I’ve since found that there are a few authors out there who are writing about topics that actually interest and motivate me (Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Robert Kiyosaki etc). I’ve also found that I want to know how other entrepreneurs think and what techniques they use in becoming successful. A book that really struck a chord with me was 4-Hour Work Week, by Timothy Ferriss. I will agree with Brian that the second half of the book has a lot of self-help information, which isn’t always bad (get those motivational juices flowing). This book hit home for me because I was at a job that didn’t seem to be taking me anywhere and was becoming very stifling. It also helped to reassure me that the decisions I made were the right ones and that I didn’t want to fall in the mantra of working for 30 years to retire and become bored. I highly recommend picking up the book, not only if you are in a crappy job situation, but if you want to learn more about how to run a business without sitting in an office all day.

A small but powerful topic discussed in the book was eustress. Wikipedia defines eustress as:

Distress is the most commonly-referred to type of stress, having negative implications, whereas eustress is a positive form of stress, usually related to desirable events in person’s life. Both can be equally taxing on the body, and are cumulative in nature, depending on a person’s way of adapting to a change that has caused it.

The premise is to use healthy stress to get yourself to the next level. Whether that next level is taking a calculated risk with your business, working out and losing a few pounds or seeking criticism about your design/product/etc. It can be stressful to put yourself out there and not know the outcome, but if you know your hard work can pay off keep pushing yourself to stimulate growth. I don’t want to sound preachy but this is why 60% of the US population is overweight, people avoid any form of stress, even if it leads to life changing results.

So coming from a book hater, put down the Maxim mags and find some good authors.

The whole Thought & Theory crew will be in Boston for the next couple of days for a big kick-off meeting. Be sure to give us a ring if you’re in the area and want to meet-up and chat.

If you don’t know anything about LoveSac or haven’t heard about them, hop over to their website. There are some great videos about their products, photos of customer setups and you will definitely get a kick out of Shawny D, the founder of LoveSac.

The premise is simple, customize your own couches (Sactionals), along with a ton of other furniture (Sacs, Chairs, etc etc). The Sactionals are so versatile you will never get stuck with the same boring couch ever again. Here is a snippet about Sactionals from the website:

How do G2 Sactionals work? Don’t worry, it’s easy. A Sactional Base and a Sactional Side clamp together like Lego’s, basically. You can arrange any number of Bases and Sides, clamp them all together and poof! You have a full G2 Sactional arrangment. For instance, if you combine 3 bases and 5 sides you get a G2 Sactional Full Sofa Configuration.

Here are some photos to help illustrate the ease of constructing your couch configuration using sides, bases, clamps and pillows. You can check out configurations with same pieces here (navigate to the right in the gallery).

It is such an interesting concept and would be so easy to configure your living room in tons of different ways. Not to mention you can change out the covers for everything and have a completely different look/feel at any time. This makes me think I wish they had some sort of rental system for parties, as it would perfect for my upcoming 24-Hour Movie Marathon! Can you imagine watching movies like this?

Joey from YGG did an interview with Shawny D (Founder of LoveSac), you can read it here.

We are working on a few projects which will be in Beta, but we have never been a fan of labeling things as such. Yes it gives you a crutch to stand on when something breaks, but you can easily explain to your users that you are just getting started and bugs are bound to appear. Beta is a fun way of getting some light press and that is perfectly fine, but work your way out of Beta and get a second round of press when you are in full-launch. You may as well make a point of moving out of Beta since you made the point of starting in Beta!

Speaking of using “Beta” to your advantage: instead of throwing the word “Beta” in your logo, use Beta Codes or a Beta Login to show a limited group of people what you have going on. This gives people a sense of value when they have a code and are one of the privileged who can access your website. This also serves as a kick in the butt to open your website to the masses and move out of Beta when you are ready.

I know “Scratch” is an old movie but I just watched it again and came across this great quote by DJ Shadow.

“The (Invisibl Skratch Piklz) Picklz were the first to take out the secrecy of dj’ing. Because a lot of hip hop dj’ing was based on covering the labels so that no one knew what you had. Not revealing your tricks…and I think the Picklz were the first people to be like ‘hey, here’s exactly how to do what we do. we want you to go out and do it better so that we can learn from you.’ That to me, that took us a giant step forward.”

- DJ Shadow

Wikipedia on Invisibl Skratch Piklz
The Last 4 Minutes of the Invisibl Skratch Piklz together
Scratch Trailer

First off, I really liked the downtown area of Grand Rapids. Nice growing scene was lots of cool spots to hang out. Thanks to Ben for showing us around. We’ll be posting a couple more pics tomorrow on another post.

On Thursday we got to tour their new Art Museum (GRAM) and I was just blown away by the building. The art was amazing too but the space was just incredible. Loved the way they used natural light and moved it throughout the building with carefully planned glass.

Only weird thing was the ridiculously long staircases which Jason enjoyed, but for shorter people like me, made for awkward stair ascending.

Check out the Video Tour
Pics of the Museum (.pdf)

Looking forward to the trip and we’ll be posting pics really soon.

So recapping quickly, you started your blog in Part 1 and then exhausted your network in Part 2 to promote yourself to your peers. Now we move on to some exciting stuff, Marketing.

Market yourself. The key here is to spend as little money as possible when getting started. There are a bunch of great opportunities you can take advantage of which are free and easy to use.

• An easy place to start is with your blog. If you used WordPress or Tumblr, an RSS feed is generated for you. Make sure to promote this handy little feature as it can be a great way to attract all types of users. It’s a good idea to use Feedburner to have some analytics to review regarding your RSS feed.
• Create a press release. This isn’t rocket science and doesn’t have to win you a pulitzer prize. Think of this as an announcement message to someone who has never heard of your company. A good rule of thumb, if your grandmother doesn’t understand your press release, re-write it. This is a two-parter, as you want to send this press release to all of your contacts. Try using Campaign Monitor, Mail Chimp or Constant Contact and make sure to follow CAN-Spam rules and regulations.
• Leverage a social network or two. Obviously social networking is all the rage these days, but in all seriousness there are large audiences you can promote to for free! Create a MySpace profile, you can buy cheap templates that look extremely professional or do it yourself (like we did for Only Human). Facebook Pages is another social networking solution which is easy and free, this one takes no design and you can import your RSS feed from your blog (check out our Facebook Page for Thought & Theory)!
• Start microblogging. This isn’t the end all be all to marketing, but can attract a new audience and help you meet like minded individuals. Twitter and Pownce are good places to start.
• Reach out to get exposure. Local news stations, newspapers and magazines can be a great start to getting your name out there. Obviously do the same with blogs around the web. Don’t be afraid to send someone an e-mail or make a phone call and ask if they would like to hear more about your company/product/service. Don’t get discouraged if someone says “no”, there are a ton of options out there.
• Last but not least, get out there and meet new people. There are BarCamps, Refresh Events, Small Business owners meetings and all kinds of other networking opportunities to take advantage of.

Stay tuned for more and feel free to reach out to us with any questions.

Sometimes you can learn things by learning what not to do. Rapidshare shows what you shouldn’t do with captchas.

Now I realize spam is an issue but this is quite possibly the worst captcha I’ve ever encountered online. There has to be a better way to filter out bots than trying to guess which letters have a cat on them. Some of the cats look like dogs and vice versa so it usually takes about 3 tries before I can actually download the file.

+10 points if you can figure out this captcha so I can actually download this file.

via Okay Player

• The Sixth Sense (1999): 84%
• Unbreakable (2000): 68%
• Signs (2002): 74%
• The Village (2004): 42%
• Lady in the Water (2006): 24%
• The Happening (2008): 15% (current)

So what happened in the last 4 years? He has written, directed, produced and acted in every one of those films. Has he gotten caught up in the media hype? Has his success changed his outlook on film creation? It doesn’t seem to have affected his movie trailers, they still create an incredible buzz. I can’t imagine that Shyamalan wants to have his legacy be great movie trailers and mediocre movies. I know I will be seeing his latest movie, The Happening, but I will be going in with low expectations.

My favorite trailer, Unbreakable:

Sixth Sense Trailer
Signs Trailer
The Village Trailer
Lady in the Water Trailer
The Happening Trailer