Author Archives: Andy

U-District Food Bank Fundraiser

Posted by Andy in Uncategorized

Wanted to pass this along this email from the U-District Food Bank.

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Hey Food Bank Supporters,

I’m pleased to let you know that the 10th annual Neighborhood Grills benefit dinner for the University District Food Bank is happening, Wednesday, February 8th from 5 PM to 10 PM at Eastlake Bar & Grill and Greenlake Bar & Grill.

It’s the same format as previous years. Go out to dinner at either Greenlake Bar & Grill orEastlake Bar & Grill on the 8th of February and at the minimum 50% of the cost of your bill will be donated to the Food Bank. Order off the special menu and 66% of your meal cost will be donated to the Food Bank!

Our monetary goal for the evening is to raise $6,000. That’s essentially 50% of our food purchasing budget for the month of February.

If you are unable to attend the benefit dinner please consider making a donation of at least $10 towards our February food purchases. You can make a donation to the Food Bank from our web page – http://www.udistrictfoodbank.org/donate.php.

2011 was our busiest year on record – 55,000 customer visits and 2.3 million pounds of food distributed. Thanks to our community of support we continue to meet the increased demand for our services. It’s truly appreciated!

Please feel free to contact me for a tour of the Food Bank. I’m always happy to show donors their donation dollars at work.

What: 10th annual Neighborhood Grills Benefit Dinner for the University District Food Bank.
Where: Eastlake Bar & Grill (2947 Eastlake Avenue East Seattle) or Greenlake Bar & Grill (7200 E. Greenlake Drive North).
When: Wednesday, February 8th, 5PM to 10 PM.
Why: Raise $6,000 towards our February food purchases.
How: At least 50% of meal cost (66% if you order off special menu) will be donated to the University District Food Bank

All the best.

Sincerely,

Paul Yunker
Development Director
University District Food Bank

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Where to get Startup Content

Posted by Andy in Uncategorized

So I’ll admit, content generation on AndyBoyer.com has been a little less than satisfactory lately.  One reason for this is the time I am enjoying being back at school.

No, I’m not back for a new degree, but instead I’m teaching Marketing 555 at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business.  And while I haven’t been able to post too much content here lately, I’m excited to point you to a resource that should please anyone who likes marketing and startups.

I encourage you to take a quick peek over at the MKTG 555 Blog, where 60 of the brightest minds in Seattle are contributing their thoughts on startups, entrepreneurship and marketing, on a regular basis.  The blog boasts about 150 pieces of content now, so there’s surely something there to pique your interest.

Not to fear, I’ll ramp back up the volume here soon, mostly thanks to Relaborate – which is almost ready for it’s public debut. But until then, feel free to check out the thoughts and ideas of Seattle’s future entrepreneurs.

Teen Feed

Posted by Andy in Charity

Catherine has been volunteering for a little while with a group called Teen Feed.

Now, for a little while there, I didn’t spend too much time thinking about what Catherine was up to. But I have had the great opportunity to volunteer with her a few times in the last few weeks, and want to relay a thought or two.

It’s hard to find something much more disturbing than a room full of 18-25 year olds with no home, no food and a pretty hopeless outlook. If someone is 40, you can put some level of blame on them for being in the spot they are in. But it’s kind of hard to fault an 18 year old.

For about $100-$150, a Teen Feed organizer puts together a menu and buys all the groceries for about 50-60 people. Anywhere between 4 and 8 volunteers take over a kitchen of a neighborhood church, and prepare the meal. The kids arrive at 7pm, and dinner ends promptly at 8pm.

The kids who show up for the free food have no place to go, and in some cases no other food to eat. Some just spend the entire hour taking advantage of the heat and chairs they are allowed to rest in. But they are all polite, thankful, and just happy someone cares.

I’m going to write more about this over the next few weeks. But I really want to commend the volunteers of Teen Feed, and urge you guys to consider Teen Feed when you are considering where to donate some of your time or money. In my mind, 18-25 year olds are still save-able. We should be working on ways to do that.

The Magic of Saying Nothing

Posted by Andy in Marketing, Startups

Sometimes, you generate interest by simply not saying anything.  All it takes is one person to be excited about the unknown, and that excitement can spread.

I don’t know anything about Wendr.  In fact, here’s everything I know:

That’s my old friend from New Orleans, Marc Calamia, seeming to be excited about Wendr.  I clicked through and landed here:

 

They’ve told me nothing.  No reason for me to join.  But also, no reason for me not to.  So naturally, I signed up.

Sometimes we just want there to be more cool things, and we’re willing to give up an email address to hear about them.  Moral: Don’t underestimate the fact that people want to like things.

 

Mark Cuban’s 12 Secrets for Startups

Posted by Andy in Entrepreneurism, Startups

Mark Cuban is one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, starting Audionet at the beginning of the streaming media generation, turning it into Broadcast.com and then flipping it to Yahoo for a fortune. In this article,  he shares his 12 secrets for startup success.

I think Mark’s most debatable comment is a combination of his first 2 points:

  1. Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love.
  2. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession.

Mark’s basically implying that if you go into a business idea with an exit in mind, you won’t have the passion to see the company through to that exit.

Whether you agree with Mark or not, it is important to understand what people like him believe are the keys to building a successful startup. In most cases, entrepreneurs will be approaching people like Mark for venture capital. Understanding what they are looking for saves everyone a lot of time and improves the probability of raising those funds.

If I had the chance, I’d ask Mark when he thinks it’s necessary to think about the exit. After all, at some point the Broadcast.com team had to consider how to turn their nice little business into the $6B exit it became. Who made the company make that pivot, and when did it happen?

I’d suggest anyone considering a startup should read all of Mark’s 12 points. It’s a great summary on entrepreneurial Do’s and Dont’s.

Posada and Pine Tar

Posted by Andy in Uncategorized

Interesting quote at the bottom of this article about Jorge Posada’s retirement:

“Swinging with pine tar on his hands, and without batting gloves, he was a five-time All-Star, caught David Wells’ perfect game in 1998, and played in 125 games in October. He is a borderline Hall of Fame candidate, but his legacy as a Yankee probably means more to him.”

I wonder if he did that so he could keep a little pine tar on his hands and load up the ball for his pitcher.  I’m not calling him a cheater by any means, but it is kind of a coincidence that a catcher would rely so heavily on pine tar.

Looking at the Opposite Side of Statistics

Posted by Andy in Social Media, Uncategorized

Digital Buzz Blog is one of my favorite reads.  And they recently posted some stats which I believe came from Media Bistro.  Now, after you read the stats below, I’m going to give them to you in the exact opposite way.  Tell me if any of the story seems any different.

Version 1:

It was a huge year for Social Media and here is a great infographic that rounds up the key Social Media Statistics to kickoff 2012. It’s pretty impressive to see that Facebook has grown to more than 800 million active users, adding more than 200 million in a single year. Twitter now has 100 million active users and LinkedIn has over 64 million users in North America alone.

A few interesting take outs for social media statistics in 2012:

Facebook Statistics 2012:

  • An average Facebook user has 130 friends and likes 80 pages
  • 56% of consumer say that they are more likely recommend a brand after becoming a fan
  • Each week on Facebook more than 3.5 billion pieces of content are shared

Twitter Statistics 2012:

  • 34% of marketers have generated leads using Twitter
  • 55% of Twitter users access the platform via their mobile

General Social Media Statistics 2012:

  • 30% of B2B marketers are spending million of dollars each year on social media marketing
  • Nearly 30% of these users are not tracking the impact of this marketing
  • 20% of Google searches each day have never been searched for before
  • Out of the 6 billion people on the planet 4.8 billion have a mobile and only 4.2 billion own a toothbrush
Version 2: Just for a Devil’s Argument Sake

Facebook Statistics 2012:

  • An average Facebook user is only connected to 130 of the people in their rolodex, address book, company phone tree and email database, and are only fans of 80 of the brands which they purchase or evaluate
  • 44% of consumers say that they are NOT more likely recommend a brand after becoming a Facebook fan
  • There are roughly 800 Million Facebook users, and each week on Facebook more than 3.5 billion pieces of content are shared, meaning the average person shares just 4 pieces of content per week.  With 1 out of every 7 online minutes spent on Facebook, lots of people are lurking but not sharing. 

Twitter Statistics 2012:

  • 66% of marketers have NOT generated leads using Twitter
  • Almost half  (45%) of Twitter users cannot access the platform via their mobile, and are limited to using it on their personal computer.

General Social Media Statistics 2012:

  • 70% of B2B marketers are spending LESS THAN a million dollars each year on social media marketing
  • 80% of Google searches each day are repeat searches

3 Nagging Thoughts About the Alamo Bowl

Posted by Andy in Sports

I know, 777 yards, etc….  But there are 3 things that bugged me about the end of that game, and don’t seem to be in any articles I have read.

  • Why isn’t anyone commenting about that Husky Defensive Tackle jumping in front of someone else to snag the last kickoff, then proceeding to fumble away any shot at a miracle comeback?  It was not inconceivable to think the Huskies could have scored quickly and recovered an on-site kick in that game.  What was the defensive guy thinking?
  • Also, why hasn’t anyone written about how unacceptable it was for the Huskies to have to burn their last time out with the clock ALREADY STOPPED, because they only had 10 men on the field?
  • And furthermore, if the Huskies had scored 2x and won the game, we’d have been able to scold the Baylor running back who selfishly went into the end zone for his 5th TD.  My clock math could be wrong, but I think he should have slid down at the 1 yard line so they could ice the clock.  (Along those lines, when a team scores a last second meaningless touchdown to suddenly cover the spread, which was 9, I always have to wonder….Especially when the last second touchdown comes on a 43 yard run with the safeties playing in separate time zones from where you’d expect them to be. )

Occupy Seattle Described as a Poker Game

Posted by Andy in Big Businesses, Creative Writing, Politics

You won’t see this analysis written anywhere else – this content comes from part of an email chain where a bunch of people were discussing the differences between the original Occupy Wall Street and the local spin-off versions such as Occupy LA and Occupy Seattle.  It all stemmed from an LA Times article that explained it would cost Los Angeles $2.3 Million to clean up the park which had been Occupied.  I’ll keep the whole email from this anonymous person for context, but the paragraph with the poker analogy is the one I found most compelling.

Note: At this point the discussion had moved to talk about whether the movement, or the offshoots of the movement, would be successful on getting student-debts absolved.  (And no offense to puppetry and history majors.)

People take risks and develop new and improved goods and services because they believe that they will profit from it. That is at the root of our free market economic system. That is exactly what Adam Smith wrote about all those years ago. Plus, where do you think all that money comes from to pay off people’s debts (whether student loans or mortgages or bank bail outs or whatever)? Government takes in revenue through taxes. The inhabitants of a country pay the taxes. So, if one group of people want money from the government (and that is exactly what asking to have your debts payed off is- getting money from the government), in essence those people are asking other people to pay for their choices. Why should I have to pay for the choices that another person made (that is the root of the whole social contract and the obligations of citizenship)?

For example, I am OK with helping to pay for education in general- most people are. That is why we have free public K-12 education. It is an investment in the future. I am also OK with student grants for college kids who can not afford college. That also helps society and is an investment in the future. But if some guy takes out a massive loan from a private business (i.e. a bank) to fund his two years in college to get a masters degree in literature or history or puppetry or what have you, and then the guy can’t get a job with his worthless degree, why should I have to pay to get his loan written off? That guy is in essence begging money from me. He better be able to explain why and persuade me to pay off his loan, or I will not want to pay it off for him. And if his first attempt to persuade me to pay off his loan is to “occupy” the park down the street from my house and threaten to stay there until I pay for his loan, then frankly he has failed at making his case from the get go.

To put it in poker terms,  imagine if some guy at the table made big risky bets over and over, chasing long odds on flush draws hand after hand, borrowed money repeatedly from other players to buy in on more hands, and when he finally craps out and has no more money, he demands that everybody else pony up money to pay off his debts. How would you feel about that? How would you react to that? How would the other players react to that? Now imagine if that guy- rather than to try to logically explain why you should pay off his debt- decides to go sit in the bathroom and “occupy” it for several weeks. He messes the place up, refuses to clean it up, disturbs other people who are just trying to use the bathroom, refuses to leave even though he is on private property and the owners ask him nicely to leave, and becomes belligerent when the police to evict him. How would you react to that?