I started a blog for this but I would rather make it a thread.
-----
I thought about starting this on on Wordpress or blogger, but I realized that I should start it here with a group of like minded people. I will be documenting the growth and development of my internet business start-up. The intent of my blog postings will be to help people who want to start a successful business. You will be able to learn from my successes and failures. And I am also always looking for advice.
A little About Me:
I am 24 years old. I recently graduated from college with my bachelors in Political Science. I grew up when MySpace started..I am part of the Facebook Generation. I saw Google explode and Yahoo make huge mistakes. I simply know what works and what people want. I also really like psychology and computers. I would say more, but it will not be of much value..so I will stop there.
A lot has happened up to this point..So let me take some time to catch you up and describe the business
--------------------------------
Overview:
A lot of people say that the social media industry is saturated. Well..that might be very true. But I think it is just a lame excuse (just a personal opinion). Or let me phrase that better..the people who say that you cannot succeed in social media are looking at the industry entirely WRONG. I will explain why in my future postings. But in reality you either make it in business or you don't. It's all about percption & momentum (some a billion additional factors). We have so much momentum and excitement right now.
The Business:
The business is incorporated as CampusLink LLC, a future pioneer in higher education based social networking. We are framing our business around a social network branded as mycampuslinks.com.
Innovating the Past:
We are picking up where facebook left off. Facebook was one of the first social networks to deal with colleges and students. The natural evolution of Facebook really pushed Facebook away from colleges. It is my belief that schools are now left with an attempt to continue operating on a social network that is no longer compatible with higher education. As a result, you see a lot of schools attempting to start their own social networks. Most of which are miserable failures. We are now seeing a little space form in the higher education social networking environment. Mycampuslinks is going to occupy this space.
Facebook has always been about the social aspect of one's life. We are taking a different approach. We are about building connections. Social is critical to us, yet one never needs to become socially involved on mycampuslinks.com. We cater to both social and personal growth.
As I said, we are picking up where facebook left off and we are taking some different and unique approaches. And again, our focus is more on the school, connections, and individual growth.
Organization, Portals, and Advertising
organization: I have created an extremely organized social platform. It is centered around a hierarchical admin system . I have the main admin control, and schools and opt-in to control their own networks (thus automating most of the admin process for me). Our navigation system is organized. And we even go as far as organizing our social stream (anyone else do this?). My goal is to see how I can use social media to actually improve one's self productivity. And accomplishing this task is all about organization and BALANCE.
Portals: I have branded the company on the portal system. I can't talk about the portals too much, but I can say that they are a user's "windows to the world", new opportunity, and major constructs to the organization of our social atmosphere.
Advertising: I am building an advertising system from the ground up. There are two primary aspects to this system.
1. Local Community - I focus on the local communities around the school. I will connect students with local businesses in effort to spur economic growth. My advertising system is fun, low priced, and VALUE added. It also is a platform for big and small businesses to compete.
2. Monetizing my Users - Part of my advertising system is built to share profits with both schools and students. I believe that monetizing users is critical to opening up new opportunities for future growth.
The Beginning:
Well I had to start somewhere...
January 1st 2011 - I was a senior in my final semester of college. I came up with an idea to start a social network. Long story short, I made my mock-ups and found private investors. My team consists of a couple friends, my fiancee, and our coders. We are a very young, diverse, and educated group. For example, we all hold different types of degrees: political science, biology/science, education, business, psychology, English, and some of the members have multiple degrees (bachelors + masters). My main partner has a wealth of experience in marketing and sales. A degree does not determine the success of the project. It is just something interesting to note because it provides us with a lot of different and fresh perspectives on my ideas.
Anyway, I incorporated the company we we started design/coding in July of 2011. We are still coding. It has been a lot of fun, a ton of work, and many sleepless nights. But we are making progress, we have members, and we haven't even gone live yet. We have done things right and we have made HUGE mistakes. That is why I am doing this..to explain our mistakes and successes, as well as learn.
1. Intro - Post #1
2. Design -lessons Learned - Post #2
-----
I thought about starting this on on Wordpress or blogger, but I realized that I should start it here with a group of like minded people. I will be documenting the growth and development of my internet business start-up. The intent of my blog postings will be to help people who want to start a successful business. You will be able to learn from my successes and failures. And I am also always looking for advice.
A little About Me:
I am 24 years old. I recently graduated from college with my bachelors in Political Science. I grew up when MySpace started..I am part of the Facebook Generation. I saw Google explode and Yahoo make huge mistakes. I simply know what works and what people want. I also really like psychology and computers. I would say more, but it will not be of much value..so I will stop there.
A lot has happened up to this point..So let me take some time to catch you up and describe the business
--------------------------------
Overview:
A lot of people say that the social media industry is saturated. Well..that might be very true. But I think it is just a lame excuse (just a personal opinion). Or let me phrase that better..the people who say that you cannot succeed in social media are looking at the industry entirely WRONG. I will explain why in my future postings. But in reality you either make it in business or you don't. It's all about percption & momentum (some a billion additional factors). We have so much momentum and excitement right now.
The Business:
The business is incorporated as CampusLink LLC, a future pioneer in higher education based social networking. We are framing our business around a social network branded as mycampuslinks.com.
Innovating the Past:
We are picking up where facebook left off. Facebook was one of the first social networks to deal with colleges and students. The natural evolution of Facebook really pushed Facebook away from colleges. It is my belief that schools are now left with an attempt to continue operating on a social network that is no longer compatible with higher education. As a result, you see a lot of schools attempting to start their own social networks. Most of which are miserable failures. We are now seeing a little space form in the higher education social networking environment. Mycampuslinks is going to occupy this space.
Facebook has always been about the social aspect of one's life. We are taking a different approach. We are about building connections. Social is critical to us, yet one never needs to become socially involved on mycampuslinks.com. We cater to both social and personal growth.
As I said, we are picking up where facebook left off and we are taking some different and unique approaches. And again, our focus is more on the school, connections, and individual growth.
Organization, Portals, and Advertising
organization: I have created an extremely organized social platform. It is centered around a hierarchical admin system . I have the main admin control, and schools and opt-in to control their own networks (thus automating most of the admin process for me). Our navigation system is organized. And we even go as far as organizing our social stream (anyone else do this?). My goal is to see how I can use social media to actually improve one's self productivity. And accomplishing this task is all about organization and BALANCE.
Portals: I have branded the company on the portal system. I can't talk about the portals too much, but I can say that they are a user's "windows to the world", new opportunity, and major constructs to the organization of our social atmosphere.
Advertising: I am building an advertising system from the ground up. There are two primary aspects to this system.
1. Local Community - I focus on the local communities around the school. I will connect students with local businesses in effort to spur economic growth. My advertising system is fun, low priced, and VALUE added. It also is a platform for big and small businesses to compete.
2. Monetizing my Users - Part of my advertising system is built to share profits with both schools and students. I believe that monetizing users is critical to opening up new opportunities for future growth.
The Beginning:
Well I had to start somewhere...
January 1st 2011 - I was a senior in my final semester of college. I came up with an idea to start a social network. Long story short, I made my mock-ups and found private investors. My team consists of a couple friends, my fiancee, and our coders. We are a very young, diverse, and educated group. For example, we all hold different types of degrees: political science, biology/science, education, business, psychology, English, and some of the members have multiple degrees (bachelors + masters). My main partner has a wealth of experience in marketing and sales. A degree does not determine the success of the project. It is just something interesting to note because it provides us with a lot of different and fresh perspectives on my ideas.
Anyway, I incorporated the company we we started design/coding in July of 2011. We are still coding. It has been a lot of fun, a ton of work, and many sleepless nights. But we are making progress, we have members, and we haven't even gone live yet. We have done things right and we have made HUGE mistakes. That is why I am doing this..to explain our mistakes and successes, as well as learn.
1. Intro - Post #1
2. Design -lessons Learned - Post #2
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