DAY #190 -- Launch: T-19 Days!

It's actually Tuesday night, and I've been sitting here for about 45 minutes, and gotten nothing done. NOTHING. Why? I've forgotten one of my main lessons. FOCUS!

I've got open Dreamweaver, 5 IE windows, CORE FTP, WORD DOC, iTUNES, MSN CHAT and E-mail, and I am wondering why I cannot get anything done.

I cannot believe it --the very lessons that I tell you about, I have skipped now, and wondering why? Hey, I'm not perfect. Sometime I slip. This is an instance. However, I know that the more I practice, the closer I get to excellence. Perfection? That's not possible.

FIRST, close all unnecessary windows. I am now left with Macromedia, for this writing, which I am also going to shut down, after I complete the task list. I also have IE open with info on ROI Tracker installation. I need that. Finally, word is open since I need to take screen shots of everything that I do, document the work, and then proceed. Lastly, iTUNES is on --I am at home.

OK, first a priority: Before I call it the end of my day, installation ROI Tracker and making it available to Members would give me the best feeling.

What do I need to accomplish that?

1. Open MYSQL DB
2. Create account for ROI Tracker in MySQL
3. Document entire process for Members
4. Make sure the install works
5. Create some examples of how it works
6. Post the updated information to the Member areas

The above was from last night, as I was toiling away. So, how did I do?

UPDATE: Wednesday, 14-Dec-2005 10:14 AM

Once the focus was resolved, the work took 10 min. I was done. Around 1 hour wasted just looking around then "bang" it was done.

Now as another day starts, I have to finish listing all the items in the Member area. I have just about everything shut down again, so, I think I can get it all done today!

I'll now switch to another discussion that I wanted to have for a long time. And that is one of "UNIQUE POSITION". Yesterday I talked about why you would want to "take a detour while walking down a narrow alley and come to my restaurant" and have dinner.

IF you look at 99% of the blogs out there, the writer has taken a "pre-configured template" from a BLOG provider and started writing. That's fine for the 'average' blogger, but then there is *me*. I looked around such a setup way back last year when I started, but that system did not work when I tried the domain name into the setup.

I got upset that the first start was a failure. Then 5 minutes later I had setup on the companies own server. That's how this format got started. Anyway, my point: the setup is DIFFERENT and I think that catches ones eyes when they are here. Secondly, the idea is DIFFERENT as well.

I know most people laugh when the see the USD$0.01. After all, all the successes on the Internet say "I make $50,000 this month or I make $100,000 this month or even I made $6 Million last year".

And then there is the guy who says "I got $5.12 folks" --read about what I have to say. Well, not many did. But, I didn't mind as the idea was about the journey. It was about exposing the faults that lay hidden within that were derailing my very goals. It was about building, and building in a way that was enjoyable. And after all of that, it was about reaching for excellence.

I now have a very good understanding about what it is that I am trying to reach. The numbers are nice, but there are more important things!

Anyway, all of this represented a "UNIQUE POSITION" and every success in life and on the Internet as dealt with this basic assumption. It's easy to see now a property like Ebay or Yahoo functioning. I'll admin that when I looked at Yahoo as an investor in 1995, I passed it up because I didn't like the name of the company. Then Yahoo skyrocketed 20 times in it's stock value. I was reminded of one of my basic laws --don't judge a book by it's cover. And in this case let the numbers be the judge. Now, hind site is 20/20, but my point is that a "UNIQUE POSITION" is easy to see now.

However, the question is CAN SUCH a POSITION be built? That is why I am presenting the below article. The answer is YES, and it's done all the time. I will attempt to do that once again with my aquarium project that you have started to see a link for in the navigation area.

The rational is to create a very small, razor sharp, focused information area about ONE subject, which will be linked from our directory at biig.com. Ok, now on to the 'unique position' article by Christopher Null.

UNIQUE POSITION:

"build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door".

Nice (Horizontal) Pants!
Lindland Clothing launched a fashion mini-hit by rotating traditional designs 90 degrees.
By Christopher Null , 8 December 2005 Issue (external link removed)
Business 2.0 Magazine

At a cocktail party in 1998, Chris Lindland found himself surrounded by clothing designers. Afraid he would have nothing to say to them, Lindland gazed down at his corduroy pants. “How come no one makes horizontal cords?” he blurted out.

Rolling their eyes, the designers explained why the idea was idiotic. (Horizontal lines are often taboo because they make clothes -- and butts -- look wider.) But in ensuing years, Lindland became obsessed by the blasphemous concept. He occasionally bugged friends about it, only to be dismissed with the wave of a hand. Finally he paid a Ukrainian atelier near his home in San Francisco to make a pair. “Everywhere I went, people asked where I got them,” Lindland says.

Such reactions convinced him that he was onto something. And though Lindland knew nothing about apparel, he wasn’t a business neophyte: During the dotcom boom, he co-founded Web storage company I-Drive, and he later sold a cartoon series to cable’s Spike TV. So in the summer of 2004, he founded Lindland Clothing. “It was a stupid idea,” he admits, “but it seemed to have appeal.”

A year ago Lindland placed his first order for 500 pairs of slacks with a nearby factory -- and he immediately learned why clothing can be more complicated than websites. For starters, a panel was miscut on the first batch of pants, making the entire order worthless. “In software, if you blow something, you can stay up all night and fix it,” Lindland says. “In apparel, you’re sunk.” Then, when replacements finally arrived in January, no store would stock them. “Clothing retailers typically buy in February and March for fall and winter delivery,” says Lindland, now savvier about the industry’s lead times.

But rather than sit on the pants, he launched a website to sell both the corduroys and a horizontal seersucker. Cordarounds.com, still the company’s only retail channel, has moved 2,000 trousers at $88 apiece. A cross between Jcrew.com and TheOnion.com, the site celebrates fictional Cordarounds products, such as a zeppelin shaped like the pants, and tells the story of an Alabama man who uses Cordarounds cords to outfit Confederate troops in war reenactments. Though the tales are patently ridiculous, Lindland says he’s received numerous applications for staffing the blimp.

Of course, Lindland hopes that pants are just the cornerstone of an oddball fashion empire. He claims to have e-mail from 500 women begging for female versions, and he also plans to make skirts and blazers. But he’s in no hurry to cannibalize the cash cow. “Before extending the line,” he says, “we’re going to extract all the value we can out of horizontal corduroys.”

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