Random Acts of Thinking

Quirky and the Crunch N Punch

Ryan Erickson — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:05:13 +0000

So I was watching Bloomberg this week and saw the CEO of Quirky.com talking about his site. Very cool concept. Aspiring inventors and entrepreneurs, who have taken their products as far as they can go on their own, can submit their products to be reviewed by Quirky’s staff and the community. If the people like the idea, Quirky will then take over the rights to it and manufacture it, paying the originator royalties.

The site has apparently been around since 2009, but it’s new to me. And I like it. I submitted an idea that I’ve had in my head for about 5 years and we’ll see what happens. The idea is dubbed the Crunch N Punch, and it will bring the boxers abdominal workout to the masses (hopefully). If you’ve ever seen a boxer training, you may recall the sit up exercise they do where the trainer is kneeling in front of them with punching mitts, and the boxer punches them at the peak of the sit up. Well this concept (pictured below) basically replaces the trainer with the Crunch N Punch. It’s cheaper and more convenient than hiring a trainer, and it can fold down when you’re done to slide under the bed or be placed in a closet.

An Outstanding Motivational Speech

Ryan Erickson — Mon, 23 May 2011 19:11:56 +0000

This is probably the best motivational speech for entrepreneurs that I have seen, or at least it’s right up there with the Steve Jobs Stanford commencement speech. Derek Handley targets New Zealanders, but it can apply to anyone aspiring to change the world.

Update to “Atlanta’s Got Talent” post from a year ago…

Ryan Erickson — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 23:47:40 +0000

As an update to the previous post, Atlanta Startup Weekend 3 did produce one real company that I’m aware of. Nexpense.com has since launched as a service to eliminate expense reports, and it had its humble beginnings at ASW3.

The Facebook application that I worked on has since fizzled out and my optimism might have been slightly exaggerated, but congratulations to Nexpense.com.

With that said, I pitched my idea for The Mobile Menu at ASW3, although it was not selected for pursuit over the weekend. Possibly because it was not something that could be completely built out in one weekend and possibly because I was not as persuasive as some of the other “pitchers.” But The Mobile Menu is underway and will launch soon, so technically I could have been correct in predicting two real companies (or doubling ASW’s previous output) if you’re judging generously.

The Waiting Game

Ryan Erickson — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 23:29:03 +0000

It’s been a few months since my last post, and not much has changed in open view for The Mobile Menu. However, behind the scenes we’re making some good progress. ”Patience is a virtue” has always been one of my favorite sayings, but it seems particularly on target during this process of launching a mobile web company. There has been a lot of “hurry up and wait” throughout the process.

The websites are well underway, and we’re putting the finishing touches on the front end edits while the back end integration is being built out.

We’ve also pitched the idea to a few golf course clients, and have an agreement to run a beta test on two courses here in the Atlanta area. Additionally, today we met with a course management company that manages over 50 golf courses and they thought it was a great idea, and asked us to contact them once the beta is up and running so they can see it in action. That’s traction potential, and very promising.

Now we just need to wait patiently to launch the beta, and then we can get back to the “hurry up” part of expanding and signing up new golf courses.

Living and Learning

Ryan Erickson — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 02:00:43 +0000

In my last post, I ended by saying that I was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Well now that light is getting a little brighter. After meeting with a few developers, we now have an agreement in principle with one of them who is willing to take an equity stake in the business in exchange for their services. It was quite a bit steeper than we had anticipated, but after reading this article in the Wall Street Journal today, I feel better about it. The last sentence of the article is as follows: “If you’re a first-time entrepreneur, you just won’t get venture funding unless you have a product or customers.”

While we believe we have an excellent business plan with attractive financial projections and growth opportunities, the fact of the matter is that it probably would have been very difficult, as first time entrepreneurs, to raise money with just a business plan. Now we have a developer, and a new partner, in place and should be up and running in a few months.

It’s an exciting time and I am looking forward to the continued learning experience!

Recent Improvement Noted

Ryan Erickson — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:09:19 +0000

Recent Improvement Noted. This was always a favorite comment of mine on report cards in elementary school. What does it mean exactly? You struggled in the beginning, and you’re probably still struggling, but not quite as much? Its life applications are endless too, a very versatile phrase.

For me, a man with entrepreneurial aspirations and a dream, it applies very well at this moment in time. I had a light bulb moment about five years ago and came up with a great idea for a business. The problem was that I had no idea what to do about it. Fast forward about four and a half years, an MBA, and a MacBook later and I thought I had all the tools to revisit the concept. I developed a prototype using RapidWeaver on the MacBook and wrote a business plan applying the knowledge I gained in the MBA program.

However, I hit another wall when I realized the prototype site was great for demonstrating the idea, but I needed a real developer to create some of the functional aspects of the website. This realization led to a lengthy lull in the action while I tried to teach myself how to code. After a few months of the lonely struggle through online tutorials and a JavaScript book, I came to the conclusion that this was a job better left to the professionals.

Enter the co-founder. As I’m now realizing, it can be very beneficial to have a co-founder, even if he’s not the developer that is sorely needed. As long as the co-founder shares the passion and belief in the dream, it can be an immense help to have someone helping to push things forward. In this case, he’s thought of some things I had overlooked, brought in some connections to potential developers, and helped expand on the plan of attack.

Long story short, the dream is still in the development phase, but it’s alive, and I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Recent improvement noted.

Atlanta’s Got Talent

Ryan Erickson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:05:41 +0000

This past weekend, I took part in Atlanta Startup Weekend 3 and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was an eye-opening experience in many ways. In its most basic sense, Startup Weekend is a fantastic concept that brings a lot of people with entrepreneurial ambitions together, lets them vote for a few ideas to pursue over the weekend, and ideally companies are launched on Sunday night and continue as viable businesses.

Everything I had read about the first two Startup Weekend’s in Atlanta pointed to this city as a promising place for entrepreneurship going forward because two companies had been launched from the first two weekends (one from each weekend), and are still in existence today.

That said, I would be shocked if this past weekend doesn’t at least double that output. Atlanta does indeed have talent.

Lastly, in response to all of the activity on Twitter about the lack of angels at the Sunday night pitches, that will come in due time. Bootstrapping and the 4 F’s may be the best (and only) way for the community to move forward for the time being, but eventually success will allow this crop of entrepreneurs to become the angels we seem to desire.