First of all, I think it’s necessary to say sorry to the readers who e-mailed me about my lack of blogging for the past few weeks bar the Causerific intro blog. I had spent a lot of my time trying to finish up work on the project that my blogging suffered. Now that it’s done (for the most part, still in beta), I will certainly be more active with my blogging.

I was listening in on a chat between a journalist and two investors some months back at TechCrunch Disrupt in NYC, the premise of the chat was: how to find a gem in a pile of start-ups that spring up every day. Every single day, a typical tech blog like Mashable receives up to 50 pitches from Entrepreneurs or PR people looking to get mentioned, Journalists and investors aren’t spared either. During the chat, one of the investors lamented the rate at which his inbox filled up everyday and how majority of the people sending him messages have only built a website but NOT  a start-up.

There’s a popular misconception amongst most young entrepreneurs nowadays. The huge success seen by Facebook, Box.net, Youtube etc… has got young college grads thinking about driving Ferraris and working 4hrs a week from the beach. I enjoyed a webinar I watched where Gary Vaynerchuk briefly explained the differenece between “Unemployement” and “Entrepreneurship”. Unemployment can lead to Entrepreneurship but never confuse that with the belief that you are a “Entrepreneur” all of a sudden since you can’t find a job or you were fired.

Back to the previous discussion. There truly is a difference between building a website and building a start-up. A website is fully functional, it is a great idea and people would love it just like a start-up, but unlike a start-up, you and your roommate are the only ones using it. While I am not an investor, I think it’s completely understandable that most VCs and Angels will rather invest in an idea that several people like and already use than a mere website. I am a believer in the “get users first, then chase press and investment second” school of thought. Not only does it give you more credibility, but it raises both your value as an Entrepreneur and the value of your start-up. Most young Entrepreneurs that send me emails asking if I knew any Investors that could be of help barely have 5 users besides them and the fake profiles they’ve created. Get yourself some early adopters, I tell them. Look for people who love your idea as much as you do and get them to use your service. Push them to spread the word to their friends and co-workers, before you know it, you have several hundred people giving you feedback on how you can improve your service. In the next blog post I will talk about how to find these early adopters and how to market to them.

For young Entrepreneurs building start-ups, it’s important to note that most VCs, Angels, Journalists aren’t automatically sold on your “awesome idea”. They take a liking to you as a person and how well the “awesome idea” has caught on with the group of people you have built your start-up for. You most likely don’t have the $$$$$ to spend on ads and big marketing campaigns and so the only way you can go about building a user base is researching your niche, find out the people who are enthusiasts about the service you are offering, bring them to your site and get them to help spread the word. Soon enough you will be ready to have a tech blog cover you. In the mean time, work hard in the trenches and stop being unreal with your thinking that you can code a website, design it and start asking VCs for 100k the next day or asking WSJ to write a piece on you. If it were that easy, there will be 50 new Facebooks everyday.

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Leaguescape, a recently launched poker-modeled Fantasy Sports site is trying to provide the one-stop shop for all things betting on Fantasy Sports. Following the online poker business model, Leaguescape is trying to revolutionize the Fantasy Sports industry as PartyPoker did poker.

In 2003, an accountant from Tennessee turned a $39 investment into $2.5 million. How did he do that? Chris Moneymaker became the first World Series of Poker Champion (WSOP) in tournament history to originally qualify from playing the online version of the game. Moneymaker’s remarkable victory sparked a realization that people could make more money sitting at home and becoming a professional poker player rather than going to work.  In ‘03, there were 839 entrants into the WSOP. In 2004, only one year later, the number tripled to 2,576 and in 2006, the entrant field was over ten times larger at an astonishing number of 8,773.

Likewise, it’s estimated by the Fantasy Sports Trade Association that nearly 30 million people play fantasy sports in North America alone. This figure has been growing at 15% a year and seems to be one big event away from exploding into every living room and office in the US – where fantasy football alone has an estimated $1.1 billion a week in lost productivity for employers. For the fantasy sports industry, these numbers mean big business, as Fantasy Sports is estimated to have a $3–$4 Billion annual economic impact across the sports industry overall. So with a “Moneymaker Effect,” could Fantasy Sports explode even further in the United States and around the world? It’s possible, and it helps that Fantasy Sports are exempt from the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), as it deems Fantasy Sports a skill game, providing a safe marketplace for Fantasy Sports “betting.” The average Fantasy Sports player spends about $500 a year, and with continued growth and a possible boom, the industry could continue to expand.

Leaguescape gives you ultimate freedom in customizing the leagues size, ensures your league is filled with paid players, and eases payments by digitizing them. Leaguescape also offers unique salary cap daily games where users draft a team within a salary cap and your players compete against another player’s team each day.

Leaguescape completely follows the poker model; meaning they allow play money which can be exchanged for real money, player points, reward systems (which can be exchanged for money), plan to offer rewards for the top performing player per sport, and unique promotions such as their 100% deposit bonus and $10 free signup bonus. Leaguescape believes that Fantasy Sport leagues don’t need to be filled with friends; rather they encourage playing with other unknown players, just as online poker does.

Leaguescape’s business model and fees are structured after online poker as well. A tournament in online poker has a 10% fee associated with the buy-in and it usually lasts 30 minutes to several hours. Leaguescape has the same 10% fee for each wager in its season long games, which last 4-6 months depending on the sport. For daily games, Leaguescape has lowered its fee to just 5%. Leaguescape applies a proven business model to an emerging Fantasy Sports industry; one that could spark an industry revolution.

Leaguescape is on Twitter

Outsourcing is something I do quite abit. I have been an advocate for well over 3 years now and have enjoyed it for the most part. It’s cheap, easy and time efficient. My favorite thing about Outsourcing is the fact that I could have a heap of work to get done before work time the next morning and if I don’t get through it all, I know I can have an assistant somewhere in a different timezone finish it up for me. Take for example the one time we were handling web development, design and branding for a new website and client. I had just started out with Gen Y startup and the section of it that handled website dev/design, so I felt the need to “show the S on my chest”. I didn’t care whatever it took back then and so I hired a team from countries around the world.

The new client had a bad experience with a previous supplier and was out of time, basically needed a turnover in less than 40hrs. I blindly took up the challenge and set out on a journey that I was 100% sure I wouldn’t finish, but the pride and need to make a point made me take it on anyway. I worked endlessly on the project but after a while it was evident I was running low on manpower and strength, that’s when I sent an email to my ever ready asst. in Lahore, Pakistan. It was 2a.m. in Baltimore USA but for him, it was the middle of workday. Suffice to say, somehow the project was done and delivered and the client is still with me till today.

Outsourcing also has it’s bad, actually very bad moments as well. It’s never going to be all rosy if you are into outsourcing some work. For people who are new to Outsourcing and don’t know people/teams you can pick as your partner or outsource team, it could be ridiculously daunting. Many take the decision process lightly and that shouldn’t be the case. It’s actually more important than hiring an in-house team because these are people you don’t know, never seen and have no clue whether their background and experience is only true on paper. You don’t know their style of work and have no control over how they do the work either. A close friend learned the hard way a couple of weeks ago when she picked out a team in India and handed them the reigns on a small project she was working on. She had 3weeks to get it done and so while she worked on the design section, she outsourced some of the dev. It’s been 6 weeks and the development is only 50% done. She lost that client and isn’t sure when the work will be done. Not all outsourced projects end up this way, neither are most of the developers looking for outsourced project, so don’t misconstrue the lesson of this post. You just need to make sure you learn to do the right things when you outsource.

To do List.

1.) Go through a trusted source. Merely doing a Google search of the word “outsource” will give you several articles on where to find great employees in other countries around the world. Elance is especially a huge meeting ground for tech work suppliers and people looking to outsource.

2.) Verify the information they give you. A lot of the people looking to take your work on fake their qualifications and experience. You must verify the information they give you and make sure all that work they claim to have done are actually their hand work. E-mail previous clients, call old employers…anything just to make sure you are not dealing with liars. If they lie about their previous work to win yours, you definitely don’t want them any where near yours.

P.S. A lot of suppliers do this, because most employers fail to verify any past experience.

3.) Keep good contact. Always stay in contact with whomever you do hire. Have skype meetings atleast once a week and build a closer relationship. Exchanging emails alone is never enough. Let them know that you mean business! Set up calls about twice a week or more depending the stage of the project or the amount of work required.

4.) Demand to see updates. This one explains itself. Don’t be led to believe you are closer to the finish line than you actually are. Most people fall victim of this.

In summary, Outsourcing can save you a lot of money and time IF done the right way. So do the right things to enjoy the experience.

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I was just thinking about the things that really fire up young entrepreneurs these days and decided to pen down a few. There are quite a few things that certainly warm my heart as a gen y entrepreneur and I don’t think it much different with others that fall into this category. What gets a young entrepreneur going? What’s the young entrepreneur’s kryptonite? I decided to get on Twitter, Facebook and some other social networks and find out if other people’s reasoning was similar to mine and most of the replies I got were pretty much the same.

Tech savvy people and environment: The millennial entrepreneur, actually, the typical gen y-er is well vast in most things tech related. These days most young people are walking around with cool gadgets and working daily tasks with tools that the older population are probably not so familiar with. The typical gen y entrepreneur believes he/she will relate easily with a tech savvy person and they will have things in common, so they are easily drawn to each other. Technology drives business in the world we currently live in, so when we discover people who appreciate it as much as we do, we immediately feel this North pole-South pole attraction.

Socially mindful people and environment: So New media and social networking is the big thing on the internet now and gen y-ers are in the middle of it all. This generation grew up in the middle of the buzz so it’s sort of customary for us to carry on with our lives on these channels. If you utilize these social media and just carry on with these tools, we definitely have a soft spot for you.

Those who carry around Tim Ferriss’ “The 4-hour workweek”: It’s just the way it is. I get a lot of stick from people when I say the typical gen y entrepreneur would rather have his day very short and chill for the rest of it than wake up at 7a.m and be at work till 6p.m. I am not saying millennial entrepreneurs are lazy, but we kind of think people like Markus Frind rock! I mean the lad works 1hr/ day and his company’s average annual revenue is $10million. These are the sort of people we draw inspiration from, so if you are down with these methods, then we are down with you.

Cheap stuff: I know everyone likes being prudent with funds, but millennials are especially careful. Young entrepreneurs are very financially intelligent and have grown up reading books and blogs detailing how to retire rich and how to stay away from spending money on things they can get for free. The typical millennial entrepreneur is not always keen to sign up for Adwords, he/she will much rather look for channels where they won’t have to spend a dime. Here are some things you will see:  (a)We will create a Facebook fan page and invite all our friends to join, then ask these friends to invite their other friends and so forth. We will then send message after message until we reach out to enough people. (b) We will get on Twitter and make so much noise that we are hard to ignore…the point of the whole thing.  (c.) We will walk up to people on the streets and try to charm these innocent people into patronizing us and our service. E.t.c.

Believe it or not, we will rather go through all these stressful situations than shell out hard earned bills. It’s just the way we are wired; cheap stuff puts a smile on our faces.

Independence: In case you didn’t know, gen y entrepreneurs don’t like being told what to do without having us understand why we are doing it. There’s a difference between being stubborn and being genuinely inquisitive. Most gen y entrepreneurs are the latter. I personally like to take advice from people especially those who are more experienced in my field, after all they have been through what I am currently going through, so I would expect them to know more. However, millennial entrepreneurs don’t derive joy from just the monetary reward of doing something, we get our thrill from learning something new and understanding why we are having to do what we do. While we do take advice and other people’s opinions, we are usually self-directed and we like to call the shots.

The smart and the Innovative: Gen Y entrepreneurs are suckers for new information! If you are one of those with something novel to share, you will get us going. I like listening to people, I believe everyone has something good to share and I find myself constantly getting drawn to those people who think out of the box and whose concepts are somewhat controversial. I am sure this is not something only I suffer from. We like to learn, so if you have something innovative to say, you are a winner in our eyes.

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I was debating whether to tweet this or make in into a blog post, but i decided that 140 characters won’t do justice to what I intend to share. I have only just started work on my latest start-up and even I admit it is ridiculously time consuming. So time consuming that I can only check my email one time a day, that I can only manage to write two posts per week at best on this blog (it is currently 4:20 a.m and it is the only time I can write this piece, yet I have to be up in 3 hours to meet with a client). Anyway, my point is that in the middle of all this hard work, my missus decided to “take time off, because I didn’t have time for her.”

Typically I am not a man of emotions, I barely share my emotions with myself let alone a second party. I didn’t take her words to heart until I was done with my bit of work for the day. I sat back on the futon, sipped on a glass of soda and started to analyze the situation. By taking time off, she meant not seeing me and not having anything to do with me until a time of her choosing. But what have I done to deserve it?

Realistically, I barely tried to help the situation. I am completely bootstrapped as far as my start-up goes and I also have clients to satisfy, so it is hard to have time for extra curricular activities (that don’t involve sleep). I haven’t gone to the cinema in well over 4/5 months, I have not been to a diner in 8months and I don’t remember the last time I rang 1-800-flowers to put a smile on the face of the missus. I know I have not tried at all, but am I completely failing? am I failing to set priorities or manage time effectively?

As a young entrepreneur without the ‘million dollars’ or backing of a VC/ Angel investor, things are tough. I never have time to do anything! The girlfriend has never given me an ultimatum or anything like that (she really is one of a kind), but I can’t help but think: what if I had to choose between pursuing my dreams and domestic responsibilities a.k.a. the missus, what would I have done? Now that things have sort of ended on that front, I feel very let down. I feel like perhaps she should be supportive of my quest rather than “taking time off”.

As I sat there collecting my thoughts, my phone rang. It was my mate Dacosta. He is a legend in my opinion. He owns a number of bars and clubs in Liverpool, England and has only recently started a record label in Los Angeles. Yes anyone can own bars and start a record label, but if you are currently 24 years old and lived in foster care till you were 18 before breaking out to chase your dreams, without a family, then that is inspirational as far as I am concerned. He spent 5 minutes on the phone with me explaining how it is practically inevitable for entrepreneurs to sacrifice important bits of their lives in order to chase start-up dreams.  Now that I think about it, I realize I have given up quite a lot in my quest to build a successful brand and business.

I used to play soccer every single day! Now I am lucky if I kick the round leather once in 2 weeks. I used to enjoy just sitting with the missus having random discussions, I don’t remember the last time we did that. I used to enjoy spending my dollar bills on lovely clothes, Nike kicks, Liverpool jerseys, gifts for family an friends, e.t.c. but now I definitely haven’t even bought myself anything in like 7 months. All my funds have been designated to the business. I guess as young entrepreneurs, another important lesson we must learn is to sacrifice some things that are dear to us. I can’t help but wonder though, if I could go back and do things over, will I re-prioritize? As much as it hurts to be away from these things I have sacrificed,  I  don’t think I will want to put my passion on hold…even though I do wish the missus will read this and soften her stance. What are your thoughts on prioritizing and sacrificing as a young entrepreneur?

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At the moment, there’s about 78million men and women who proudly represent the millennial generation in the US, and they are taking up their places in the various facets of the workforce. Just as this is happening there’s a switch in gear, there’s now a difference in how people work, when they work and what they work for. Between 2002 and 2010, there’s going to be a drop of almost 33% in number of workers aged  38 and above. As this starts to happen, the scale will start tipping and Gen Y-ers will suddenly become more prominent in the work force, causing a huge generational baton-exchange in the workforce.

Gen Y has a completely different idea and approach to work than the baby boomers. They don’t live to work, they work to live. They have watched in horror and shock as their parents, uncles, mentors e.t.c. worked punishing hours to make money…money they rarely had time to spend. They’ve graduated college with this idea that they would not suffer the same fate as the previous generation and hence have become more demanding. More demanding in how much they ask to be paid, more demanding in the way they want to work, how flexible their hours are and so forth. They have come in with the idea that a fine balance must be struck between their work life and personal life.

Some months back I had coffee with some seniors at my Alma Mater, UMBC. The discussion swiftly shifted to what they planned to do after they graduated college. “I can’t stand all this 8 – 5 people get sucked into” started Megan, a Finance and Mathematics major who already had an offer from a big firm in downtown Baltimore. ” I have spoken to some of the employees there and I just think they are treated so poorly. The idea of working 9 hours a day, with overtime every now and then just doesn’t appeal to me. I want to have a life! I want to have flexible hours and be able to go to concerts, watch my favorite tv shows at 7pm. How can I do that when I get off at 5:30-6p.m, sit in traffic for about and hour or two and wake up 7a.m. the next day to do it all over again?” In reality, Megan is not alone. Research has shown that more and more Gen Y-ers will quit their job if it wasn’t fun enough or if the salary doesn’t meet their standard. The idea of dealing with mediocrity is not one the millennial generation like, they will not settle for anything they don’t deem worthy.

Are these demands being accommodated by companies? You better believe they are! Why wouldn’t they? Have they got an option? Most companies infact will do anything and go any length to lure the very best graduates. Madalyn Brooks is an HR at Procter and Gamble. I once heard her stress the difference between the interview sessions she had some years back to those she sits in on now. She explained that most young job seekers now care about how many days off they will get, if they can work from home, if they have at least a 3 month sabbatical and so on.

The issue of money and benefits also comes up. Most Gen Y-ers are asking for a lot more than the baby boomers did for the same position. They are asking for several other perks as well. It’s not unusual these days to see companies luring graduates by offering them a company paid BlackBerry phone, an ipod touch, a macbook amongst other things. Why is there this sudden demand for more money and perks? For one, the cost of going to college has blown up off the hinges leaving several graduates in debt. You can’t expect them not to ask for more money when you require them to have a Masters degree  or MBA(for better chance of landing the job). How do you think they paid to attain this level of education? There was a CNN documentary some weeks back when a recent grad expressed his desire to be started on $70k a year in an industry where the average salary was $50k last year. His argument is that most companies won’t look your way if you don’t have internship experience(s) under your belt. He explained that he worked terribly hard to get those internships and while he doesn’t expect an official car or a macbook, he expected to be atleast “compensated for the hard work he put into preparing for the position.”

The improvement in technology has a lot to do with this change in my opinion. When young graduates see Gen Y entrepreneurs like the creators of Facebook, Myspace, Youtube and other web 2.0 companies, they have this belief that they really don’t have to give up their life in a boring 10hr a day job in order to be successful. The fact that social media is now also a basis for many companies reaching more customers has also been responsible for how Gen Y has chosen to work. Most companies now encourage their employees to try to harness the power of social media for the good of the company, and who better to go to than Gen Y-ers?

Right, so i came up with this not so novice idea of starting a social network for gen y entrepreneurs. My idea for it is to bring every gen y with the entrepreneurship spirit together in one place, so we can all meet each other, learn from each other and recognize the success of people.

I know the name is quite parochial but oh well: Generation Y Rockstar