Archive for posts tagged ‘business’
Marketing trick from 1936: House of coats
Kevin Day, October 14th, 2008I was in the local used book store today and saw that they have old copies of National Geographic bound in yearly volumes. I picked up the 1940 edition and saw this picture they had taken from 1936 in Denmark:
The picture is of a store that the salesman covered in extra coats he had in inventory. It was such a site that everyone walking by stopped to look. The police were called to control the crowd that had gathered outside the store.
The caption reads:
By the time the harassed policemen had convinced the storekeeper that his coats must come down they had all been sold!
Sounds like the stunt paid off well.
In Business
Kevin Day, August 15th, 2008As of July 2nd, I am no longer employed by General Electric. Also, I am also no longer a mechanical engineer.
What have I been doing with myself?
I have been voraciously developing the best fantasy football software website on the internet.
Fantasy Football Calculator is now hosting 1,500 live mock drafts every day. I’ve also launched three new products within the past two months: the Lineup Calculator, Draft Calculator, and Draft Simulator.
To keep up with the high traffic volume during the NFL pre-season, I’ve had to scale the site from one server to four. That process wasn’t fun, but the site is now running smoothly even during peak hours.
I’ve also started a blog on that site, which is another reason I’ve been neglecting this one. I’m going to start posting here again because I do have non-fantasy football related thoughts now and then.
DIY Startup School Cleveland-style
Kevin Day, May 22nd, 2008Although the official Startup School was last month at Stanford, there was enough startup activity in Clevleand last week to constitute it’s own mini startup school.
Thursday was Cleveland Startup Drinks, which was a great chance to talk with other startup founders.
Saturday was the SCORE business workshop that was a half-day of informative talks by an accountant, a lawyer, and a bank president about how to develop a business plan, incorporate a business, and finance a business. This was the first time I had heard of SCORE, and it looks like a valuable resource for new businesses. They are a large group of retired business executives that offer free counseling. What could be better than that?
Lastly, on Sunday morning Craig Newmark spoke at the CWRU commencement ceremony. It wasn’t quite as inspriational as the real startup school talks, but it was a taste of Silicon Valley nonetheless.
Startup stuff
Kevin Day, May 15th, 2008Tonight I’m going to Startup Drinks at the Bier Markt.
Also, Saturday is a SCORE business class at the U.S. Bank building downtown. The first session covers business plans and legal stuff. The second half is business finance. Only $20.
Really looking forward to both events. Should be fun and educational.
