Rohail Rizvi- Entrepreneur in the Making

Okay so I learned a lot from my first project. Now it’s time to take it to the next level.

Announcing Project SeaFire. This one’s going to kick it up a few notches. I have a team of talented individuals ready to make this project an impressive one.

This project is just getting started and so the launch is still a bit ahead of us. However, once we get started I’m going to be video blogging about the progress of the company as well as about the challenges that we face.

More than likely, I will not be taking the bootstrapping approach on this one and will probably be seeking outside investment once we are able to illustrate the value and potential of the company.

This will be a much more full-time project than my previous one.

Stay tuned.

I apologize for the lack of updates this week. I got too carried away with trying to monetize this blog during the first few weeks of winter break and decided it would be healthy to take some sort of break for the last week of break. Today was the first day of classes for the spring semester at Rutgers so it’s only a matter of time before we’re back in the swing of things.

The first day of classes also means tons of students looking to buy/sell textbooks. Walamu’s popularity here at Rutgers is skyrocketing mostly as a result of word-of-mouth. Hits are going up and people are posting their books everyday. Competition is stiff, no doubt, with the bookstores using their megafunds to plaster huge ads in the university newspaper. There is also competition from other much more established websites such as half.com and bigwords.com. The longer I’m in this business, however, the more I realize that my target market isn’t even college students–it’s a certain type of college student–and I think realizing that makes a significant difference.

Speaking of college, I’m finding myself at a sort of crossroads as to what I want to do in regards to my eduction. The question- “Is college really worth it?” tends to keep coming up. Here are some routes I’m currently considering:

• Study abroad for the fall semester next year at City University in London.
• Take a semester off (not likely, as business school starts next semester) If I were to take a semester off it would have been this semester, but I was not in a position to withdraw.
• Take a leave of absence, work on Walamu, and build multiple streams of income.
• Work on Walamu, other businesses, and go to college at the same time (again, is it really worth it?)

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.

WiiCave.com was recently launched. It’s just a side project that I’m expecting to bring in a descent amount of income with. I personally can’t wait until the Wii comes out. It really looks like it just might revolutionize the gaming world, something we’ve heard about occuring for a while, but something that hasn’t really happened yet in my opinion. I plan to keep WiiCave running for quite a while as I expect the hype from the Wii to bring in a good amount of traffic. WiiCave is focused on getting first hand opinions on the new console straight from the people who get their hands on the Wii first. It’s going to take some effort, but I’m going to track down the first people to get the console and get their honest opinion on the system. I look forward to launch time and expect big things from WiiCave.

Also, I’m thinking about adding AdSense to this blog (RohailRizvi.com) for reasons of providing a little side income, but more because I want some other form of motivation to keep blogging more regularly. I’ll try not to make it too obstrusive, but I think it should help with the overall content frequency of the blog. I’ll keep everyone posted on Walamu as well.

Edit: It’s 7PM and I was just congratulated by my friend and I asked him “for what?” and he said for being in the newspaper. I didn’t even get a chance to flip through the paper today and didn’t realize Walamu was in The Targum, the newspaper at Rutgers University. They also put the article online at the Daily Targum website. Here’s the link:

Web site offers free shipping for books

Suffice to say, launch was pretty exciting. There are still a ton of milestones to reach, but nevertheless, it seems like Walamu is getting a good amount of attention. Getting in the university paper is the next step, but before that I’m hoping to garner some attention simply by flyering and word of mouth to get a sort of foundation going to the site. My intern and I have been doing an excellent job so far of getting the word out. Personally, having gone dorm to dorm and door to door slipping flyers under people’s doors, I must say I’m also having fun meeting new people and getting to know my potential customers in such a personal way. It’s always good to find people that are genuinely interested in what you’re doing and I’m certainly focusing on running Walamu in a way which I can connect with my market, whereas other companies trying to do the same thing might simply see students as customers.

I’ll keep everyone posted on Walamu. Thanks for all the support so far by everyone.

P.S. Check out our contest winner’s site here.

It’s 3am as I write this. Just got back from flyering a bit of the campus. Crazy I know. Here it is! www.walamu.com.

We’re very close to Walamu beta and it’s just a matter of time before the full site launches. First of all, I want to thank the entrepreneurs that are supporting me in getting this out there and participating in the Walamu contest. Among them:

Tom Barrett of www.leftofme.com

Dave Askaripour of www.mindpetals.com

Josiah Mackenzie of www.mypalpad.com

Saadh Shehzad of www.saadh.com

Jafar of www.jafarkay.blogspot.com

So far Tom Barrett of www.leftofme.com is certainly in the lead in terms of the contest, nevermind the self-acknowledged irrelevance of his website. But hey, I appreciate it all the same. Good luck and if anyone still wants to join there is still time. The contest ends August 21, 2006. Also, thanks to all the beta testers that are lined up to take their first test drive of Walamu, it’s truly exciting to see.

As for the sail boat, I’m just reminding myself that I’m about to leave the dock and it’s soon going to be time to eat, breathe, and sleep business. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

In an effort to get the word out there about Walamu, I’m holding a contest to see who can bring the most traffic to Walamu.com. Whoever has the most referring links to Walamu.com by August 31st wins the following: