Cameesa - The Blog

Although the Democratic National Convention has made Denver a wild place the past few days, I am most excited for tomorrow night. Wednesday the 27th, Rage Against the Machine will be playing next door to the DNC. On one side of the street you have who could be the future President of the United States, and on the other, a powerful band willing to stand up to and question authority at all costs.

While I was ironing my new super fly Cameesa T and thinking about tomorrow I made an interesting connection: I think Rage would like Cameesa. Here are a few reasons:

1. No presence of “The Man.” Cameesa cuts out the buyer, who supposedly knows the tastes of the buyers, and replaces them with the actual market. Cameesa’s community decides what is printed and sold. There is no controlling authority.

2. Cameesa is run by its community, not a money-hungry CEO. By supporting a design, a community member is directing Cameesa’s activities. Cameesa prints what its community demands. Without Artists submitting high quality designs and the Community making them a reality, there is no Cameesa.

3. Fair revenue distribution. Before Cameesa makes a cent for its production efforts, the Artist and Supporters earn on every T-shirt sold.

4. American Apparel T-shirts. High quality Ts made in Los Angeles by insurance-holding, fairly-paid workers in healthy working conditions. Learn more about them here

I am not suggesting that Cameesa likes Rage (but we do), but these characteristics help define Cameesa. I believe that these principles can be respected by individuals around the world. Who knows, maybe Morello will be wearing “Take Me to Your Reader” at the Republican National Convention next week.

When studying successful entrepreneurs I always come across a recurring theme. I am probably very receptive to theme because I sincerely believe in it, therefore I may possess a bit of selective attention. The theme is create something you are passionate about. Randy Komisar, a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins, in his book “The Monk and The Riddle” puts it best:

“Passion pulls you to something you cannot resist. Drive pushes you toward something you feel compelled or obligated to do. If you know nothing about yourself, you can’t tell the difference. Once you gain a modicum of self-knowledge, you can express your passion”

The problem is people usually work on something for some end goal. Once the end goal is achieved then they’ll do what they want. Randy gives this problem a name, “The Deferred Life Plan”. I have to do something really unsatisfying first so I can make the money to do what I really want. If you’re going to put in all the hard work and time why not devote it to something you give a damn about? If things don’t go as planned at the very least the time will not have been wasted.

I subscribe to Google Alerts for the terms crowdfund, crowdfunded, and crowdfunding, among other things.  The other morning when I awoke I was alerted to an article on crowdfunding from the Sydney Morning Herald.

I checked it out, and noticed a few familiar names on the crowdfunding scene: Sellaband and MyFootballClub.  But there were two other companies that I had never heard of: Catwalk Genius and BeerBankRoll.  After poking around a bit, it appears that Catwalk Genius plans to use crowdfunding to sponsor fashion designers.  A noble cause, but I didn’t learn much more since their website is not currently functional.

The other company, BeerBankRoll is much further developed, and aspires to be a crowdfunded brewery.  They have received a fair amount of press around the web, and appear to be steadily signing up people who believe in the idea.  As I lurked around the nether regions of the site, I noticed that they are actually located in a suburb of Chicago!

It’s rare to find crowdfunding companies, but even more rare to find one in your own back yard.  It was encouraging for me to see that crowdfunding is starting to proliferate in the United States.  Hopefully we can catch up to our UK/European brethren soon.  I feel like the biggest challenge is education on the concept.  Once people grasp the premise they start to feel comfortable with participating.

You ever curious who is blogging about you, or your company?  Well, here is Gooooogle Alerts.  In Google’s words, “Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results.”

How have I used Google Alerts?  Well, I told Google to e-mail me every time it comes across the word ‘cameesa.’  Get it?  So, I get an e-mail every time Google indexes the word ‘cameesa’.

Check out Google Alerts here.

My friend Charles was browsing around the flashy new website for the Samsung Instinct phone when he stumbled upon this gem.  Apparently Samsung forgot that QWERTY keyboards start with the letters Q, W, E, R, T, and Y.

They spent all this money to get the crazy flash interface and overlooked the basics.  How could something like this have slipped through the cracks?

To see for yourself:

•  Go to http://samsunginstinct.com
• Skip the Intro, and click on Touch at the botto
• Click on Explore Touch next to the phone

I would just give you a direct link, but they chose to develop an all flash site, making it impossible.  Let’s hope that we never do something like this with Cameesa.  If we do, you have my permission to flame me for it.

On Friday Cameesa was featured in Webware. I’m glad Josh found the idea of crowdfunding interesting. Although he did mention that the selection slim was slim, the article was positive overall. The selection is slim right now,  and it’s steadily growing. Hopefully, the next time Josh visits we have a wider selection.

I’d like to thank our initial community for their participation on the site.  It’s growing quickly and things are going to become very interesting soon.

An excellent post from the CEO of Idea Couture, Idris Mootee. I couldn’t agree more on his stance in regards to “management”.

When you build a high performance culture, no one needs to manage anyone. You pick not only smart people but also people that have a passion for success, strong analytic mind and/or creative self expression somewhere deep inside them. They are not managers and not aspire to be one. They are good coaches and leaders. They want to be part of something big, bigger than an individual, meaningful, to make a contribution, and to find fulfillment in what they do. You can only inspire, coach and support them, there’s nothing to manage. If you’re telling me you are actively managing your top people, then these yearnings are often managed out of people in the unrelenting quest for predictable mediocrity or satisfactorily under performance.

This view is one of the main reasons the Cameesa team is a team. We all pull our weight and are passionate about Cameesa. I think if anyone on the team had to manage someone else we’d be in big trouble. But since we are tightly knit group that works synergistically together we keep moving along and improving Cameesa. Not to mention that we all complement each other very well in terms of skill sets.

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Although execution is of crucial importance, especially in a small business, it is important never to lose sight of the overall vision. It is this vision that will inspire your partners to get the business to a new level despite the large amounts of work. It is also important not to get consumed by daily tasks to the point where you lose sight of the future and stop innovating and improving.

Is the universe trying to tell me something?

Many entrepreneurs get their business ideas in the following way : a) find problem, b) think of solution, c) base a business around the solution.

Are there any daily tasks that while undertaking them, you think to yourself “there’s gotta be an easier way of doing this.” If so, then these are perfect startup business opportunities. Next time that thought runs through your mind : 1) write it down, 2) let one day go by, 3) think of a solution.

Here is a recent example in my life :

I was recently folding my laundry and pairing up my 40 different pairs of white socks. I thought to myself, “I HATE pairing socks together, what a brainless, waste-of-time task. There has to be an easier way to do this.” A few days went by and then the ANSWER suddenly popped into my mind. I threw out ALL of my white socks, drove to Wal-Mart, and bought 40 mid-cut, white Hanes socks. I don’t pair my socks anymore because they are all identical so I can just grab two white socks from my dresser.

The business idea you ask? To create a David Allen style Getting Things Done book for the home. It would contain time saving tips for around the house chores like the sock example mentioned previously.

This is just a small example but there are probably hundreds of opportunities you encounter on a daily basis. If you start writing down a couple a day you will have amassed a giant list of ideas that you may be able to convert into an entrepreneurial endeavor.

As time goes by you will find that small problems arise all over the place, you just have to keep your eyes open and be ready.