Oracle of NY

Fallen Angel

I had a disappointing meeting with my first "angel."

I sensed something was fishy when he did not even want me to plug in my prototype.

I made my pitch, and he and his sidekick asked a few questions about my business.

He then said he could not help me with funding but offered to sell me his marketing services. When I said I did not have funds to pay him for marketing services (I came to the meeting to raise funds for marketing), he offered to take 20% of my company as payment!

What an angel - a fallen angel!

I said that was a pretty steep price for marketing services and that I was offering 10% to 20% of my company for a couple of hundred thousand dollars.

That was the end of that.

Perhaps, I'll meet a real angel soon.

 

VCs and Angels

I went to my first VC/angle event and made a bit of a splash.

The FundingPost event at Bingham McCutchen was unexciting for me, until I spontaneously gained permission to set up my Twisplays prototype at the networking reception after the presentations.

Then I got excited.

The event organizer Joe Rubin quickly published his comment on Twitter:

Cool sign displaying our Twitter feed at the VC event from Twisplays.com http://tweetphoto.com/41144795

Twisplays fit in well, raised some eyebrows and was well-received.

Twisplays are great for events!

Starbucks Twisplays

I had another great meeting.

I plugged in my Twisplays prototype at a small Starbucks near Grand Central, and people immediately started gathering around. One guy asked how much it cost and where could he get one. I gave him my card. Someone even accidentally knocked the Twisplays over, and it nearly split in two, but I was able to snap it back together!

The fellow I met produces sports marketing events. He really liked what he saw - Twisplays - and the immediate buzz it created at a Starbucks on a dreary rainy NYC day. He says he will try to get me meetings with some heavy hitters.

I can hardly wait until I can start taking orders!

First Leads

I have two leads from sports teams/stadiums that might be interested in putting Twisplays in suites and bars around the stadium and possibly in popular spots around town. Both leads were made via family and friends, but the responses are quite exciting.

On Tuesday, I plan to attend my first VC/Angel event, a FundingPost gathering in NYC.

Getting Startup

I've received my business certificate for Twisplays, Inc. and opened a business bank account. As soon as I am I ready to process orders, I will start accepting pre-orders!

It looks as though conferences and events could be catalytic marketing and sales venues for me. Seeing Twisplays attracting attention at conferences and events could convince not only attendees but other vendors that Twisplays are exactly what they need to promote their business.

Conferences and events could expose Twisplays to the retail world, then to consumers and eventually to the enterprise market.

Pre-Launch Excitment

I'm setting up Twisplays, Inc., developing the initial commercial products and a more professional website than my beta www.twisplays.com. We plan to launch in September.

Initial response from NY Tech Meetup and MIT Sloan School of Management Alumni LinkedIn groups has been very encouraging. Comments range from "Very cool!" to entrepreneurs in Europe and South America telling me to let them know as soon as I am ready to distribute abroad. Why wait?

I've put up some teasers on Twitter and YouTube but have not had a breakthrough yet. That should come in time and be more urgent when we are ready to sell or at least pre-sell.

I had a constructive meeting today with an interested party and plan to have at least a couple more meetings later this week.

It is very exciting to start a company!

Startup Blog

I'm starting up Twisplays, Inc., so I might as well blog about it.

The idea for Twisplays came to me as a convergence of multiple circumstances.

I recently wrote a business plan for a startup that wants to deploy a a high-end in-bar entertainment and advertising network. A friend has been letting me use his office to make phone calls and send emails while I looked for a job, and his employer owns one of the largest national in-store advertising networks. I produced an i-Phone application, SellThisPig, for business valuations, and one of my customers contacted me saying, "That's just what I've been looking for!" It turned out that he was in the LED singage business and focused on retail networks. I have experience in business development for a satellite network communications company and understand the costs and parameters of wireless network communications. Twitter is booming and is quickly becoming the source of choice for getting news, information, business deals/discounts/coupons and entertainment first, and is ideal for displaying on simple, inexpensive one-line LED signs. Furthermore, even though I am an MIT graduate with impressive international experience in technology and finance, I have been unemployed for most of the past two years - so, it's about time I became an entrepreneur and started my own company!

Inspired by the idea of displaying Twitter on LED signs, I did some research and saw that a couple of successful marketing efforts had been made in Times Square and Las Vegas to display Twitter streams on very expensive, high-end LED billboards, but no one was offering the technology and service on inexpensive one-line LEDs for corporate retail customers and consumers. I wondered if I could do that, and after much research, discussion and hacking, I developed my first prototype.

I then wrote a brief business plan and saw that I could make a lot of money!

I thought about calling my products Twerminals and registered the URL but then settled on Twisplays.

Once I had a prototype, was extremely excited by what I saw and the business prospects and had registered the Twisplays URL, I contacted an accountant and started the company.

My branded corporate retail and consumer products are in development and should be ready in a month or two.

I put up a preliminary web site on my own (this one) but am developing a more professional, commercial site.

I am using Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Meetup.com and other social networking venues, along with my personal, alumni and professional networks, to create some buzz and get some pre-orders.

So far the response to the concept has been overwhelmingly positive, and an angel just wrote me a check for a few thousand dollars to give me a kickstart and some encouragement.

Go Twisplays!