Category: Blog

And poof, just like that, we’re already three months into 2011.

Each quarter, I like to take a step back and reflect on my goals for the year. In January, I started a new goal-setting experiment by seeking out twelve month-long challenges.

Three months in, so far so good. While January’s cooking challenge and February’s writing challenge both went well, I didn’t approach March with the kind of gusto I had originally intended.

For the last thirty days, I’ve been reading about and practicing Parkour, the art of getting from point A to point B, most often in an urban environment, as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The challenge, when I wrote it out, was to learn Parkour. In January and February, I had specific metrics outlined for each goal. Looking back, I should have done this in March. Learn x number of moves, or put together x number of videos. Something more concrete to keep me motivated and accountable. Something more compelling than a broad idea. It’s hard to know whether or not you’ve hit a goal if you don’t have any specific milestones laid out.

Despite my lack of direction, I did learn quite a lot about the sport. I watched Banlieu 13, or District 13, a French action movie where the main character is a Parkour traceur. I scoured the Internet for tutorial sites. I even found a few meetup groups in the Boston area to join when the weather gets warmer.

As promised, I put together a short video of one of my practice sessions. Compared to people who actually know what they’re doing (and are in much better shape), I’m as amateur as they come. That said, I had fun putting this together. Shout-out to my coworker Alex for helping me film:

Since it’s the start of a new quarter, I also wanted to let you know what I’ll be working on over the next three months.

April: Bucket List Smackdown.

The Challenge: Knock three items off of my bucket list.

The Details: Of the 38 challenges currently on my bucket list, I’ve only completed one of them. I haven’t decided which ones to tackle this month, but some are significantly easier than others. I’ll try to mix it up. Any suggestions?

Get Involved: Have a life list of your own? Let me know what you’re working on. For more inspiration, check out these lists: Nate Damm, Sean Ogle, Heath Tulley, Tyler Tervooren, Joel Runyon

May: Hustling, Hour by Hour.

The Challenge: Work 10-15 hours on a side project or business venture.

The Details: I tend to be pretty scatterbrained when it comes to business and project ideas. The purpose of this month’s challenge is to buckle down and focus on one of these ideas, putting at least ten hours into it to push it forward.

Get Involved: All of us have side projects in the closet or under the bed. What have you been putting off? Join me this month and put some time into your idea.

June: Do it Yourself.

The Challenge: Spend 5-10 hours on a DIY project.

The Details: I’ve always looked up to my mom for being so hands-on. Problem with the sink? Ten minutes of Google research and she’ll be inside the cabinet, tightening bolts with a headlamp on. You rock, mom. This month, I’ll attempt to build a solar panel. First step..locate a soldering iron.

Get Involved: For your own DIY project, check out Instructables.com, DoItYourself.com or DIYIdeas.com to get started.

That’s all I’ve got for now, folks. See you soon.

Case Studies in the 9 to 5 alternative: No. 9

Welcome to a series of profiles on alternative lifestyles. If you think that you (or someone you know) would make for an interesting interview, drop me a line.

Meet Mark Sawyier, CEO of Off Campus Media. When Mark was in college, finding an apartment was more challenging than he expected. Driven by an entrepreneurial spirit, Mark set out to improve the apartment-hunting process by launching Moving Off Campus, a search engine for rental units located around college campuses.

Mark is a good friend of mine. We shared a couple of courses together at Washington University and both majored in International Studies. During my last semester, I was fortunate enough to work for him on a data entry project. I saw what it was like to work for a small, dynamic company. Mark may not know this, but those few months were a huge influence on me. To see a friend start a company, to see that friend hustle and land clients and make strategic changes–it was exciting stuff. I remember those days well.

Over the last three years, Mark’s company has evolved quite a bit. I’ll let him tell you more.

So, Mark, tell us about your company, Off Campus Media.

Off Campus Media has two main areas of business: website assets and client services (that also support our assets).

MovingOffCampus.com is a website designed to help college students find apartments. The website will help over 1,000,000 college students find apartments off campus in 2011. We market the website primarily through search engine and campus marketing through our national Campus Ambassador program.

All of the services we offer our clients (campus, search engine and social media marketing) stem from our own experience and dependence on them for success. Put simply, we “eat our own dog food.” Moreover, these services exist in a constantly evolving landscape and there’s no better way to learn than managing your own asset that needs all of them.

Where did the idea come from? How did you originally get things off the ground?

As a college student, I was going through the process of trying to find an apartment off campus and found it to be an extremely challenging process. To solve the problem, I got together with a bunch of friends and launched the first version of MovingOffCampus.com. From there, the business adapted to meet our needs (traffic growth and revenue).

How much has your business model changed from when you first launched Moving off Campus?

It’s been constantly evolving but within an expanding definition of what Off Campus Media is. This expansion has largely occurred in the services area (which are all core competencies we need to grow our websites) but even with MovingOffCampus.com – from membership to referral fees to finally traffic-based advertising, the revenue model has changed. I suspect it will continue to do so but the big picture has more or less remained the same.

What have been some of your biggest entrepreneurial hurdles so far?

First and foremost is building the right team. Understanding the value of experience and working with talent is something that I only came to appreciate as I continued “down the road.” Attracting talent is always one of the toughest challenges for any young company because of a lack of resources.

The lack of resources would definitely be my second hurdle. As an entrepreneur, you will likely never have a shortage of ideas, just the means to implement all of them. Managing available resources (cash and people) is crucial. For me, always keeping a 1, 3, 6 and 12-month goal and priority list top-of-mind has been very helpful combined with remembering when weighting priorities to consider which will have an immediate or short-term impact on revenue.

Finally, staying motivated. Starting any business invariably involves many ups and downs so keeping your team (and yourself) motivated can be difficult.

Anything exciting in the works?

Some of the highlights:

• Expanding our Campus Ambassador program to over 70 campuses nationwide
• Launching a new brand that focuses entirely on the search engine and social media marketing services we offer
• Deepening our management team
• Adding new features to MovingOffCampus.com to improve usability and increase revenue

Happy Monday, folks.

This is me jumping over some chairs a few years ago. And no, I’m not wearing any pants.

I hope your week (and month of March) is going well. Wanted to take this opportunity to update you on this month’s challenge, lay out a few mini-goals for the last week of the month and tell you about an exciting trip I recently returned from.

Parkour Theory

March, unfortunately, is not a Parkour-friendly month in Boston. I’ve spent most of my time reading about the sport/discipline/philosophy, watching movie clips, taking notes and scouting out locations, basically biding my time until the weather becomes more agreeable. At the end of the month, I will upload a short video clip that highlights what I’ve learned.

Parkour is a sport of efficiency, where traceurs navigate urban obstacles using only their bodies. Neophytes tend to focus on a particular set of moves/skills before linking them together in longer, more fluid sessions. A good resource for beginners can be found here: The Definitive Guide to Parkour for Beginners

Below are a few of the individual elements I’ve been working on:

The Precision Jump

Landing and Rolling

The Kong Vault

The Wall-Run

Care to join me? I know Josh Crocker and Joel Runyon have expressed interest. Let me know if you would like to contribute.

Technical Difficulties

Some of you have probably noticed a few issues over the last month. Unfinished posts. Delayed email updates. Blank pages and garbled text.

Here at The 9 to 5 Alternative HQ, things don’t always go as smoothly as I’d like them to. While I try hard to keep this blog nice and orderly, from time to time I let operations go a muck. Thanks for baring with me, folks!

Mt. Shasta, Avalanches and Winter Camping

A couple of weeks ago, I flew out to California with my brother to attempt a winter summit of Mt. Shasta, a 14,179 ft. volcanic peak near the Oregon border. While I’ve been fortunate enough to reach the summit twice during the summer months, I was itching for winter camping experience. My brother and I crashed with a former coworker of mine in San Francisco who joined us for the climb.

Avalanche conditions and impending 90 mph wind gusts held us to about 8,500 ft., but it was a fantastic weekend. We learned a lot about winter camping, gained mountain confidence, and I had the chance to snap a few photographs.

March! Two months–and challenges–complete, ten to go.

In February, I set out to write one thousand words a day. A lofty regimen and healthy challenge for someone who normally doesn’t write that much.

I ended the month in the same way I started the month, by free writing. For about twenty minutes, I typed out the first thing that came to me, regardless of grammar, style, inhibition or spelling. Regardless of how ridiculous or incoherent it sounded in my head.

Free writing is more about the act of writing than anything else. It’s about letting the mind wander into new territories. It’s about letting go. Yesterday, just after I had written my final words of the month (something about Steve Jobs, chickens and the rumba), I made a note to try free writing more often. It’s a great way to start the day.

With two challenges under the belt, it’s time to step things up a notch. In March, I will study and practice the sport/philosophy of parkour.

From the Wikipedia page:

Parkour is a utilitarian discipline based upon the successful, swift and energy-efficient traversing of one’s surrounding environment via the practical application of techniques, based around the concept of self-preservation and the ability to help others. It is a non-competitive, physical discipline of French origin in which participants run along a route, attempting to negotiate obstacles in the most efficient way possible, using only their bodies. Skills such as jumping, climbing, vaulting, rolling, swinging and wall scaling are employed. Parkour can be practiced anywhere, but areas dense with obstacles are preferable, and it is most commonly practiced in urban areas. The usage and employment of flips into the named route does not constitute parkour.

The main characteristics of parkour are speed and efficiency, both which require physical prowess, spatial awareness and, of utmost importance, the ability to minimize short and long-term injuries.

I’ll be taking the month of March to learn about parkour, to practice some moves, to post hilarious videos of my trying aforementioned moves and, of course, to have fun.

As always, if any of you are interested in participating with me, please get in touch!

Happy goal-setting / challenge-crushing. I’ll check in soon.

Case Studies in the 9 to 5 alternative: No. 8

Welcome to a series of profiles on alternative lifestyles. If you think that you (or someone you know) would make for an interesting interview, drop me a line.

Meet David Bixler. He’s traveled a bit. He lives in Washington D.C. and runs his own company. He likes to jump on trampolines. He’s intelligent, relaxed and waxes philosophical on small businesses and customer loyalty. David’s a cool guy.

I met David a couple of months ago, when he came to visit my roommate and crashed on our couch for a few nights. We fended off mice, walked around Boston and sampled some of our favorite microbrews. When we weren’t playing video games or cards, we chatted about entrepreneurship.

After graduating college, David mingled with a start-up company in D.C. and licensed their software, effectively launching his own customer loyalty company. I had fun probing him for details.

So, tell us about your company, Client Rocket.

The old elevator pitch, huh? Client Rocket is an API driven loyalty platform for businesses, organizations, and entrepreneurs. So if you’re not a techie like me, Client Rocket allows any business to operate and manage their own in-house points, loyalty, or rewards program powered by a web-based technology. My loyalty philosophy is the more you give, the more you have to give. It may sound counter-intuitive, but studies have proven that 20% of customers can account for 80% of a business’ profit. Treat these customers well and they will reward you with a stream of profits and praise. Since loyalty is confusing, we help clients conceive of the right solution for their specific business while fulfilling the need for marketing materials like those awesome plastic cards you get at your grocery store. If it pertains to loyalty, we’ve got it covered.

Client solutions are just one side of the business. Lately I’ve been fascinated with what entrepreneurs are doing with our platform. Loyalty takes many forms, and entrepreneurs around the world are creating stand-alone businesses based on our platform.

Where did the idea come from? How did you originally get things off the ground?

Most people laugh when I explain this, but the idea for ClientRocket actually originated from my intelligent, wonderful, amazing mother. I come from an entrepreneurial family, and right after I graduated from college I was looking for a fun Internet project instead of getting one of those “real world” jobs. At the time, my mother was launching a rewards program for local home builders to earn points for shopping at local suppliers like local lumber, flooring, plumbing, and hardware companies in effort to compete with the national Lowe’s and Home Depots. The web-based software she found to track all this was provided by a startup company based in Washington DC called StickyStreet.com. I thought her idea was brilliant but surely there had to be other applications for this loyalty-centered business model.

Turns out, StickyStreet was about to change their business model to license their technology only to resellers that understand the concepts of loyalty. I was at the right place at the right time so I jumped on this opportunity, drove up to Washington DC, took their 3-day loyalty immersion course and have been obsessed with loyalty ever since.

StickyStreet helped me pick the name ClientRocket and launch a website but I already had my first client lined up back home. It was a big name Spa franchise that was missing the loyalty functionality from their pre-approved corporate software. They had no way of rewarding frequent customers. Luckily, my new gig provided the solution so I spent some time with the owners and listened to what they needed. We designed some plastic cards and kicked off their program a few weeks later.

Being a non-conformist (hence ending up on this blog), I thought this was a dream come true. I could work from anywhere in the world, provide a web-based service, and still make a monthly income. Plus, knowing that I was adding value to these businesses really gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. My next few clients came from the leads I received from my first Google AdWords campaign. I had never done any online advertising, but I was fascinated with its effectiveness. No wonder Google has about $35 billion in cash lying around! My first low budget AdWords campaign resulted in several leads and a few new clients. I got to know them over the phone and through email correspondence and built the loyalty solution they were seeking. Piece of cake.

I’m digging this whole customer loyalty thing. Any fun clients you’ve worked with?

I’m glad you agree, Alan. Loyalty rocks. On a side note, I consider myself a loyal friend and Apple fanboy, but the former generally gets me more points with the ladies. But fun clients you ask? Plenty. One of my first clients is a coffee franchise based in Australia called The Dancing Bean. Not only do they have fun accents, but also the owner has a serious dirt biking hobby, which makes me insanely jealous that we don’t get to hang out on the weekends. Even though we’ve never met in person, I can tell he’s a fun guy. I have the privilege of speaking to like-minded folks all day long. For example, one of my favorite clients (oh wait, I can’t pick favorites) is a chain of Bike Shops in Virginia. They sponsor race teams and have built up an impressive customer list from using our program for several months. They are always reaching out to the community and they see the results through several dedicated customers. In fact, their customers have reached out to me to praise them! I really just love working with positive people, and loyalty has that effect. Other cool businesses we work with include wine shops, salons, fine dining clubs, auto dealerships, doctor’s offices, and an entire school district in Michigan (I made them promise they wouldn’t give me homework).

What have been some of your biggest entrepreneurial hurdles so far? What have you learned?

Of course, entrepreneurship has its hurdles. As much as I love this pirate lifestyle, I always wonder if I missing something that a real job could offer. On second thought, no paycheck could sway me from wearing pajamas until noon. I am always challenged with the ability to be self-motivated. Since I ultimately make every decision about my business, I have to rely on myself to stay on top of my game. Time management can be difficult especially when it’s a beautiful day outside. Everyday I have to prioritize what is important. I am an avid list maker and generally a very organized guy. Making lists is one of my favorite things to do and a must on a Sunday night in order to plan my week. I’ve definitely learned that it is always better to be proactive instead of reactive. There is always something that could be done to keep me ahead of the curve, whether it be reading the latest loyalty blog, or broadening my horizons with a new skill. For example, this month I took a Photoshop class so I can better understand graphic design.

Another entrepreneurial challenge pertains to staying focused on one project at a time. I have a tendency to be an off-the-wall thinker and can easily go off on a tangent if infected with a new idea (Inception reference). I am constantly asking myself if these new ideas relate to my core business model of loyalty. There is nothing wrong with side projects, and a full shelf of them could lead to a breakthrough one day, but if my idea doesn’t fit my core business, I have to put it on the shelf or move it around to one of my peers.

Anything exciting in the works? What can we expect from Client Rocket over the next couple of years?

I am very excited about what’s in the pipeline for 2011. We’ve brought on some extremely talented developers who are going to lead our foray into the mobile market. Tablet devices have only scratched the surface of their potential, and have yet to be fully adopted by the business world. Developing a mobile application or hotsite for these tablet devices would open up a huge opportunity for businesses. I talk to businesses all day that need a loyalty program to fit their current workflow, except they don’t know what they want or how it will work. Henry Ford said, “If we asked our customers what they want they would have said a faster horse.” I think that quote is incredibly accurate in the loyalty market right now because customer loyalty is rapidly changing with new media like Facebook and Twitter. We are listening to what customers want and then hiding out with people that truly understand the technology to determine the next loyalty breakthrough.

As for me, I’m incredibly happy with my role at ClientRocket. I’m working with some of the smartest people in the industry in a city that I love, Washington DC. I’m focused on growing my business for the next several years, but who knows what form that will take. I’m a huge fan of what you do with The 9 to 5 Alternative and share your passion for traveling and micro-goal setting. I want to travel to South America, Thailand, and Australia but I can’t decide in what order. Thankfully, I’m self-employed and can make these decisions for myself. After all, it’s never been easier to be an entrepreneur than right now.