Obviously I decided that writing in my blog needed to take a backseat to my current ventures. I made the choice after my ventures began demanding more of my time and I realized that my goal for blogging was not to make money; something which had to take precedence over the past few months.

So I suppose finances is where I should recap.

Progressive decided not to pay for the uninsured motorist claim I filed and that is why I am still in a lot of pain (neck and back). I was investing all I had into my ventures and there is no more left for all the doctor bills I was accruing. In order for me to be effective in the gym again, I know I will need to get my neck and back issues taken care of. Just before the two year statute of limitations, I had to file a lawsuit. They are playing games, though, by responding that they are not registered to do business in Georgia. That’s really funny seeing as how millions of people in Georgia are insured by Progressive. I wonder what their customers would say if they knew they were buying insurance from a company not licensed to do business here?! In Progressive’s eyes, that means that I cannot sue them. In the law’s eyes, however, it means that they are using unscrupulous means to avoid a lawsuit, very stupid on their part. The lawyers should have a field day with them. As I find time, I will push this forward.

My venture, ShrinkTheWeb (http://www.shrinktheweb.com), has really started to take off. I invested a lot of time and money into this venture, because I felt like “website previews” (as silly as it might seem to the average non-techie) would become a huge hit on the Internet. It seems that this is coming to fruition. Time will tell.

I have also been consulting to a previous client to analyze and develop their strategy. After much hard work and efforts, we have built strategic alliances that I expect will be very lucrative and I determined exact reasons why their business has been only moderately successful over the past several years. My proposal to correct those issues was accepted and will put them in to a position to strengthen their offering, boost their credibility, and usurp their competition by collapsing their niche market (much like ShrinkTheWeb did to the website thumbnails niche). I am hopeful that this will be lucrative for all involved.

In my spare time (hahah, right), I have also been promoting, ColorBuster (http://colorbuster.net), a fun puzzle game for the iPhone that was developed by one of my best friends, Attila Jancsina. This is my first time promoting an iPhone game and it is riddled with pitfalls and loopholes. This is definitely a learning experience but we did manage to get listed in the “Staff Favorites” section within just 2 weeks of launch! So that is fantastic. I have more plans to also promote through my third venture, a networking group I’m co-founding with Valerie and Frank. So I’m hopeful that our efforts will be productive.

So many more tough obstacles have come up over the past year that I doubt I will have time to write in my book for awhile. I really enjoyed writing but I have to get my ventures fully self-sustaining so that I can focus. A lot of people who are familiar with my life trials and tribulations have been eager to read my book, but I just have to get to a point where I can relax and let the thoughts flow. At the moment, they are all jumbled in my head.

And that really falls in to my last topic: writing in my blog. I may or may not (most likely not) write in my blog until I have several issues out of the way. I wish you all well.

Cheers,

Brandon

Although I will still be working through yet another weekend, it will be “at my leisure” for once. I will only be working briefly on two web design projects and on ShrinkTheWeb (integrating the billing to prepare to go live).

Yesterday (Thursday), I gave a speech to roughly 125 people as the “Director of Marketing and Sales” for one of my clients. Previously, I had not spoken in front of more than 15-20 people and even then I was very nervous. So, I was a bit surprised that speaking to this much larger audience was less nerve-wrecking than before.

I would say it was because I prepared, but honestly, with all that’s been going on this week, I spent all of about 8 hours in designing and writing the powerpoint presentation, practicing, and preparing. That’s not really very much preparation for the event. However, I’m happy to have pulled it off and I received numerous compliments on the helpful points I made as well as my presentation. I was pleased that no one could tell I was nervous.

For my reward, I took Leah out on a date –only fitting since I had donned one of my favorite power suits and felt very spiffy and in the mood to go out. So, we enjoyed some good food. I took a huge chance and ordered ribs -which made me quite nervous but I managed to be careful enough not to get anything on me. Hah. So, that was good. As exhausted as I was from the 13 hour long workday, it was nice and refreshing to spend a few hours with Leah.

I have to get up in a few hours to make a meeting with the head of another multi-million dollar company, so I’ll keep this update short. I’m hopeful that it won’t be too much longer before I start to see some benefit from all these multi-million dollar company meetings.

It just seems that the more a company makes, the tighter they are with cash flow. Many would infer that frugality to be the reason they are where they are in the market. At any rate, I’m looking forward to this being a more relaxed Friday than is typical for me.

I hesitate to even write in my blog (been almost 2 weeks now) simply because my life is nothing but work lately. I have managed to spend more time with Leah lately –which is very much needed downtime. However, between work and spending precious little time with her, I have zero time or energy left to write, hang out with friends, or do anything really.

I have to work 7 days a week just to stay afloat and try to make enough to pay the bills while I’m investing everything (and more) into my ventures that should pay off. The question is how long until they do and can I make it until then.

I keep finding creative ways to stay afloat and then people keep letting me down.

I have helped a lot of people over the years but no one seems to come to my aid when I desperately need it. Even my previous landlord borrowed some money from me and then only repaid a portion of it.

Then, I found out last week that my client who agreed to provide me a draw against future commissions is just BS’ing me and never intended to give me more than $500 per month. You can imagine how far that goes (or doesn’t) towards the bills.

It’s really sad.

I’m hoping that something positive will happen to help take some of this intense pressure off of me that has been bearing down for so long. I will push on as I always do and I won’t look back, but it would certainly be nice to not have to worry so much each month and put so many people -like my current landlord- in a bind.

If I wasn’t a victim of the system and unduly tagged as a criminal, I would’ve gotten a job a long time ago and used those proceeds to fund my ventures and pay the bills. I’m long out of practice in my field, but I figure my skills should still command at least a low 6-figure salary or very high 5-figures. However, none of that is an option to me, thanks to a couple of crooked cops. Ah well.

No matter. I will not let that get me down and I will continue on.

I am close to something big. I can feel it. This is how it was just before the first time I made my million (or close enough… hah). Too many people are backing what I’m doing and I have thousands of people pulling for me to succeed. So, I am hopeful that things will continue the way they did years ago when I first hit it big.

The only difference this time is that I will keep a low profile (sad that I have to) and not buy an exotic sports car, big house, or throw elaborate parties. That way, perhaps I won’t have stupid crooked cops, FBI, and GBI knocking down my door thinking I sell drugs like last time. At least now I know the truth about how the system works and I am prepared. I won’t be blindsided like I was back then.

Anyway, I feel like I’m just rambling now. So, I’ll end on a not-so-brief recap of recent events since my last post:

1. I put my Drivetime and Progressive lawsuits on hold to focus on work to pay the bills.
2. I finished building out my data center to reliably house the ten(10) dedicated servers for my “Shrink The Web” project.
3. I modified ShrinkTheWeb’s forum template to be more user-friendly.
4. I initiated and completed the ShrinkTheWeb logo contest.
5. I ordered a new MEGA-server at Rackspace to migrate “Shrink The Web” over to. This will handle an enormous amount of growth.
6. Mike, Frank, Caitlyn, and I managed to get six(6) out of the ten(10) servers up-and-running. One has a defective part, two have network card issues, and one I broke the primary battery connector on (oops).
7. I managed to work a few days at a client site (some paid; but most not).
8. I optimized my ShrinkTheWeb code to operate 600% faster and be more portable and reliable across OS platforms.
9. I added several new ShrinkTheWeb features for users and my admin interface.
10. I locked in a plan to resolve the last two, lingering and crucial issues with ShrinkTheWeb that will be fixed before the June 6th go live date.
11. I performed a lot of competitive research and also pricing analysis and research to come up with a viable path-to-profitability for ShrinkTheWeb.
12. I completed one website design and received payment and made significant progress on two others.
13. I made two proposals for a client of mine’s clients that are very promising and should be accepted soon.
14. I wrote quite a bit of content for pages on ShrinkTheWeb. Two examples are the thumbnail provider comparison page and the site thumbnail uses page.
15. I updated my Imagion Web Design RFP client interface to allow an optimal mock-up presentation and approval process that will help me streamline web design projects moving forward.
16. I kicked off the process of requesting approval to travel to Paris to provide consulting services to the European client I’ve been working on for months. They are finally ready to buy and that will help a bit -provided that the government doesn’t stand in my way.
17. I managed to jump through a few hoops to get a free annual membership to PRNewswire -which will save some cash when we begin promoting ShrinkTheWeb.
18. I signed up for Google checkout but it doesn’t support recurring payments. What the?? It’s freakin’ Google… and they don’t have the resources to support recurring payments? Lame.
19. I met with William for a few hours to discuss French lessons for when my clients sign on the dotted line and give me my first check. Once finalized, I have committed to learn French by the end of the year.
20. I ran my billing/invoicing for the month and budgeted.
21. At the request of a LinkSmile customer, I spent quite a bit of time fixing some lingering errors with the automated online system that will now make it useful again. This was necessary but I had no time. However, this user was desperate and no other system besides LinkSmile can handle what she needed.
22. I finally resolved an on-going Comcast issue where I lost more than 15 hours of work over the month due to Internet downtime. It took me awhile but I finally proved that the power levels coming into the house were too high. So, finally, after MONTHS, I have a stable Internet connection again.
23. I then was able to finally get ShrinkTheWeb migrated to the new server and overcame several issues with the new server and platform.
24. I made a quick, make-shift index page for ShrinkTheWeb that incorporates the new logo design.
25. I went to see “Iron Man” with Leah… not bad
26. I met up with Jojo to get her laptop and some pics for a website I’m working on for her dad.
27. I fixed her laptop -as it was incredibly slow due to a failing webcam driver.
28. I designed and sent the April newsletter for ShrinkTheWeb.
29. Leah helped me greatly by getting my oil changed for me.
30. I got my merchant account back up-and-running so that I can use for ShrinkTheWeb’s recurring billing.

I think that just about covers it.

Now, I know you just scrolled past most of that and that’s OK, because it even bores me! lol. I only note in that detail to give an idea of what I’ve been up to for the past couple of weeks and to make the point that Progressive and Drivetime say I have NO EXCUSE for not moving forward with settling with them.

They claim that I cannot possibly be as busy as I say I am.

Well, in general, millionaires are not made overnight.

So, yeah… disbelief. I get that a lot.

At least I’ve completed budgeting for April, finished up a website that’ll help catch me up on my bills this week, sent out the ShrinkTheWeb newsletter, and released the ShrinkTheWeb feature for capturing specific page thumbnails. This is HUGE in the webmaster world and it makes life a lot easier for webmasters and web designers.

Here’s an example of a screenshot of a specific page on ShrinkTheWeb:

And here’s the same page but full-length:

These images may not mean a lot to many of you, but for web designers, this is a God-send –especially with everything on the Internet going more visual and web 2.0.

Being able to simply put one line of code into a web page and have my ShrinkTheWeb service automatically pull that site up in a browser, capture it, edit it, crop it, and return it is almost a feat of magic. It still amazes ME that it works …and I wrote it!

So now, I’m just juggling a few web design projects and trying to outsource some of them while at the same time managing the growth of ShrinkTheWeb and finishing up the PRO feature for a (hopefully) June 1st launch date.

This week, I’ll be busy with lawyers, following up on contacts for one of my clients, and finalizing ShrinkTheWeb (i.e. new server setup, new distributed coding, and billing integration for PRO users).

I’m excited that Rackspace (the best -but most expensive- dedicated server provider) has worked out a very good deal with me because of ShrinkTheWeb’s potential. In fact, they now use STW’s thumbnails in their proposals and quotes to new customers! How’s that for validation of usefulness?! hah. The best part is that they were willing to work with me enough that we are getting a super-powerhouse server within my budget (barely).

That means that the servers will handle any number of customers we could possibly get between now and 2009. That’s quite a LOT! Hopefully I’m wrong and we get more than we can handle, but this server can handle so many that it’s not likely we’ll need to upgrade anytime soon.

Now, I can buy that nice skateboard I always wanted! lol. j/k

Anyway, here’s a link on my work blog about it:

ShrinkTheWeb Acquires First Round Funding

It’s been an unbelievably hectic month and with juggling 8 web design projects and closing a few others and this “Shrink The Web” work, I’m beat. That’s not to mention all of the presentations and pitches I’ve made this month for one of my clients –i.e. for the European client and another 1.6 Billion dollar company here in the US. It sounds like I sold the latter one also, so things are really looking up but it’s taking a toll on me with little sleep.

Tonight is another 20 hour work day and I have to get up in 3.5 hours to go to a 12-hour business expo. Whew. So, that -in a nutshell- is why the short, infrequent posts. Sorry to be such a bore lately! Perhaps if things settle down soon, I can start writing my autobiography -which I guarantee is not dull by any means! haha.

Ciao,

Brandon

I have quite a bit of news to share but some of it I cannot yet disclose due to non-disclosure reasons. As far as my European client, they have verbally confirmed a start date in May for several pieces of my proposal and they have indicated strong interest in funding my crawler and search engine for use in a custom application of theirs. I won’t get too excited until I have cash in hand, but they seem eager and willing at the moment. That will probably happen in August or so.

I also have tentative confirmation of an investor for Shrink The Web to help kick-start that venture into high gear. So, I’m really excited at the prospect of that as well.

The only caveat is that this money is either too far out or will be dedicated to specific things –i.e. not for my living expenses. So, I’m still in a bind in that regard and having to borrow everywhere I can. It really sucks but if I can just get through this lull, I should be able to come back stronger than ever and make my second million.

To that end, I have managed to convince one of my clients to loan me enough money to cover my living expenses through the end of this year. I cannot express how lame it feels to be borrowing money from a client, but I know I will repay them in time and will make it worth their while for trusting in me.

I feel like I’m trapped in a deep pit but I can see a spot of sunlight shining through the mud.

Ciao,

Brandon

But, we’ve been walking several times over the past week and it really makes all the difference in the world. That time alone to walk and talk really helps. My conversations with her really perk me up and shines some light into my world. Soon, I also hope to get back in the gym and regain my cut physique and get back to playing racquetball, volleyball, and the like. I do miss it so!

Now, on to business: It’s a little earlier than expected, but my European client has come back to us with some answers on services they want from us. To my disappointment, they want to hold off on the crawler development until their next fiscal year (Oct, 2008), because they want to see us show some results with our other marketing efforts first.

That’s ok, I suppose. We will show them results, but it means a lot less money for me for now. I will probably make a little bit each month and every little bit counts towards paying the bills. So, that’s good. I am just a little bummed because I wanted to get my crawler and search engine more refined and usable for the masses. Perhaps it will happen next year, but it may be that my priorities will change by then. I suppose we’ll see.

In any case, I am still waiting until April 15th to hear exactly how much budget they will devote in the beginning and they will sign to start their campaigns on May 1st. Their budget will be based on a graduating scale, and with results (which I will bring), the budget will increase.

The best part about this deal is that I will still be in control of quite a sizable budget.  So, even though only a relatively small portion goes to me each month, having control of that kind of budget gives me some bargaining power and respect in the industry. That budget coupled with the influx of recent business to LinkSmile and jAvVy, my two online marketing ventures, will give me even more weight in my niche. It’s just too bad that 99.999% of all my profits are pushed right back in to my companies. I’ve invested more than $160,000 into my businesses over the past year and a half and I’m hoping that will all pay off soon.

Aside from that, ShrinkTheWeb is really coming along. I have seen quite a bit of buzz generating about my service and the sign-ups are increasing to 5-10 per day. So, that’s great! People are really starting to use the system -which is awesome. Today, even, I had someone really put the custom-sized website previews through its paces and through them I discovered a little “bug” I introduced with a recent enhancement.

So, I got that fixed in about 30 minutes and tested the new enhancement plus the custom-sized thumbnails. All is well, and the customers site looked so much better than before, because they are getting perfectly sized thumbnails as opposed to stretching a smaller one to fit. I would link to their site, but the weird thing is that once they got it working, they then switched to one of my competitors and started showing the reduced quality again. I sent them a few emails and never heard back, so I guess I’ll have to assume that it was that competitor of mine trying out my service. Though, it wouldn’t be the first time!

I also made quite a bit of progress on a web design project that I will finish this week and I have made a lot of progress on two bigger projects that I hope to complete within a week or two. So, things on that front are moving along nicely.

As you can tell, most things are work-work-work right now. So, I must apologize that these posts sound redundant and probably aren’t very interesting! hahah.

I have a little news in regards to a personal issue but due to legal disclosure reasons, I have to wait just a little longer before I publish what is going on in that respect. However, it is looking in my favor at the moment. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

I hope everyone is having a great start to the week!

In short, many of my web hosting customers (and my own sites) have been getting tagged as spam and it has cost me thousands of dollars (literally) in lost income and -more noticeably- has cost me $600 in actual cash that I spent to try to overcome this issue. That doesn’t even take into account the lost 100 hours or so I’ve spent dealing with this.

The great news is that I finally know WHY this has been happening, and I can finally get this headache under control. Woo hoo!

I haven’t been able to really work much the past 4-5 days or so because of so many personal issues (i.e. doctor’s visits, finding lawyers, excessive pain, talking to Progressive, dealing with Drivetime, etc etc), so that’s not good income-wise. However, one of my clients extended to me a small loan to carry me over for another month. So, that helps but now I’m living on borrowed money from yet another person.

I am hopeful that the deal with the European client will come through on April 15th (as it is scheduled), because that will really help me pay back my client. It sucks to be in this predicament, but I might have caught a break for once. I cannot discuss it just yet for legal reasons, but I might have at least one burden off my back soon. Without disclosing too much, I had my privacy and my rights violated once again, but this time, I have a credible witness. So, here’s to another lawsuit. I will update on that once the timing is right.

In the meantime, I’m still planning on how to pay the bills. I’ve got to get back into my groove and get some major work completed, but I just cannot get over the pain and personal issues. I have a doctor’s appointment today and I hope to get some advice that will help me be able to work more regularly and I also hope that they write me a darn good letter that I can use against Progressive.

I was in so much pain yesterday that I just laid in bed for hours (while I needed to be working). I couldn’t move and still I hurt. I was joking with Leah that I don’t need my pain pills because Progressive tells me that this is all in my head. So, I figure I’ll just wait it out and it should go away. lol. Yes, I’m being facetious.

I think it sucks that I was trying to be more than fair and patient with them and now they seek to make me look like a liar. And all the while, I’m sitting here suffering. How lame is that? Ah well. That’s just another chapter in my drama-filled, soap-opera life. C’est la vie.