I recently attended an Ultra Light Startups meeting. I must say that I was blown away and amazed at what was going on here. The main focus is getting those ideas into action with little to no cost and as fast as possible. In todays fast pace world ideas can be created online and with little to no cost. You CAN start a company with $100 and make it into a viable buisiness.

Let’s walk through the basic structure of the meeting:

• Networking (meet and greet for 30 minutes)
• 1 minute pitches (Entrepreneurs who paid $5)
• Pizza (although it was late so we subsituted for networking)
• Discussion Panel of guest speakers (Topic: Outsourcing)
• Networking (although subsittued for pizza)
• Bar (Wasn’t able to attend, had to leave to finish some work)

Most meetups like this tend to be just a passing around of business cards, but this was a bit different and much more focused (at least for this specific meetup).

Okay, the concept of 1 minute pitches is great. It’s a way for entrepers to help with explaing their product. Their are normally 1 to 2 questions asked at the end of each pitch. The timer was done via an iPhone (awesomeness). So at this event you got a chance to listen to a bunch of startups via their 1 minute pitch. The interesting part with Ultra Light Startups is your fee for the event is based on if you pitch or not. If you are just there to watch, its $20, but if your there to pitch its $5, best idea ever!

Seriously, this creates more of a 100% participation group because it’s cheaper to pitch. Although this disencourages your “steath mode”, but you can pitch your idea with or without a 1 page or more website. So say you have this amazing dating website that uses iPhone users, you could create a simple 1 page website and pitch how it plans to be and ask for advice, and/or just pitch it and sees what comes of it. This can also be great for an idea that you know is awesome, but still have doubts when you explain it to someone. You can get instant feedback and only for $5 and 2 hours of your time!

The discussion panel was very interesting and inspiring. The topic was outsourcing and had a wide range of panelists with various backgrounds with outsource. This was an interesting topic for myself because I am realizing that I need to outsource more of my life. I have plenty of ideas, but taking action is something I have been working on. One thing I have learned is you need to give up the idea that you can do everything. You are limiting yourself by doing it all, although I can code/build/design/whatever with a computer, I should be focusing on a big picture model and breaking out an idea into parts. Then taking these parts and outsourcing them to execute the idea. Listing to the panelist I heard various positives and negatives they have had in the past with outsourcing.

For those of you who are interested in outsourcing here are a few websites to checkout, which were discussed by some of the panelists.

• oDesk
• Guru
• Rent a Coder

This meetup was just amazing and I encourage any reader in the NYC area to attend the next Ultra Light Startups on Thursday, November 6, 2008.

Here is a quick list of those entrepreneurs who gave a 60 second pitch.

• Service Platform
• Institute for the Future (IFTF)
• Service Platform
• Home Shop Technologies
• Spirus Group
• RezRedo
• loip.net
• Message Medium
• Storeside
• Biabnor
• Silicon Alley
• Matuson
• BOOMERateR
• The Wilburn Group
• KwiClick
• SaneBull
• 42sql
• Cybertnet Consulting
• Proper Cloth
• Ideavate
• Carbon Made
• appnexus
• tofagenie
• gigapixel creative

I do not want to get political on this blog, but I do have to say, you NEED to VOTE! I don’t care if your a republican, democrat, independent, or even part of the green party, you need to vote this year. The government controls much of your life and as for us younger generation (including myself) what will happen with Social Security, people should be UP IN ARMS! Seriously, WTF is going on!

Anyway, I want to say that the clock is ticking on registering for voting this year. I know since I have moved back from Arizona to New Jersey, I have had to update my voter registration. In New Jersey, you can register to vote up to 21 days before the election. Be sure to Rock the Vote to register in time for your state and VOTE!

Anyway, so on my walk from work to grand sichuan, I saw a purple biked mounted to a pole, see below.

I didn’t find this odd and almost walked right by it without even noticing, but I saw some solar panels attached. I took some quick pictures.

I also noticed a Yahoo logo on the bike. I am not sure if this is some Yahoo experincement or photo of lunch crowd on Varick or what.

You can see their are 3 small size solar panels on what looked like a locked container. Their was a small wire running from this container to the front of the bike to what looked like a video camera mount.

Although all of this was sealed shut, it got me thinking about ideas and what it could be and/or what you could do with something like this. So with that I wanted to post up some idea as well as possible projects for you Makezine lovers.

• Solar Power recording system. Basic Nokia n95 streaming via Qik that is being charged by battery/solar panels (the container box)
• Embedded honeypot project. This could be a simple video camera taking pictures and streaming it to a website with GPS (Maps) showing the location of the bike, in hopes that a theif steals the bike and you can track down the bike with the thief.
• Bike Recording System - create video (or stream video) of you biking in NYC

What do you think about this bike, guerilla marketing from Yahoo, next big thing?

Anyway, I wanted to update my readers on the past couple of months and what they have to look forward to in this (dare I say Q3) inititive with my blog. I know it must seem from an outside in point of view that I am all over the place, and well, I am. I some how manage to get more done and actually productive when I have more going on (yet I neglect this blog more, ugh!). When I just have the bare minimum, I am luckly to even get that done, ha! So what is in the pipe and will I ever cross more things off the 2008 Goal list.

So here is the deal. I have (had?) written a couple of ebooks on Wordpress, SEO, and basic html/css knowledge. I am NOT (repeat NOT) focusing these ebooks at the tech community. These ebooks are for the moms (oh yes, my own mom will be blogging soon after reading my ebook) and daily non-tech people who access the interwebs, yet do not really understand how to get people to their website and/or market a product online. The past couple of months I have been marketing other peoples products learning the ropes and putting togther a game plan for marketing a couple of new and upcoming products.

So obviously I should have a WordPress (maybe even a Movable Type) ebook because I have been working with WordPress since 2005! I have multiple clients who I support and help create various themes, plugings, etc. yet up until last month I have never had documentation to give away or “upsell” as part of my “contract”. Well, I spend 1 weekend (okay, maybe 2) and built a solid walking guide through wordpress covering the basics in depth. I have passed out this ebook to a number of people to get some reviews/feedback, etc. (If your interested, please contact me). I really want to TEACH people rather then take their money, rinse, wash repeat. Why? Yes I know this sounds counter intuitive, but think about it on a bigger scale. If I had 1,000 clients doing the same thing, I would either be working 24/7 by myself or outsourcing it to other freelancers, hiring people, or virual assistance. Well, thats great and all but then I get less of a cut cause I have such a high over head. Taking the TEACH approach, I can automate the learning process and supple someone with the knoledge to accomplish something. It’s just like the saying, “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.” With this process, I can keep to a “dare I say” 4 hour work week, and bring in enough to cover my expenses (at least I hope!).

Okay, so now we know I will be offering up some ebooks and teaching, well thats just the start. I want to offer tools, not just any old tools, some fun SEO tools. As you can see, a couple of months back I really got into SEO and started to put together an SEO glossary. Since then I have been reworking my blog on some SEO tactics as well as reading everything I can get my hands on. So hopefully by the end of the month, okay maybe early September, I will have some beta accounts to give out to people who have a website and wants to improve their SEO with (email me if your interested) and will be selling soon their after.

Well got some Blog postings that have been collecting dust, will dust them off and get some new stuff up here soon. I am thinking one post a week, thoughts?

With the past couple of months spending various time networking and interacting with various “ungeeks” I am realizing, it is up to the know hows to educate the unknown. Think of it in terms of iPhones (insert joke here). An iPhone is a pretty awesome device by itself, but a hacked iPhone has a lot more powerful stuff. If you have a hacked iPhone, you understand and know of all the cool things you can do that the average iPhone user has no idea. If you don’t, lets start to list some of the stuff that I could used a hack iPhone for, play awesome games (Chess, checkers, sudoku w/o an internet connection), Easily Spoof your caller ID/Voice (SpoofApp), Download/Organize/Read your RSS feeds without internet, AIM, Voice Notes, SSH, etc. The knowledge of hacking an iPhone is very important because it opens the door to all these external capabilities. So it’s up to the “in the know” on educating the “not in the known”. So with that being sad, I will be focusing on topics that I found very interesting WordPress, SEO, Networking, etc and Geek Stuff, but with a beginners, intermediate, and advance philosophy. I want to make the internet simpler and will be posting up some glossarys as well as screencast videos.

I have been wanting to do a redesign for a long, long time. My design skills are “subpart” as you can prolly tell, but plan to make iterations on this design and bring it up to speed. I have done a lot of hacking at the code and might have missed some things, but take a look. I might look into contracting out the next redesign and outsource the process, but that won’t be for another 6 to 12 months.

Anyway, please let me know what you think and/or if you like this or if I should just roll back. I enjoy feedback and do not bite, so give me your true thoughts, I can handle it.

So your in high school, maybe in college now and you got into a good school (or want to?) and now you should focus in grades, right? Well, let me make this suggestion to you, when it comes to graduating and finding a job, what do you think will separate yourself a 4.0 GPA, maybe a grant funded project that got you published in a magazine, maybe even starting a non-profit or a company.

I know from my own experience the first week of college I went around introducing myself to almost every professor in the College of Math and Science and asked them what they did an see if my interests matched. Well lucky for me I found a great mentor and went on to win grant money and a paper contest, which helped me land an awesome paid internship my freshman year! Think of how much work is involved with getting a B+ versus an A+. Possibly another 2 or 3 hours of studying and/or work related each week? Maybe seeing how someone graduated college in 3 semesters should inspire you. Seriously you are talking about taking away more time from your life when you could be enjoying college and/or doing something truly remarkable like start the next Google.

Anything is possible in college, look at the leaders in today world, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. Just remember that a D is for diploma, you do need to maintain a high enough GPA to stay IN COLLEGE, which might be hard for some, I know I had my issues, but focus on outside curriculum and do enough to get by. It should mean your focusing on more important things, like buildings a business or getting involved in something that will allow you to network while in college. Networking is something you NEED to learn how to do as well as creating a personal brand. Spend a weekend with some friends thinking how can I make some passive income or start a business this week. Getting your foot in the door is going to be down either by a connection and/or a distinction that separates yourself from the stack of other resumes on the table.

I know from my own personal experience, I had only 1 company ask for my GPA, Google. I almost ended my interview there, and prolly should have. I can NOT stand this question and feel if you really want to know, contact the school on my behalf. I did hesitated and eventually gave in, but noticed that was the last question about my grades and/or college classes. Many of the questions were geared towards my personal experience out side of class and in the “real work” either internships or jobs. My GPA in school means nothing to me, I spent more time in college learning new things outside the classroom and felt that is how I can distinguish myself from others. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I did alright and focused on good grades in my major. Realize that in life, its a branding game. You need to promote yourself and build a following. Get out there and be more like @garyvee. It’s a branding game, you need to promote yourself and set yourself apart from another, or you are just another resume in a haystack of resumes.

So go grab some friends, some beer, and discuss some ideas for changing the world and making yourself financial independent. Take a look at Meetup and start building your network. Hope this advice helps a bit for those trying to figure it all out in college, from one twenty-something to another.

I have a new blog design that I will be posting up, I hope this one will be a bit more iterative. I enjoy recieving feedback on everything I do, so please let me know what you think about it when I launch it. I am on a train right now off to “Man Day” in Boston. If you are in the Boston area and want to meet up, just @jmurch on twitter and I will make sure I get it.

Cheers!

I should have launched this site Friday, but the past couple of days I have been picking up some side projects.

Right now I am doing some magic work labeling each email as their are being sent in, but will be automating this process if I start to see more then 10 an hour. So please give it a try, send an email to submit@mobiwoes.com and it will be posted. If you enjoy reading them, please also check out our RSS feed.

Have more ideas on improving this or want to see more, comment below or contact us.

The Super Bowl this year will be in Phoenix and it has created a lot of buzz/building in the area. It should be a fun weekend, might drive out and do some tail gating myself. Lots of parties!