The think (here) Blog

 When Possibilities are Endless

Drunk on the victory of landing a legitimate, substantial, deep pocketed investor my head was spinning.  My business partner and I had been positively working our asses off gearing up for the pitch, and we succeeded. http://the2200.com was going to be a reality. Now it was time for the real work to start. 

The site we set out to design was a freelance job marketplace unlike anything the web had experienced.  Clients would post a request for a project, designers would respond with submissions.  The submissions would be presented to the client based on their Focus Vote ranking.

The Secret Sauce

Focus Vote was our secret weapon.  In theory, to assist a client in picking a winning design, all submissions would pass through the FV section of the website.  Community members would vote on their favorites and we would present the data to the client based on their customized target market. 

For example: Client A located in Denver, CO needs a new sign for his rock climbing store.  Through the Focus Vote the client could assign a higher value to voters within 10 miles of his location, who are into outdoor activities, and make over X dollars per year because those are the people he is trying to attract. No more guesswork.

The Countdown

The next 18 months yielded more consecutive late nights, all-nighters, and more time "crushing it" than I had ever experienced.  To quote @garyvee (again), we were "bleeding out of our eyeballs" we were working so hard (and we had not even "opened" for business yet).

We had a successful "Pre-Launch" campaign. In just 60 days, built a community of over 700 designers ready to work their asses off, and we were growing every single day.

Show Time

With the site sitting close to 95% completion we were ready to flip the switch, go full throttle, begin charging for memberships, capture ad revenue, and skip and sing all the way to the bank.  However, our story does not end here.  This is just the beginning, the top of the roller coaster, and the tip of the iceberg all rolled into one.

Tomorrow: #FAILweek Part 2: Everything Comes Unglued.