being extremely good at what you are responsible for.  That is for me though… The definition of success is personal.

What are your sources of inspiration? 

Other bootstrappers.  I love hearing stories of other businesses that came from zero starting capital.

What’s the worst thing about running your own business? 

You can never pass the buck.  You cannot leave on a vacation and expect people to run the company just as you do.

Has running your business been what you expected it would be? How? 

For the most part.  The only difference is that when I was younger and was just about to start my company I had so many doubts.  I thought it was going to be much harder than it was.

How did you fund your business in the beginning? 

I had about 3 month’s pay saved up so that is how I funded it.  After that I needed it to be profitable.

What’s the biggest dream you have for your business? 

I would like to own multiple web properties.  Lead411 should be the primary business, but I plan on starting a number of other sites/companies that will be subsidiaries of Lead411.  We should be able to fund them internally.

What’s the happiest moment you’ve ever had in your business? 

Probably the first payment we ever received.  I felt like it was actually going to work.

What’s the darkest moment you’ve had? 

Overextending myself financially the second year. This lead to very little cash and some self reflection.

Do you think of yourself as an entrepreneur? 

I used to hear that entrepreneurs were born not made.  I don’t believe that.  I had some qualities that gave me a head start, but most was learned.  Yes, I think I am an entrepreneur now.

What can large businesses learn from a small business like yours? 

Accountability.  If every middle manager had more accountability there would be so much less waste.  I think that so many times expend

Where will your business be in a year? In 10 years? 

Who knows?  I would really like to keep Lead411 forever and just have it grow and fund other businesses, but you never know if someone comes in and offers you something in which you should not refuse…

If someone who was about to start a business asked you for advice, what would you say? 

This is a loaded question, but here are a couple suggestions.  1. Start as early as possible.  The younger you are the more risk you can take.  If it isn’t a success you are still young enough to get another job or start another company.  2. Just keep trucking. Like any job, you are going to make mistakes.  Don’t beat yourself up or spend too much time thinking about the “correct” decision.  Just make up your mind and keep going.

What makes you get up in the morning?

The ability to make 1% improvement in my company that day.  Over a year period that will improve a company 250%.

When or how did you know that this is what you wanted to do? 

Pretty early in college.  That is why I majored in Entrpreneurship at USC.

Have you ever failed?

Of course.  Too many times to note here.

What have you learned from failure?

It is really true that the more you fail the better you become.  You definite learn from these experiences.  That being said, I have learned just about everything from failure.  Every time we add a new feature and our customers hate it they tell us.  From there we know more of what they like and what to avoid in the future.

The nonprofit organization was founded in 1945 by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and his wife, Ruth Stafford Peale. GUIDEPOSTS is involved in a number of activities including award-winning magazines, best-selling books, websites and outreach services such as free distribution of GUIDEPOSTS materials to hospitals, the military and families in need; comfort kits for children in hospitals; and coordination of the Knit for Kids project that has sent over 600,000 sweaters to needy children abroad.

Primarily a print medium, GUIDEPOSTS is enjoying their foray into technology and social media, which has expanded its audience and enabled direct dialogue with their customers.  

Being able to build a site that truly can and does inspire people is a great part of my job. — Philip Charles-Pierre, VP Digital Media

The biggest challenge their VP of digital media is dealing with right now is incorporating all the new technologies. Having roots in print and adding in new things (online publishing, social media can be quite the cold shower for many organizations). Charles-Pierre says that social media and online initiatives have allowed his publication to reach a broader audience.

“There are still a lot of people in our target audience that don’t quite understand why Guideposts and Guideposts.com are relevant to them. We are merely using the tools they use to let them know about relevant content,” Charles-Pierre says, including such tools as Facebook, Twitter, and widgets.

He adds that it is important to reach readers wherever they are gathering online.

Charles-Pierre enjoys the challenge of helping to reshape the business at a time when publishers are struggling. Guideposts continues to adapt its approach to ensure it is serving key audiences while attracting new pockets of readers. “We fundamentally believe our content appeals to both the devout and those who do not consider themselves spiritual, in nature. Good advice and guidance – as well as compelling content – appeals to all people, and we strive to make that case to the public at large.” 

 A little bit about the original founders: 

Dr. Norman Vincent Peale

One of the foremost motivational speakers of the 20th century, Dr. Peale wrote 46 books, including the inspirational best-seller The Power of Positive Thinking, which was on the New York Times best-seller list for 186 consecutive weeks. Still available today, the book has sold more than 20 million copies in 42 languages.

For more than five decades, Dr. Peale was the pastor of Marble Collegiate Church in New York City. He spoke to an average of 100 groups a year until he was 93, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan.

Books by Vincent Peale

Ruth Stafford Peale

The daughter of a minister, Ruth Stafford graduated from Syracuse University and taught mathematics before her marriage in 1930. Although she worked closely with her husband in all aspects of his ministry, she also established a separate identity as a religious leader, public speaker and author. She was cofounder, publisher and chairman of the board of GUIDEPOSTS and a member of the board of directors of American Bible Society, Interchurch Center, Blanton-Peale Institute and Laymen’s National Bible Committee.