Entries Tagged '365 Days' ↓

Last year I made my first visit to China.  I was excited about nearly all aspects of the trip.

Tons of paperwork and preparation is needed before venturing to Asia – and one item I had no idea how to handle was the Visa.

As luck would have it there are companies that provide expedited Visa services.   The paperwork seems pretty daunting at first ,needing a sponsor in the country to vouch for you – who in the world would vouch for me?

But – the Visa service worked as advertised and I had my visa within 2 weeks.

While I was busy getting my Visa I didn’t pay attention to the fact that my passport had expired.

Now I knew that I had no time to  go through the normal passsport renewal process (takes 3 months sometimes)

So I found a rush passport service that claimed to turn around passport renewals in 5 days.

Amazing.  The cost to me was absolutely worthwhile – since I’d have had to cancel my trip if I could not get my passport in time.

As promised I had a renewed passport on my desk within a week  - I was impressed.

The trip itself was spectacular.  I brought my camera gear and took hundreds of photos which I’ll post as soon as I can sift through them.

I missed many of the famous landmarks but did see Beijing and many of the locals living in the countryside.

Often for me the real joy is seeing how locals live, eat and what they do on a daily basis, their quality of life.

I am sure that I  would have missed this trip if it had not been for the rush passport and rush visa services.

Definitely a lifesaver for me on this occasion.

I’d highly recommend both to anyone that is traveling and doesn’t want to deal with the hassle.

I had hoped that by 25, I would have been living in LA, dating actresses, and getting bit parts in bad movies as "the ugly guy"... you know, in the event that the studio wanted a Steve Buscemi-type, but not the Steve Buscemi.

Instead, I'm 26, broke, and trapped in Glens Falls, New York. I vent my frustrations by writing comedy pieces for the Huffington Post, I run a blog about social publishing, and, for some odd reason, I'm more popular than Serena Williams, Newt Gingrich, and Stephen Colbert ... on Twitter. Sadly, this doesn't help my chances with Serena or make me any money.

I'd like to change that this year.

Sponsor

The Two Traditional Funding Options

I'm not big on corporate sponsorship. I'll work with a company if it makes sense, but I'm burned out from so many years of chasing sponsorships. Sponsorship is a game for the well-networked or those whose presence is so big that they can't be ignored.

Nor do I want to deal with investors. I could write a business plan, take it to some venture capitalists, and pull in the money, but at what cost? The last thing I want is a group of MBAs watering my project down to please shareholders.

The Third Way

I started researching crowdfunding as an alternative. I came up with the unusually bright idea of selling advertising space on the back of 300,000 business cards. $1 gets someone an advertisement on one card, and they buy as many as they want. The incentive is that the cards are being used to set a Guinness World Record for "tallest wall made out of business cards," which makes them desirable and a collectible piece of advertising after the record is set.

A Million High Fives (or #AMHF) is the project I'm attempting to crowdfund and form a new business around. Although #AMHF is supposed to accomplish many things, I also want it to make crowdfunding a cool thing to do. If I can do it, you can do it. And if we can do it, then who needs sponsorship or venture capital?

I'll be documenting the crowdfunding of A Million High Fives and my new business from concept to cash exclusively here on ReadWriteStart. I have no connections, no money, and no resources -- just a big idea and a platform here on ReadWriteWeb. If I fail, you'll see every step of the fall. If I succeed, we'll have plenty to learn along the way. Not to mention, we'll be setting a Guinness World Record together. How cool is that?