I've been out and about DCTech the past weeks and have heard an assload of bad pitches mixed in with an occasional good pitch. Some of the pitching clowns said some the craziest things and some pretendpreneurs drive me crazy with the silliness of it all...
I have been collecting a bunch of Random Rants that don't warrant a singular blog post so I thought I'd get them all out at once. So here we go with Random Rants of a Cranky Old Fart. The Peter Noce Affair - My Mobile Phone Rings...
It happened with Crowd Funding, it happened with Beanie Babies, it happened with Tulips and it's happening now with cryptocurrency and blockchain. Whenever there is a new "Big Thing." Whenever it's going to be the "Next Big Thing." There's a group of know-next-to-nothings, willing to monetize a know-nothing's greed in order to profit from shit they do not understand. Now I'm not saying Blockchain isn't going to be big. I think it's going to be HUGE! I'm talking HUGE with a silent H. Yet, when there is a gold rush, there is a rush for charlatans to insert themselves between the greedy and their wallets. You can tell when a market is heating up with grifters when there are more conferences on the market then there are marketeers. Take the recent deluge of Blockchain conferences booking any speaker who can spell blokchain (which leaves me out and thus why I'm ranting here) filling the stage with myopic one-eyed men (which is an expression that leaves out one-eyed women or even the more woke one-eyed-they) that rush into these nascent (which is a word that I have no idea what it means but man doesn't it make me sound smart) in an effort to fleece...
For the last few years, I've been railing against the crooks, criminals, and clowns of DCTech and you know what? I think I got it wrong. I should learn from the insane clown posse that is DCTech and create my own Blue Ocean version of a Wolves of Startupland Startup. [caption id="attachment_77580" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] DC Tech Meetup[/caption] That's why I looked at two of DCTech's most "successful" startups. That is if success is to be judged by PR and income for the founders and not building a valuable company. With this in mind, I decided to create my own version of a DCTech success. First, let's look at the companies from which I modeled my new company, TrustFuels: Trustify - A company that raised $5 Million and spent approximately 30% of the money to deliver their product. The company is wildly unprofitable, hemorrhaging investor cash and yet the criminals who run the company, Cruella Jen Mellon and her husband Prison Tatted Danny Boice (Remember when he wasted investor money to sue me for telling the truth and then ran away with his tail between his stubby legs? That was fun!) live like Royalty. This company is reported nearly out of cash and needs to raise more...
Imagine if Amazon.com did more than just sell you stuff. Imagine that they manufactured and delivered stuff. Imagine that they competed with other ecommerce...
Anyone can tell you what happened in 2017 but only right here in this space, right here...
On this Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for WhoopAss I'm thankful for: All the turds who have allowed me to blow off steam by opening a can of WhoopAss on them, especially Danny Boice, Jenifer Mellon, Evan Burfield and many more. For that lovely Demand Letter that loser Boice from Dumpster Fire Trustify sent me and all the fun my readers and I derived from that. I'm also very thankful that Boice couldn't afford a decent attorney! Thank you! For my readers and fans who feed me tips and information For all the authentic business people who are building real businesses and not working on the intersection of this and that thinking outside the box creating kickass communities disrupting the world innovating innovative inventions creating highly-segmented uber-nichey identity communities that exclude intelligent people of high character because they are the wrong, religion, ethnicity, national origin and emphasizing our differences in place of promoting inclusion (okay, maybe I'm just whining because there isn't a meetup for Cranky Old White Dudes and I feel slighted) Most of all I'm thankful for my clients, friends, and family In Celebration of my thankfulness, I'd like to highlight some of the folks who I've presented with unopened cans of WhoopAss...
Tien Wong is one of the most connected and accomplished business people in DC. I was honored when he asked me to sit down with him to be the first person interviewed on the inaugural episode of his Web Interview Show...
500 Startups' Dave McLure is no stranger to controversy. He's rarely lost an opportunity to broadcast his tone deaf value system at the top of his...
A couple weeks ago I was speaking with Rodney Loges, President of One Degree Capital, a smart, veteran businessman as well as a veteran veteran. Now Rodney's a blog in his self. I've been trying to get him to join one of my Peer Advisory Groups for 10 years with no luck. He'd be a great member who would give, maybe more than he gets. But that's another blog. A few weeks ago, Rodney told me a story. When ever he travels, he'll interview shopkeepers. Strike up a conversation and find out what drives these people, why do they do what they do. It was a fascinating idea and I told him I'd steal it during my next vacation. That's this blog post. Geraldo the Mexican Scholar and Nytor Server Walking past the main square of Copenhagen's old town, Mrs Cranky (don't ever call her that if you value your life), head squarely buried in her Rick Steves' Scandinavia book, as we walked past an outdoor cafe Restaurant Nytorv Cafe, a waiter directs called out, "Hi, is that Rick Steves book?" "Yes," She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Called-Mrs-Cranky replies. The waiter (Geraldo) continued, "Check out page, 107...