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On losing a friend September 30, 2006

Posted by Niels in : Personal , 1 comment so far

A friend of mine was killed yesterday in a tragic car accident.  It feels really strange.  Being halfway across the country, I’m so far removed from it that it doesn’t feel real.  I heard about the accident through email, read the news online, and was on the phone with friends most of the morning.

I don’t really know what to feel.  When I first heard, I mostly felt numb, which alternated with sadness throughout the day.  And I feel so helpless.  What can I do?  Flowers are such a pathetic gesture.  So I just spread the word to other friends who hadn’t heard the news yet.

After work, I went out and surrounded myself with friends.  Most of my other friends don’t know what happened, and I didn’t want to talk about it with them.  I’m doing my best to keep myself in a happy place this weekend, and we’ll see what happens on Monday when I’m back in my apartment alone.

Perhaps the saddest moment was looking at my friend’s Facebook profile and seeing all the messages people have left.  It seems like no one can believe it yet, but there are lot of people who will be missing him.

Your thoughts?

I walk around naked and fart noisily September 27, 2006

Posted by Niels in : Personal , 5 comments

It’s nice having your own place.

Your thoughts?

I’m so excited! September 22, 2006

Posted by Niels in : Personal , 2 comments

I’m going to San Francisco!  I’m going to see old friends!  I’m going to attend a workshop and learn relationship skills I never even dreamed about!  I’m going to do enough coaching to pay for the entire plane flight!  I’m going to pitch my magazine!

Life is so good.

Your thoughts?

I need a lawyer! September 20, 2006

Posted by Niels in : Magazine , 3 comments

I need a lawyer!  Or an attorney, or at least someone who can tell me what the difference between the two is.

The magazine plan is still chugging along, and we know we need some legal advice.  But we don’t know enough to know why.  So we need an attorney familiar enough with the magazine business to tell us why we need him.  I know there will be copyright issues and contracts when we purchase content, but what else, I can only guess.  I think I’ve got the incorporating process mostly figured out, but I’ve got a few questions on that, too.

Now that half the world can track me through the facebook mini-feed, I’m hoping for some prompt assistance.  If you’re stalking me and you’ve spent some time in law school, or just know someone who has, please help me network a bit.

Your thoughts?

Who you know September 15, 2006

Posted by Niels in : Magazine , 4 comments

It’s not who you know… it’s whom you know.

None of our current progress would have been possible without other people’s help.  Craig and I have gotten really frustrated at times because there’s so much to learn about publishing and we’re coming in at ground zero.  Yesterday we talked to a professor at Northwestern who told us that advertisers won’t even talk to us until we have 200,000 subscribers.  How are we supposed to get 200,000 subscribers?  With a 5% response rate, we’d have to send out 4,000,000 pieces of direct mail.  We don’t have $4 million dollars! 

Will Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur founded the magazine Mental Floss while they were still students at Duke.  We talked to Will this afternoon about the business side.  Will pointed out that the traditional magazine model is becoming outdated.  Traditionally, magazines give away their magazines for next to nothing, building a huge subscriber base to sell more advertising.  Will had some great insights into the new magazine paradigm he sees - basically creating content good enough that people are willing to pay for it.  They have hardly any advertising and grew organically through guerilla advertising rather than huge, expensive direct mail marketing campaigns.

Then this evening Mangesh happened to be in New York City so I met him for dinner.  Both founders in one day - not bad!  Mangesh gave me some great info about the editorial side - developing the voice of the magazine, finding freelancers, and creating content.  I learned we need to get an attorney and an accountant soon.  It’s also time to order Samir Husni’s book.

Your thoughts?