My College Cabana Update

We decided to expand our business to online businesses in an effort to give a variety of discounts to our customers. In the last week of contacting businesses we were able to obtain partnerships with 5 businesses. These companies include:

Bustedtees.com a college t shirt companie
TwinXL.com which is a college bedding website
SouthSmoke.com which offers a variety of hookah products
dormco.com has a variety of items for "dressing up your dorm"
Epicnicbasket.com selling picnic & tailgate supplies

Our online business partnerships will be the start and we will now be focusing on our local restaurants and bars in Mercer County.

My College Cabana Update

My College Cabana is a discount card membership program exclusively for college students. Currently we are starting our venture out in Mercer County, New Jersey with four colleges its a great network of schools. Our program currently works were local bars and restaurants partner with us and offer a preset discount for a certain day. We than sell the cards to local college students who are looking to save some money when going out to eat or drink. The student than visits our website MyCollegeCabana.com were they can see what discounts are available that day to optimize the use of there card. When they visit the venue all they have to do is flash the card with there school id and they recieve an instant discount. The card pass for itself with only two visits to venues.
We currently are in the stage of creating an extensive venue list and hope to achieve this soon so we get a test up by the end of the semester. The website is fully functional and really is a great "home base" for the business.

Blast from the Past - SportsFanBase.com Update!

Yes, that's right - Ari Bluestein is back on the SVE Blog! HA ... I wanted to give everyone a quick update on SportsFanBase.com, my interactive online community for sports fans that I started while in the SVE program at Rider.

The site actually had to get shut down temporarily because it was hacked. But we refreshed the database, switched servers, and now it is back and up and running. Advertising revenue is still a little slow right now and I am still trying to get the deal with the Philadelphia 76ers going. I provided them with a sample page as to what we can give them and they replied with ‘thank you’ – So we’ll see what they say. If I get the 76ers deal, Sports Fan Base will be exactly where I want it to be.

Also, on another note, have been doing sports analysis on the radio with the Sports Journey Radio Network – I got that gig thru Sports Fan Base. Well now I host my own show Monday thru Friday from 10AM-12PM EST. Here is the link - http://sjrn.ezstream.com/broadcasts/index.cfm?fuseaction=usrbrd&broadcasterid=54617

You can listen to it live, or you can listed to the archives. The show is called The Other Side (and of course is sponsored by SportsFanBase.com, ha!) and after the first week of doing the show, I feel pretty comfortable hosting my own show.

Also, I will be co-hosting a live remote sports talk show with Philadelphia Eagles players at a bar in Bristol, PA every other Thursday. That starts in August.

Plus, there are a couple new developments with Sports Fan Base.com. I am looking into developing an online sports magazine. So if that goes through, I will come back and write a Blog about that.

So please listen to my sports talk radio show if you can. Again, if it wasn't for Sports Fan Base (and hence, if it wasn't for Rider's SVE program), I would not have gotten the radio gig that I have now.

As I get more updated with the 76ers deal, my new radio career and the online magazine, I will post some more updates!

Final Update for Garden Artisans LLC

The past three months have definitely been interesting while running my business and taking the SVE course. Since Garden Artisans was formed in April of 2007 my project was done on the expansion of my business. At first I was a little disappointed in the progress we made over the past year, but then I started to look back at what we were doing this time last year. Some of our problems this time last year were as simple as creating an invoice, getting a corp code, and business insurance. This year our problems are much larger and more complex and I can only laugh at what I thought was a problem last year. Our most current problem is having too much work, which is a good problem to have in business. Right now we are booked into July and there are no signs of an economic recession in the landscaping industry. We still cannot find a truck driver, but we do have three prospects right now to fill the position, so hopefully one will work out. We are also starting to sell more of our technical services, which is leading to the need for a skilled foreman on our job sites. We just made our biggest sale ever, which consists of a raised terrace and patio with plantings to compliment it. Early in the year, back in January we were debating on how much to invest in new equipment and how many employees to hire because of the possible recession and not wanting to overextend ourselves financially. We ended up taking a conservative step this year, but are now starting to regret it with the amount of clients and work we have. That's what keeps running your business so interesting though is the unknown. The most exciting part for me is looking back at how much our business has grown while full time students. I can't wait to see what we can do when the business is our main focus.

Final Blog Update on Push-Start

This is the last post for the semester on Push-Start. This semester has been highly valuable in teaching me what is needed to start a venture and not to underestimate the amount of work and effort needed to get something off the ground. In this semester I started two blogs, Grab Your Controller and Push-Start. Between GYC and Push-Start they have developed into two different beings and mentalities. GYC represents the way too technical aspects I didn't want to get into and did anyway since I was working with a friend. Push-Start is my own controlled blog where I made all the decisions and decided to take a different stance then the one used with GYC. Unfortunately I will not be working on GYC as it is officially dead. Push-Start will be put on hold because I need to focus all my attention on my job as Marketing Manager for the comic book company, Dabel Brothers Publishing. I will be revisiting Push-Start in 6 months or more when I have a chance to really sit down and focus on getting it where I would like to be. That being having a team of people who will be working with me, being able to cover more games and be able to branch out into not only video games but comics, movies, etc. Its been a good semester and really valued one especially with this course. :)

Garden Artisans LLC

It has been a while since I posted, so I will try to bring everyone up to speed with that latest on Garden Artisans. My brother and I decided to hold off on the SBA loan and take more of a conservative step this year since we are both still in school. Two out of our three employees came back from last year, which was positive so we could avoid the whole training process. Our number one priority for this year was to hire a truck driver. Since our biggest flaw last year was my brother or I having to drive the crew around and not having time to do all of the other important business activities such as estimating and selling. We hired a driver for three days, but then our insurance broker ran his driving record and found that it was not good, so our insurance company would not cover him, so the search for a driver continues. We were able to secure about 90% of our maintenance and lawn contracts from last year, so that has given us a solid start to the year. We have also been getting many new leads on potential clients and have been able to lock in a good amount of new work. Our basic advertising approach of passing out flyer's in residential neighborhoods was very effective. We are starting to feel over whelmed with the amount of estimates and work we are securing. We are also starting to land some larger more technical projects that are taking taking much more time to estimate and finalize. We have been having conflicts with obtaining permits and working with other contractors. We have sold a design and installation for a pool area, pond & waterfall, blue stone patio, and seat walls, which is exciting, but stressful. Currently we have three employees, but still no truck driver. Our biggest problem is getting these larger projects complete while keeping up with our regular maintenance contracts. Running your own business is definitely not a 9 to 5 it is more like a 7A.M. to sometimes midnight.

Push-Start Update

Hey everyone, I officially launched Push-Start on April 1st. I have only been posting on there once a day at the end of the day so I can sum up the day of news. Last two weeks have been kind of hectic with graduation coming up and papers and planning for a convention with the company i work for. So its been hard to keep my site updated. I look forward to hopefully being able to do so once all the craziness dies down and I have time to breathe. :)