"I've Got a Golden Ticket!"

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My passion for business began when I was 4 years old and would walk with my father into Westwood Village to see a movie and pass by empty office buildings.  I’d share with him the businesses I would start to fill those vacant offices from cartoon companies to movie reviewers to parent child relationship centers. Yes, I can’t believe these thoughts crossed my mind so young either, but I am grateful they did.

Before my teens I hung out on Prodigy in my father’s home office.  My parents couldn’t part me from the PC green neon display so they made up “office police” who would arrest daddies who let their kids hang out too long. Ha! It didn’t work. I was glued and chat rooms, turned into new friends around the country which turned into understanding code and how these machines worked which in end planted seeds to who I am professionally today, a crackberry social nerd in love with everything internet marketing and the lifestyle it caters to.

Michael Schaecher tweeted me today “Sounds like an experiment worthy of a blog post…’Lessons learned about not using email on my BlackBerry for a _____’ ” after sharing with him that I deleted my email accounts on my blackberry in order to focus on a project for the week. I starred at my cell today  like I didn’t know if it was the red or green cord that would trigger the bomb when I cut it.  Finally I thought of Jason Calacanis‘s recent email list controversy where he shared he was deleting his Facebook account.  He explained deactivating was an option as well and isn’t the same as deleting if his peers want to follow suit. You could reactivate it at any time and your facebook profile will  be as you left it. Phew. So I thought, why not deactivate my Blackberry emails and focus on results, friends, reading and maybe getting a foot massage at my favorite place on Westwood Blvd. Wish me luck! I’m already getting the jitters.

So I am working on a video test project.  And I haven’t paid much attention to analytics as that isn’t the purpose of the project. But last night I was reading Eric Ries (Lean Start Ups) guest blog post on Tim Ferriss’s blog (Four Four Work Week) about “Vanity Metrics vs Actionable Metrics”

He emphasized how vital it is to not only observe the page views per month and what users are doing on your site, (as we all have become accustomed to doing) BUT rather first pay special attention to the discovery process that brought them to your site.

So I went into YouTube and was absolutely SHOCKED when on a recent test video out of 41 views 37! were from a mobile device.  The numbers are small but it is definitely something I am taking note of to pay attention to moving forward.

Eric Ries: How To Build Your Company WITH Your Users on Mixergy

This is success. A clear and defined plan with specific (timeline and financial) measurable goals to track success. Hallelujah

Mr. Lütke determined before the competition that it would have to inspire at least 600 new accounts to be successful. New customers, he figured, would spend a minimum of $24 a month for six months to compete, translating to at least $86,400 in revenue for Shopify…So far, Shopify has signed up more than 1,000 new Web stores, already exceeding the expectations of Mr. Lütke, who expects 50 to 100 more participants to sign up by May 1.

Courtesy of NY Times

While chatting with my friend Jason  this week he said “…by the way I’m launching a Twitter Game Show site tomorrow called “Find That Tweet“. I think you’ll like it.”  Just wish I thought of it! How clever. We were talking about how he used to hide cash for twitter users, like Tony Hawk ended up doing with skate decks.  The official launch day was yesterday and I was hooked!!! All I needed to do was find a tweet after watching video clues and I win money. The coolest part is he set it up so when I tweet it out a link is created in my tweet via his system and if someone clicks and starts playing and they win I get some money from them winning too! Crazy sick and so super smart plus a ton of fun.