August 5, 2011 Leave a comment
Minus the “Awesome” part, this was the line from the 1989 classic movie “Field of Dreams” that inspired me to become a risk taker and an entrepreneur that eventually drove me to build telezoo.com in 1999 and awesomzie.me in 2011. Certainly people are coming… I’ve included a few of them all the way at the end of this article:
April 17, 2011 Leave a comment
It’s no brainer to see that social media is here to stay for good. Given the vast variety of the existing channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Bebo,Ning, etc.) to choose from and stick with, it’s time for such a hot space to enter into a new category. There is a need for a portal to provide a quick and intelligent decision for both the consumer and the enterprise about their online connections.
A Platform to Help us to Distinguish Our Quality vs. Quantity Friends, Fans, Followers, and Companies Read more of this post
March 15, 2011 Leave a comment
Most of by now have accepted the need to have a presence on at least one social media platform. Most of us (people, company, product) have more than one profile floating out there. A recent study by eMarketer’s in fact predicted that 80% of the business will adopt social media as a marketing channel in 2011. The report also reports on the increase in the marketing dollars being invested by many companies to build an internal infrastructure capable of supporting this new channel. Right on!. Read more of this post
August 16, 2010 8 Comments
Having launched and operated a few start-ups since 1999 and now Awesome DC, here are a few tips I’d like to share with you on how to promote your business with ZERO budget. Read more of this post
April 8, 2010 2 Comments
by Elias Shams
Here is the full coverage of the GW SEAS Seminars on Entrepreneurship last month. The panelists were:
. Mark Walsh, my former investor and board member at searchles
. Doug Humphrey – my former board member at Telezoo.com
. Marie-Louise Murville – my former VP of Marketing at Telezoo.com
. Dan Gordon with the local VC firm, Vallhala Partners
Excellent tips and guidance by all four of them.
March 22, 2010 Leave a comment
by Elias Shams
As part of the great initiative by the George Washington University to boost entrepreneurship in the region, their School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) will host the third of the four SEAS Seminars on Entrepreneurship this week.
The main topic will be “access to capital“. The discussion will be topics ranging from getting an idea off the ground to accessing start-up capital, and will feature successful entrepreneurs working in many different fields. Here is the good part – the Awesome panelists I have personal stories with. read more…
December 12, 2009 Leave a comment
One Washington, DC based company certainly deserves the buzz, is GeniusRocket founded back in 2007 by the internet pioneer Washingtonian, Mark Walsh, the founding CEO of Air America, the former CEO of VerticalNet, and Internet adviser for Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., during his presidential campaign in 2004. Advertising is in Mark Walsh’s DNA. Both his father and mother come from similar background.
First time, I heard about Mark, was back in 2000 when he was heading VerticalNet and I was heading my first internet company, telezoo.com. His company offered me $20 m for mine and I wish I had took it. In stead, I made the classic first time entrepreneur decision – the wrong one of course. I will spare you all with the details. In a nut shell, I was an idiot for turning it down.
So, now that you know my connection with Mark, back to his present amazing company, GeniusRocket. The company is the destination for all your creative marketing needs because it uses crowd sourcing – tapping the wisdom of the masses for ideas and solutions, rather than paying high-priced agencies to do that work. It’s like “American Idol.” If the talent is out there, a wide casting call gives it the chance to rise to the top. Believe me, it is all true. I am saying that from my own personal experience when I was heading my D.C based social search company, Searchles.
They have about 13,000 Creative artists who have registered for free on GeniusRocket’s site as “creative collaborators.” Businesses like mine who need creative talent issue project proposals known as RFB (Requests For Brilliance), attach prize money and open the competitions. Here are the steps on their site.
Prior learning more about GeniusRocket services, I spent about three month meeting and talking with various traditional advertising & marketing companies about the right online video we wanted for Searchles. We needed something to position searchles the right way in the world of Google, facebook, and Digg. The price quotes we received from the companies were from $25k to $45k. With limited budget we had in the bank, paying that kind of money was totally out of question. Not to mention the time it would take them to create it for us. With a small fraction of the price quotes from traditional marketing media companies, we got the following videos made by four different creative collaborators of GeniusRocket in two weeks:
Searchles – Social Threesome Game Show
Searchles Music Video
What Brought the Social Threesome Together
A Very Social Threesome
Based on the votes from their audience and of course our own taste, we picked the first one titled “Searchles – Social Threesome Game Show”
They have been adding more cool stuff since then. They recently launched a new service called GeniusRocket Select. It is “curated crowdsourcing” which means before anyone creates anything, they are screened for their concept and ability, and only then the small few that meet your creative needs are able to move forward with direct feedback during the production process.
As for what GeniusRocket gets out of this, they take 20 percent of the total award.
So, if you are going through the same challenge I was going through two years ago, I strongly suggest you give them a try. They worth every penny.
Elias Shams
Kamran Abdi
Tatiana Sorabi
