THE DREAM IN ACTION

Fred Wilson recently posted about the value of sharing on the web, which he called extroversion. Fred, and I, are both fairly open with our identities on the web and by doing that we’re taking a bet that the value of sharing is larger than the small chance that some web stalker will do something stupid. Personally speaking, this bet has definitely paid off.

In the comments I expressed an interest in identifying some sort of non-cash currency that could help measure the value that we receive from sharing on the web. Whether it’s specifically via knowledge sharing or something more tangible I’ll have to work that out, but it is an idea that I’d like to continue to develop.

Then shortly after that conversation, Blagica recently asked a similar question on her posterous blog:

lanjut →

I’ve struggled recently with where SocialDreamium will go. In it’s current state, less than 1 month old,  I’m still working on closing my first client for social web consulting, I realize already that eventually I will have a desire for it to grow far beyond it being solely services. For now, consulting is a very exciting source of revenue and probably the only space that I can add true value (for now). Not being a programmer I’m struggling with my inability to quickly build out an idea on the web. I’m learning (PHP, MySQL, API’s, etc) but I’m not patient enough for my learning to catch up with my ambition and ideas. So, where to go…

In constantly learning and looking for better ways to get going and better define which direction to go. I’ve found Mark Cuban’s blog to be an amazing resource. He talks about his experiences getting started, and more importantly the attitude he had to start successfully. That is exactly what motivates me to keep learning, keep growing, and keep dreaming.

In a recent post, Mark re-posted and older piece that he wrote on the importance and value of sweat equity:

The best businesses in recent entrepreneurial history are those that have been started with little or no money. Dell Computer, MicroSoft, Apple, HP and tens of thousands of others started in dorm rooms, tiny offices or garages. There weren’t 100 page long business plans. In all of my businesses, I started by putting together spreadsheets of my expenses, which allowed me to calculate how much revenue I needed to break even and keep the lights on in my office and my apartment. I wrote overviews of what I was selling, why I thought the business made sense, an overview of my competition and why my product and/or service would be important to my customers, and why they should buy or use it. All of it on a piece of yellow paper or in a word processing file, and none of it cost me more than the diet soda I was drinking while I was writing it up.

So, why is this encouraging ? Because right now I don’t have a lot of capital, I don’t have a lot of time to go hunt down VC’s or funding, but I do have the motivation to come home, every night from a full days work and continue, on MY work. I work on ActionsTalk to continue to build a reputation within the startup community. I blog here to educate myself and communicate with a vibrant and intelligent community of readers. And now, with the formation of SocialDreamium I’ll work to help clients utilize the social web to drive improvements in their customer relationships and their bottom line.

But I know that won’t be enough. I want to develop tools that businesses can use to make social media easier and more valuable. I want to be able to teach small businesses to utilize the social web using my tools. This web thing isn’t that tough but it does have to be taught and demystified for the masses, I want to lead that charge. The only problem; those tools aren’t developed (yet). So, if you have or know where I can find the resources to get those tools developed please let me know. I want to build this from the ground up. I want to utilize the free web and drive huge profit for clients. Will you help me do that?