Rohail Rizvi- Entrepreneur in the Making

I’ve decided to giveaway my extra copy of Campus CEO by way of a linkbaiting contest.

Simply link to the Walamu story and I’ll select a random trackback from that post and ship you the book.

Good luck!

Yesterday, while sitting at the student center re-reading Micheal Simmon’s, The Student Success Manifesto, a 30-something year old Korean man randomly decided to sit down in the chair across from me at my table. I look up from my book without tilting my head up with a confused look on my face. I’ve approached people before, but never with the directness this guy just has. He starts rambling about something about how his English isn’t very good and how he is looking for a student to edit his paper. He sees me still with my confused look and says “I’m sorry, can I get your name?” and we shake. He says that he needs someone to edit his “paper.” I figure it couldn’t take more than a few minutes and college essays are hard enough as it is, especially for international students. After I start reading it I notice the mass amount of religious material and Biblical quotes in the “paper.” I start to question whether this is for real or not. He further explains that it is a prayer that he has written for his Bible study class. The “prayer” kept mentioning how he is “thankful for the opportunity to bring 12 RU students to the light of the Bible.” I tell him that I’m not a religious person and that if he expects to sell me anything he is wasting his time. He insists that he is not and just needs someone to edit his paper. I continue on editing the very few mistakes that there were with a couple stops in between reiterating my position as the paper continues to delve in religious material and seems to be aimed at changing one’s mind. After I finish editing the piece, he begins to ask me questions about my faith and starts talking about Jesus and how if one believes in him that they are granted eternity, whereas if they do not they will perish. I feel extremely angry at this point after realizing that my hunch was in fact true. This man used the pawn of having me edit his “paper” as a bridge to try and convert me. However, I then took a look at it from a different point of view. I really wanted to give this person what he had coming for using such a deceitful tactic. I then realized though that this was just another form of marketing. He was trying to sell me a religion just like Clorox is trying to sell me detergent. Albeit, it was ironically not the most ethical ways of doing so, it comes down to making the sale or not and this was his tactic. Religion, when it comes down to it, is probably the best marketed product on the planet, right?

The recent debacle with Turner Network and their hugely botched guerrilla marketing ploy of placing magnetic boards with a figure of one of the characters from the Cartoon Network show, “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” Although there probably have been many marketing mishaps before this, some probably even bigger, this is the first time something like this has happened in the post 9/11 world. The question is…does this mean marketing has it’s limits?

My philosophy has always been to push the envelope really far. On the other hand, you always have to keep in mind what begins to become controversial (although sometimes that’s good) and when you approach a city-wide bomb scare like in Boston.

What do you think? Have you ever come close to going too far?

Today me and my associate went hard to work marketing Walamu at the student center. Our responses were pretty varied and it was a very interesting “experiment.” My associate did an awesome job getting people’s attention, talking to the students, and letting them know what Walamu is all about. No question she did a much better job than me. That’s why I hired her .

All in all, the results were not crazy, but not bad either. I don’t want to reveal the exact number of hits that resulted due to competition, but we do have other promotional tactics planned and this first one was really just a practice run to get a feel of how difficult it would be to go one-on-one with the students. Speaking of that, some students were very receptive to the idea and replied with an enthusiastic “Sweet!” in response to getting a business card, whereas others were non-responsive or tried to walk faster as soon as they spotted us handing out material. Right now we have to do a better job of letting the students know what exactly Walamu is because believe it or not, as easy as we’ve tried to make it, it still isn’t very apparent. Making it easier for people to understand what Walamu is is going to be one of our primary objectives for the next few weeks. Our Walamu t-shirts are coming in tomorrow and so that should increase the trust level between us and other students. I’ll let you guys know how that works.

Furthermore, Walamu has long been avoiding any sort of funding, although having come across several offers. Blame the bootstrapper in me. It’s a tough decision to decide when and how much funding to accept. Call me greedy, but so far I’ve been meaning to fund Walamu as well as I can and reap the benefits of my own investment. Nevertheless, the need for outside funding may not be as necessary as I once thought as I may have come across a secret stash of mula. Screw retirement, I’m all in.

Sorry for the long time no post. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.

I had a podcast for you guys last week, but when I uploaded it to the blog and played it, I sounded like a chipmunk. If anyone knows how to convert the mp3 I have from 32 bit to 64 bit, please let me know, because I think that’s what’s causing the problem.

As for all you lucky bastards that got your hands on a new Wii or PS3, hope you’re having fun .

As most of you know, especially if you’re in college, we’re getting close to the end of the first semester. That means it’s time to rock hard with Walamu. Our hardcore marketing starts tomorrow and I’ll let you know what we’ve got planned. The reason I idled on the marketing for most of the semester was because most people hang on to their textbooks and other stuff (like dorm furniture) while classes are in session and so now that we’re nearing the end of the semester it’s time to roll out the billboards. Up til now, I’ve mainly been focusing on creating a brand for Walamu on campus as opposed to actually getting people to use it. However, now that Walamu is pretty well established on campus, it’s time to go for the goods. Here’s what’s in store for tomorrow:

I’ve ordered and received 5000 business card sized flyers.

and I’ve hired a very motivated and hard working college student/model to help talk to students about Walamu/hand out those cards. She really knows her stuff and so I have high hopes for her.
In addition, I’ve ordered some Walamu gear for us to be promoting in (can’t show you how they look, CafePress blocks that somehow).
All in all, it’s looking pretty good. Hopefully, talking to students one-on-one and letting the know what Walamu is about might be what the super-fickle college student needs to try out a new service.

I’m currently looking to pick up one or two marketing related books, preferably something that could help out with marketing an Internet company like Walamu.com. I’ve been looking at the reviews for Seth Godin’s books over at Amazon and am not really sure which one of his titles would suit me best. I’m thinking about:

• Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers
• Unleashing the Ideavirus
• All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World
• Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

I’m also looking at a non- Seth Godin title by the name of Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business (Guerrilla Marketing) written by Jay Conrad Levinson.

Anyone know which one of these books would be best suited for me and my efforts in marketing Walamu? Any other suggestions?

Walamu has officially broken it’s first dollar of revenue. First $1.50 actually. Someone from Rutgers upgraded their options for listing and opted for a featured listing, the most expensive option on Walamu. Maybe I’ll send them a t-shirt courtesy of RookieTees for that.

I can definitely vouch for all your other entrepreneurs in the making that it’s a good feeling when you get that first break. Hopefully things will continue in a positive manner and I am confident in Walamu simplifying the college experience for countless students to come. People seem to have heard about Walamu all over the place and sometimes it surprises me considering our early stages of marketing. It seems like our outrageous flyers have proved to be of word-of-mouth effect and that people are really talking about Walamu.

It’s time to take things to the next level and really push the guerrilla marketing tactics we’ve had in mind. True, they may offend some people and get in some people’s face. However, truth be told, from my experience so far, college students are extremely hard to reach considering the amount of information they are bombarded with on a daily basis. Smart marketing combined with guerrilla tactics seems to be what will work to grab college students’ attention. People have to be interested in your marketing, or else it’s just not going to fly. Think about Seth Godin’s “Purple Cow.” So this is where we are headed next in our marketing efforts with Walamu and I expect it to catch at least a few college eyeballs.

One of the toughest challenges online businesses face is to gain access to the conscience of the potential customer. What’s different between online businesses and a brick-and-mortar business like McDonald’s is that the customer is continually reminded of McDonald’s presence as they are constantly bombarded with the big golden arches wherever they go. Online businesses don’t have this luxury. And in order to brand themselves, getting themselves in front of the customer and into the customer’s mind is essential.

Considering this, several businesses have taken on guerrilla marketing tactics to get into the minds of customers wherever they go. I feel as though online businesses especially need to employ similarly strong offline marketing campaigns. A few marketing tactics that I found interesting include:

• Several companies utilizing escalator hand rail ads found here.
• ESPN and Country Music Television employing urinal ads by allowing you to play soccer and improve your aim while…well..urinating- found here and here.
• CBS advertising it’s logo and shows on eggs found here.
• German companies utilizing optical illusions to produce well illustrated ads on trucks found here.
• Plasma HID lighting company using unusual stickers to create buzz found here.