I have made more mistakes in the business world than I could ever write on one webpage. I have made mistakes that have cost me both money and relationships. Hopefully you can learn from some of my mistakes so you don't repeat them.
Mistakes in online retail - Racy.com
After the sale of Thralow Inc. It seemed fairly clear that the same business model could be repeated. Put products on a website, put a shopping cart in place and buy keywords from Google, simple easy. So, myself and a couple of friends went out, purchased Racy.com contacted several drop-shippers and started selling products. We specifically sold things that Amazon.com did not within 2 years we were on a million dollar a year sales run rate. Again, simple the business Model worked great.
The beginning of the end - We got a call from Amazon and they said they were going to get into selling similar products "50 Shades of Gray" products. And wanted to partner with us. We were about to transition to a branded product, but we were not quite there yet. So Amazon decided to go straight to all the manufactures of the products and that left us out of the loop. As soon as Amazon started selling similar products our web sales were quickly cut in half. We did not slow down our marketing in time and quickly found ourselves losing money. The wind down of this business was very expensive and I lost a lot more then my original investment. I did end up with the domain name, but the sale of that assets will never cover the sunken costs of trying to sell commodity products online and compete with Amazon.
Mistakes in relationships - Zenith Social Media Convention
I was given the opportunity to speak at a local home town conference - The Zenith Social Media conference in Duluth MN. I had spoke to groups larger than 700 people, but this one was special to me as it was a group from my home town and most may not have known me, but this group is familiar with my name so I put myself under more pressure then I normally would. I wanted to put the proven elements of a great speech together. My topic was brand reputation.
1. Know the group you are speaking to.
2. Tell joke to put them at ease. Don't tell the punchline, but let them figure it out.
3. Make the joke relevant to the topic.
4. Make sure you give people things that they can take away and apply to their daily lives.
5. Be confident and be memorable.
I started by scouring the Internet for jokes that had to do with personal reputation and I came upon one that I thought would cover every aspect of my speech, no punchline, on topic and something nobody could forget. On the day of the speech I had a nervous confidence. I memorized my entire speech, and when I walked up on stage I had a nervous confidence and I knew I was in the right state of mind to pull off one of my best speeches. Hi, I've got an interesting story, just last month I sat down at the local brew pub got a beer and an older rugged looking man came and sat next to me. He started talking and explaining his life's story. He said "You see that tower on the hill? my team and I, we built that tower with our own bare hands we put ever stone into place and the tower still stands as strong as the day it was erected, but do they call me Eric the Tower Builder?..... NO. Do you see that boardwalk down by the water's edge. I laid almost every one of those boards. I cut the trees down, I milled up the wood and there she is strong and beautiful. Do they call me Eric the Boardwalk Builder?..... NO. And that pier that spans 20 feet wide and 600 feet long. I drove in the pilings and I poured the cement today people are walking on it and enjoying it, but do they call me Eric the Pier Builder?.... NO!" At this point I had the audience, I could feel all eyes me and they were hanging on my words. This was perfect so I finished the lesson with "But you fuck just one goat." - That was it. It was as though all of the air had been taken out of the room as everyone gasped for breath and then the gasp was released with laughter. I went on to explain tools that would help locate your social mentions and brand exposure in the social media world. The audience was very interactive and I felt like I had nailed it. I knew they would not forget the details of tools or the overall concept that you can work your entire life to build your reputation, but with one mistake your reputation could be taken away.
Little did I realize the irony in that entire speech and in that one moment where I was trying to connect and tell something I thought important I was shredding away my own legacy. Some people were offended by my choice of words and the topic of the joke and I was told by the convention organizers that I would never be invited as a guest to speak at the convention again. That hurt it still hurts.
Mistakes Investing - The first sale of our company 1999
At the time of our first sale I was given the option of taking cash or taking stock in the new company. Dollar for dollar the value of the stock was greater then the value of the cash and our company was growing at over 100%/year and I would remain as the webmaster so taking the all stock deal seemed like the right call even though the cash out option was equal to the amount of money that my parents ended their careers'
at when they retired. Within the first 6 months they moved all web development to New York and eventually hired a New York marketing firm to publicize the business. I was told I did not understand the "new vision" of the company and my roll was reduced to data entry, but I could not do that so I wrote a bunch of software and marketing programs, and fell in love while the company and my stock value moved to almost zero. This is how I made and lost my first million dollars. It worked out in the end, but it took another 10 years to build everything back up.
Mistakes in online retail - Racy.com
After the sale of Thralow Inc. It seemed fairly clear that the same business model could be repeated. Put products on a website, put a shopping cart in place and buy keywords from Google, simple easy. So, myself and a couple of friends went out, purchased Racy.com contacted several drop-shippers and started selling products. We specifically sold things that Amazon.com did not within 2 years we were on a million dollar a year sales run rate. Again, simple the business Model worked great.
The beginning of the end - We got a call from Amazon and they said they were going to get into selling similar products "50 Shades of Gray" products. And wanted to partner with us. We were about to transition to a branded product, but we were not quite there yet. So Amazon decided to go straight to all the manufactures of the products and that left us out of the loop. As soon as Amazon started selling similar products our web sales were quickly cut in half. We did not slow down our marketing in time and quickly found ourselves losing money. The wind down of this business was very expensive and I lost a lot more then my original investment. I did end up with the domain name, but the sale of that assets will never cover the sunken costs of trying to sell commodity products online and compete with Amazon.
Mistakes in relationships - Zenith Social Media Convention
I was given the opportunity to speak at a local home town conference - The Zenith Social Media conference in Duluth MN. I had spoke to groups larger than 700 people, but this one was special to me as it was a group from my home town and most may not have known me, but this group is familiar with my name so I put myself under more pressure then I normally would. I wanted to put the proven elements of a great speech together. My topic was brand reputation.
1. Know the group you are speaking to.
2. Tell joke to put them at ease. Don't tell the punchline, but let them figure it out.
3. Make the joke relevant to the topic.
4. Make sure you give people things that they can take away and apply to their daily lives.
5. Be confident and be memorable.
I started by scouring the Internet for jokes that had to do with personal reputation and I came upon one that I thought would cover every aspect of my speech, no punchline, on topic and something nobody could forget. On the day of the speech I had a nervous confidence. I memorized my entire speech, and when I walked up on stage I had a nervous confidence and I knew I was in the right state of mind to pull off one of my best speeches. Hi, I've got an interesting story, just last month I sat down at the local brew pub got a beer and an older rugged looking man came and sat next to me. He started talking and explaining his life's story. He said "You see that tower on the hill? my team and I, we built that tower with our own bare hands we put ever stone into place and the tower still stands as strong as the day it was erected, but do they call me Eric the Tower Builder?..... NO. Do you see that boardwalk down by the water's edge. I laid almost every one of those boards. I cut the trees down, I milled up the wood and there she is strong and beautiful. Do they call me Eric the Boardwalk Builder?..... NO. And that pier that spans 20 feet wide and 600 feet long. I drove in the pilings and I poured the cement today people are walking on it and enjoying it, but do they call me Eric the Pier Builder?.... NO!" At this point I had the audience, I could feel all eyes me and they were hanging on my words. This was perfect so I finished the lesson with "But you fuck just one goat." - That was it. It was as though all of the air had been taken out of the room as everyone gasped for breath and then the gasp was released with laughter. I went on to explain tools that would help locate your social mentions and brand exposure in the social media world. The audience was very interactive and I felt like I had nailed it. I knew they would not forget the details of tools or the overall concept that you can work your entire life to build your reputation, but with one mistake your reputation could be taken away.
Little did I realize the irony in that entire speech and in that one moment where I was trying to connect and tell something I thought important I was shredding away my own legacy. Some people were offended by my choice of words and the topic of the joke and I was told by the convention organizers that I would never be invited as a guest to speak at the convention again. That hurt it still hurts.
Mistakes Investing - The first sale of our company 1999
At the time of our first sale I was given the option of taking cash or taking stock in the new company. Dollar for dollar the value of the stock was greater then the value of the cash and our company was growing at over 100%/year and I would remain as the webmaster so taking the all stock deal seemed like the right call even though the cash out option was equal to the amount of money that my parents ended their careers'
at when they retired. Within the first 6 months they moved all web development to New York and eventually hired a New York marketing firm to publicize the business. I was told I did not understand the "new vision" of the company and my roll was reduced to data entry, but I could not do that so I wrote a bunch of software and marketing programs, and fell in love while the company and my stock value moved to almost zero. This is how I made and lost my first million dollars. It worked out in the end, but it took another 10 years to build everything back up.
