Today marked a major turning point for our company: KlickNation.com.

We test launched a secret “real-time” dating application (called project You and Me) to a handful of users (~75 singles) which exploded virally (i.e. friends referring friends, word-of-mouth, etc.) to over 7,150 users in 3.5 days over 50 countries! Considering that our stretch goal was 4,000 singles in 3.5 days we’re extremely ecstatic about attracting over 7,000 singles!!

We opened a bottle of champagne not too long ago to celebrate this event. We anticipate having over 30,000 users by the end of the week and should be on target to over 100,000 users in two weeks. Our goal has been to usher in a new era of online dating: real-time people-matching. Our morale is high and we’ve got our fingers crossed on what happens next. For all we know our growth could fizzle within days, weeks, or months - but for now, it appears we have struck “gold.”

We’ll be increasing our computing bandwidth by 300% today in anticipation for the “rush.” And are reconsidering taking a venture capital approach to building out the team. In the meantime, it’s still peanut butter sandwiches and top ramen.

Cheers and wish us luck :0)

- Mark

It’s been over 24 hours. The coffee is good. The fat free sandwhich is…well FAT-FREE. What can you expect? My mind is swirling, slightly numb and fighting to stay alert. Today is a special day. We are soft-launching one of our sites to a couple thousand users. If all goes well and it’s well received we’ll expand our server farm for the official launch.

We’ve worked extremely hard to get here. I just hope that the amount of time and energy that went into building this product returns as much as we put in. Who knows. Maybe it will. And maybe it won’t. Regardless, i’m excited as hell. I feel like a 5-year old boy who’s just experienced Toys R’ Us for the first time. Actually, when I moved to the U.S. in 1986 - oh boy, i’m beginning to show my age - the first mega-store that I experienced was K-Mart. Not Toys R Us. Lucky for me because I love corn dogs. Yummy. The corn dogs. The soda pop. All the greasy food you can stomach for less than a dollar, back then. The seemingly endless isles of random goodies to touch and play with as I ran around the store for amusement. Those were the days, eh? Simple. Oblivious. Aloof. Eager to grow up…and eat dry, flavorless egg sandwiches in the morning as a grown up. ha ha…

I’m looking out the window. It’s raining. Cars are rushing by a mob of Starbucks addicts across the street as another lady chases her dog. A typical day.

I’m going to take the dog for a walk….

- Mark the Well Caffeinated Marketer (in dire need of another cup of caffeine)

Where has all the time gone? It’s been a while since I’ve written an entry, in fact over five months long. This month I head to Seattle; mostly for fun, partly for business. For fun, I get to visit the Space Needle and enjoy Seattle’s cafe lifestyle: Starbucks, Zokka, and others. For business, I’ll keep my eyes open and absorb whatever catches my attention.

Outside of running my yogurt cafe (mochii.com), I spend about 10 to 14 hours a day on our web 2.0 start-up investments: KlickNation.com and Ribbd.com (pronounced ‘Ribbed’). Thankfully, KlickNation has kicked into gear and now boasts over 40,000 users in just two weeks. Which means, we can finally begin monetizing. Good timing cause I was getting sick of eating peanut butter sandwiches everyday. I have taste for good wine but I live on a beer and keg budget, at the moment. Anyway, where was I? Yes. The Web 2.0 companies. Our aim is to have over 1 million users within two months. Why? Cause 40,000 current users - about 6,000 daily active users - translates to about 20,000 to 25,000 page views/day. Our applications generate income from paid advertisers. Advertisers generally pay between $0.71 to $4.00 per CPM, or 1,000 page views - depending on the niche and quality of viewers. We’ve got users in over 125 countries, most of which are outside the U.S. Good, but not so good. Canada and England account for 50% of our users, the U.S. 30%, and Indonesia about 15%. Under KlickNation, we launch our flagship product today or tomorrow. I was up till 5:30AM this morning working on it. It’s top secret, at the moment.

Some of my friends ask me if I ever miss the security of a salary job. My answer: Hell No. I love what I do. I love creating products and watching the products succeed and to learn the lessons of a failure. It’s all part of the ‘rush’ that I get. When a product succeeds I’m on a high for days, sometimes weeks. When it fails, I get a bit cranky. There’s no guarantee in anything that I do, but it sure is a hell of a lot of fun waking up every morning and having the opportunity to participate in new ventures. I’ve learned a lot from starting various ventures in the past 11 months. Most of them have failed, but two of them are very promising. It’s an awesome feeling waking up every morning knowing that my investments are working hard for me while I sleep and that other people appreciate our products. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but the intrinsic - and sometimes extrinsic - rewards are exhilarating. My advice to everyone is “Do what you love to do.” I couldn’t even begin to think of living life any other way. Be bold, you have one life - make the most of it.
Cheers,

- Mark

I will be opening a yogurt cafe in downtown Sacramento on the corner of 16th and P Street to coincide hopefully with the 2nd Saturday Art Walk in July (next month). The cafe sits, on the first floor, right below our new technology venture office on the second floor. The doors - pending permits and remodeling work being done - will open promptly at 5PM and will close at 10PM. There will be an after party with friends and family. Please come and join me to mark this event as the first “yogurt cafe” in downtown Sacramento. There will be music, artists, and delicious yogurt topped with fresh fruit and other goodies!

Website: http://www.mochii.com

“mochii mochii”

Two weeks in our new office in downtown Sacramento and two weeks of marathon programming, product development, and marketing/branding strategy we’ve downed countless peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (w/banana - sometimes), eaten way too much potato chips with 0 trans fat (whatever that means), and have slept - barely enough; but we’re still humming along very nicely as a razor sharp “unit.”

Today, as the marketing/branding guy on the team, I will take a break from the office.  We’re contemplating the addition of a “super-Java” programmer on the team.  We’ve got three full-time staff on the venture and we may be adding a fourth person.  We’ll see…