Monthly Archives: October 2013

The Best Pumpkin Seed Recipe

Posted by Andy in Uncategorized

Relax… this isn’t going to become a food blog.  But ’tis the season for candy and jack-o-lanterns. And I took the guts and remains of my small little pumpkin the other day and turned them into something worth sharing.

So here’s the recipe for the best pumpkin seeds you’ll ever eat.  They are so good that people who don’t like pumpkin seeds will like them.

Prep:

  1. Wash pumpkin seeds
  2. Lay seeds on a slightly tilted cookie sheet to drain and dry them overnight for 24 hours.
  3. When you get grief from impatient people about the 24 hour drying process, ignore the impatient people and go to sleep.

After 24 hours:

  1. Melt a few tablespoons of butter in a bowl.
  2. Mix in salt (just a little to start).
  3. Mix in cayenne pepper (about the same amount as salt).
  4. Mix in white pepper (little less than the cayenne).
  5. Mix in black pepper (little less than the white pepper).
  6. Mix in brown sugar (your choice).
  7. Stir the seeds around the melted butter and spices, and give the mixture a taste. It should be sweet, then bring a little kick about 3-5 seconds later.
  8. Reseason to taste. More sugar and heat.
  9. Stick in the pre-heated oven at 300 degrees for 30 minutes.
  10. Take out the seeds and shake them around to wake them up.
  11. Put them back in for another 15 minutes.
  12. Take them out and put them in a bowl.

Trust me. These are the best seeds you’ll eat. And the best part is that you are able to take the healthiest part of this candy-gasmic holiday and turn it into a sugary butter bomb.

Happy Halloween.

Talking Startups at Entrepreneur University

Posted by Andy in Entrepreneurism, Seattle

Between teaching Entrepreneurial Marketing at UW, and being on the Board of the Northwest Entrepreneur Network, I get a number of amazing opportunities to sit down and talk with people who are making things happen. Not just coming up with ideas, but actually executing on those dreams.

Last Friday at NWEN’s ntrepreneur University, I had the opportunity to moderate a panel with three of my favorites; Mariah Gentry of JoeyBra, Andrew Dumont of Moz and StrideApp and Kelly Smith of Curious Office. We talked about when is the right time for someone to jump into the entrepreneurial waters.

If you haven’t met Mariah before, if you run into her at an event I encourage you to grab as much of her time as you can.  She is easily one of the most impressive people under 30 that I’ve ever come across. And she’s only something like 22 or 23.  She started her first business at 14, owned at house by 20, and launched JoeyBra as a junior at the UW. When you talk to her, you just get a sense that she can distill any complex problem to its core, and come up with an obvious solution.

I met Andrew a few years ago when some people at my company told me they had a friend we should hire. In a ironic twist, our Office Manager at the time wouldn’t forward his resume because he didn’t have a college degree (he later went back and got it). I met with him anyway and realized we would never be able to hire him because he was way too impressive to take what we would be able to offer him.  He now works from 7:00 – 5:00 at Moz, then runs his side business StrideApp.com, which he disclosed has paying customers numbering in the hundreds.  But on top of that, he also spent a weekend building a Udemy course, which now has close to 500 paying customers at $100 a shot. That’s pretty impressive. The secret behind of Andrew’s success is pretty clear – a tireless work ethic and a commitment, almost obsession, to building stuff.

And then of course there was Kelly. Investor, founder, idea guy, executor, he does a little bit of it all. I loved his advice on harnessing the power of entrepreneurship. He said the key is, “Question everything. Whenever something sucks, figure out if there’s a better way to build it. Just solve the problem and figure out how many people have the same problem.”

There’s a difference between ideas and ideas with execution. People like this are inspiring because they don’t let any excuse get in their way. They see a project they want to attack, and then relentlessly pursue it. There’s no wishing on a star or dreamland scenarios with these guys, they are all about dedication and execution. It’s great that we have people like this in the city, people who can remind us that the hardest part of entrepreneurship is the commitment to doing the work.

Soccer Supporters Groups Could Affect The 2022 World Cup – If They Cared Enough

Posted by Andy in Politics, Soccer

Sports fans across the globe generally share a single problem – they really can’t affect any change in the leagues or even their teams.  Seattle Mariners fans may universally despise management for 10 straight years without making the playoffs, but they don’t have a way to remove the CEO. Some people may hate the way Roger Goodell runs his football mafia, but there’s not another league of gridiron superstars to support. As a fan, you take what you are given or find a new hobby.

But this isn’t necessarily the case in soccer. While it would take organization of historic proportions to get hardcore Mariners fans to build any kind of impactful protest, this organization already exists in soccer, in the form of Supporter Groups.

Supporter Groups, such as the Emerald City Supporters, can mobilize hundreds or even thousands of people. They often have a hierarchy and organizational structure that rivals a successful non-profit.  They communicate among each other, have dialogue with team management, share best practices with each other and have followers who will act as directed.

No one was happy when Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup. It was an obvious result of international bribery, blackmail, payoffs and back room deals, executed with a level of precision that NBA COMMISSIONER David Stern WOULD ADMIRE. And throughout the predictable controversy that inevitably became reality (wait, playing soccer in 130 degree heat is a bad idea?), there wasn’t anything that was worth an international boycott.

And then we found out that 4,000 people will die in the next 8 years building the stadiums.  We also learned that the “lucky” ones who survive are basically being enslaved in stifling, inhumane conditions. 

The world soccer community (DID ALL THINK THAT?) went from thinking, “This Qatar World Cup is a bad idea that I have to live with,” to “Damn, I’ll be sitting in a seat someone died to build, so some rich guy could get paid.”

If the global soccer community cared enough, it *could* do something about this. It’s the one sport that could organize a global protest. Here’s what it would take.

1) Supporters Groups of local teams in national leagues such as MLS, Premier League, La Liga, etc… individually would have to agree to support the idea that killing and enslaving people is bad. It’s key that the protests come from the Club Supporters groups, not the national groups (like Sam’s Army) at first, because national teams would fear retribution from FIFA if their supporters organized anything. Plus, you don’t want it IT CAN’T look like the U.S. Supporters Groups are organizing a political protest against the Middle East. It has to be country-agnostic. But keep in mind, members of Club Supporters groups often also support their national teams.

2) Then, the supporters groups in each league could galvanize together with one representative force from each league.  Arsenal and Tottenham fans hate each other so much when it comes to soccer, that is pretty powerful when they agree on anything.

3) If globally, members of Club Supporters groups agree to protest something like a FIFA World Cup Qualifying match, a week of friendlies or some other set of matches, it would make world news, and FIFA would have to take this seriously. Even FIFA didn’t want to take it seriously, brands that advertise with FIFA – McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Heineken, etc.. would have to take it seriously.  Multinational companies do not want to be on the wrong end of a global protest. So even if the groups didn’t want to boycott the matches, just threatening to boycott the advertisers en masse would create a massive headache that would have to be dealt with.

We’re talking about people protesting the killing of others to build stadiums, not whether there should be instant replay or a ban on if we need to limit flopping. It would be kind of hard for FIFA to turn a blind eye and ear to a global protest on mass murder.

This is something that could happen. Three to four 3-4 years of protesting, led by the Supporters Groups, could cause change. There are plenty of countries with the infrastructure to prepare for a 2022 World Cup with 4-5 years of notice. The question is whether the Supporters Groups care enough to do it.