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.

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.

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.

vonmonkey about his initial impressions and thoughts about Cameesa.

Check it out here

What amazes me is how well vonmonkey was able to not only grasp the site, but his analysis of the underlying effects of using crowd funding. I couldn’t have written it better myself.

Cheers Jon! We look forward to seeing “Take Me to Your Reader” make it into print. At the current pace of Support, it should be there in no time!

One of our artists, stevebalistreri, recently submitted a real-life design, the Flabongo. (http://cameesa.com/support/design/28/flabongo-evolution)

In my 26 years of existence, I have done my fair share of partying, but I have never encountered a Flabongo; hence, my inquiry on Steve’s post asking “what the hell is a blongo?” (http://cameesa.com/forum/post/12/new-design-flabongo)

Even after Steve explained the Flabongo concept, I was still somewhat puzzled, and skeptical of the Flabongo.

So, this past Saturday night, I attended a Lincoln Park house-party at a friend’s place. As midnight struck, a mysterious creature entered Brendan’s home. It was pink, had no legs, and its insides were ripped open. Lo and behold, the Flabongo had entered my life for the first time ever. I was stupefied and amazed as to what I was seeing. Who would have ever thought that I would see a design on Cameesa.com - for the first time ever - and get a real-life taste of it, only days later.

I flew off the couch and greeted the gentleman who brought the Flabongo into my life. As I approached him, he quickly jumped back because he thought that I was going to kiss him (note: it’s atypical to kiss strangers in Chicago…although it has been accomplished before.) I told him the entire Flabongo/Cameesa.com story but he clearly did not understand my amazement of Flabongo.

The moral of the story is : “Cameesa.com brings people together, whether in designs or real life.” I want to deeply thank Brendan for a great party, Steve for the Flabongo design, and the gentleman, whose name will remain confidential, for bringing Flabongo into my life…..I miss you dearly.

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.

Cameesa would like to Congratulate Andy and Ari!!! This wonderful couple made a life-long commitment to each other and decided to get married on June 21st, 2008. Congrats.

What else happened this weekend?  The Fab Five members of Cameesa were physically united for the first time. Qasar flew in from Boston, Justin from Austin, Vik from Canada (eh) and I drove to Michigan with Andy. It was a glorious afternoon for a wedding, some Polka dancing and a memorable night of shenanigans. We were together one minute and separated the next.  As I type, Andy is relaxing with his wife, Ari, on a beach in the Caribbean, Q is in Australia hunting crocodiles, Justin is sweating in Texas, and Vik is probably working.

It was great to see everyone. Pictures will be posted once Q gets back from vacation.

P.S. It was also Justin Lewis’ birthday on Saturday, so Happy Birthday Justin.

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.

I have a tendency, I’m sure you probably do too, of starting one book and stopping half way through it to read another.

At the beginning of 2008 I swore to myself that I would stop swapping books, unless the current book was “a bit crap (Ali G voice.)” I began reading Founders At Work by Jessica Livingston about 2 months ago and am almost finished. The book consists of 30 interviews with the Founders of startups such as Hot or Not, 37Signals, Blogger, Craigslist and many more. I highly recommend this book for people that want to start their own company, as Vik recommended it to me.

Here is some great startup advice from an interview with Joel Spolsky, the author of a brilliant blog, Joel On Software :

Don’t start a company unless you can convince one other person to go along with you. If you don’t have two people that you’ve convinced to devote their lives to doing this, it’s just going to be a different thing. There are a lot of programmers that are very tentative about starting their own companies. There are a lot of working programmers doing something they hate, with some company that they hate, but they need money to pay the mortgage. So they figure, “I’ll develop something in my spare time. I’ll put in 1 hour every night and 2 hours on the weekends and I’ll start selling it by downloads.” And you say to them, “Who’s your co-founder?” And they say, “My significant other-husband or wife. My cat.”

But because they never really take the leap and quit their job, they can give up their dream at any time. And 99.9 percent of them will actually give up their dream. If they take the leap, quit their job, go do it full-time –no matter how much it sucks — and convince one other person to do the same thing with them, they’re going to have a much, much higher chance of actually getting somewhere. Because they either have to succeed or get a job. Sometimes, “succeed” seems like the easier path than actually getting a job, which is depressing. So quit your day job. Have one other founder, at least. I’d say that’s the minimum bar to getting anywhere.

Are you willing to risk everything, or are you part of that 99.9% and going to give up your dream?

Do the following :

1. Find someone else that believes in the same idea as you do, and is willing to devote themselves to it. (Cannot be your wife, girlfriend, or cat)
2. Get private health insurance.
3. Quit your job.
4. Start the company with your partner and try it out for one year.

If you are succeeding after one year :

A. Continue succeeding.

If you are failing after one year and want to give up :

A. Put the company on your resume and find a new job.

B. Continue paying your mortgage.

Here is how I look at it, I’d rather pursue my dream with 100% passion, and suffer financially in the short-term, then to give up my dream and keep paying my mortgage. You will have the rest of your life to pay your mortgage.

By the way, don’t quote me on this one, I think that your income may be higher when you pick up that second job after failing in a startup. Imagine the experience, knowledge, and connections that you will gain in that one year of starting a company.  I think that all signs point to ‘quit your job and start a company.’

Think of all of the things that you love. In my case, i love anything that is challenging, and requires a team. A point in time where ideas are constantly flowing and the possibilities are endless. A team where everyone cares for one another and would give up anything for each other. Simply put, a family.

A place where there is no single dictator, everyone is equal, and any idea is a possible goldmine. Analogous to a green-light session, where every idea is plausible and NO does not exist. A concept of synergy amongst each other, a concept of encouragement and infinite strength.

For example, I felt this when I was getting my Masters degree at University of Chicago, and we were assigned a database project to model a professor evaluation survey. I remember sitting in a board room with two of my colleagues, Raja Bose and Carlos Rivera, and spending countless hours trying to figure out a database model. I remember thinking at this moment : “I love to be around brilliant people that are open and don’t bring others down”, it is much more energizing, and healthy for yourself and the others. Our model ended up being 20 pages taped next to each other, this is definitely something that I would have never designed on my own.

This where I visualize Cameesa in a very short period of time. I respect everyone on the team and I strongly feel that everyone brings something different to the table, I feel that once the ball gets rolling then the opportunities will be endless.

When was the last time you were part of a great team?