What Mike Michelini is up to Now – April 17 – 23, 2022
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(In the photo – David w/ the kids, and passover dinner at Meir’s)
You know what, I just feel the way the world is going, it is to benefit people that are like me. The creators. The dreamers. Let us hope it stays that way – but the last couple years as I study more about web3, it seems like it.
* HR / management / finance – feels like we have finally a core person on each point here and now can make better structure decisions. Need to hire more people as well.
* Flamingo Handshake auction this Wednesday (USA time)
* Excalibur Brothers – feel we are ALMOST done w/ the final production samples of the products.
* Client work – confirming some amazing crowdfunding, branding, community projects last week/this week.
* SkyInclude – making our own registry for some epic TLDs we have. But also trying some new ways to distribute SLDs which hopefully will make it show the power of HNS.
For those who want to hear the full week plan for Shadstone Limited, Mike’s company (removing sensitive info) – here it is:
Week Plan April 17 – 23, 2022 Shadstone Limited
Just re-watched “Ready Player One” Movie for inspiration, and compared from the first time I watched it, we seem to be heading more in the direction of that movie. (Check it out sometime if you can!)
Hope everyone had a nice Easter holiday. The HR department is still forming the handbook and plan on how to deal with these things – GFA Kids teachers WANT to do more classes on the holiday weekend, and in China there is no holiday so parents want it (as 1 example). Dealing with international business and holidays is always a tricky balance as calendars can be quite different.
We continue to invest in our HR / finance / management processes and team. Martha has finished the books and we have financial report (finally!) for years we are trying to get our books in order, and Martha seems to have gotten it. If this is true (still just happened last week), there is so much more we can do (well she has like 3 other company books of ours to go through, ha).
And we are having discussions on how to better optimize the company structure. Maybe we even spin off projects to their own company (or at least bank account, somehow). LJ is researching , and we do want to propose this to the team once we gather more info.
Flamingo handshake auction is this week, and will be the one year anniversary. Funny to think these auctions started in response to the YAT domain auctions, as well as a great experience at the first HandyCon auction. Will also hope to introduce some “physical products” to it – with the Flamingo Handshake glasses hopefully reaching 3 destinations (US / EU / PI) all before the auction (but it is looking like EU and PI may not receive in time, and US is receiving on the same day as the auction).
But the physical goods and the NFT /web3 – this is where I see Shadstone’s sweet spot. We are in the import/export (From China to overseas) as well as e-commerce (GFA), and have been embracing web3 since 2020. Combining those 3 together seems to mean “merch” and NFTs and e-commerce.
So these flamingo handshake physical glasses being introduced at our one year anniversary auction seems like a great springboard for that. And not just us to sell it – but to have our community network sell it. (Still need to chat to Anne about listing it on handshakePH, and encrypted about maybe having a shop in Europe, and talking to MigsMachine/ in US about his storefront selling the glasses. Because it is about community and distribution. Not 1 centralized web shop selling around the world.
Which leads to the Blimp Method and Excalibur Brothers. Still currently on the web2 path, but embracing the decentralized and community side of web3 with franchisees. Once we finally get this batch of 4 products online, we will be able to focus on the community and content – and promotion.
Which leads to the batch 2 of the Blimp Method – which we will launch / open the carts for at the yearly Cross Border Matchmaker event Aubrey is the event manager of. We will do it on June 16-17, 2022, and like last year’s – we will have our amazing community and experts on panels. And hope some sponsors chip in (we already have Mercury as our core yearly sponsor)
But the big difference from last year is we have the Blimp Method program now (last year we discussed a bootcamp, but didn’t have a program setup). So this year – we have the first 4 products of Excalibur Brothers (which hopefully are ready and on Amazon by mid June), and we will bring up these franchisees to a panel. They seem very satisfied with the program, and we can let them share their experience too the public.
While that event is happening, we will have a booth to allow people to APPLY (not just buy, you need to be accepted to our program) for the Blimp Method. Need to decide how many franchisees we will allow to join, and the exact model – and for sure the program fee will be higher (it was a lot more than expected this first time for Luciano, Jasmine, and the team) . But that is how it works, those who join a program early get the beta price. And still this second program will be lower than our third round of franchisees.
So I know I am rambling here- but I hope you see the vision.
It is all about – brand, community, content. Whether that is web2 or web3 – it can be “bridged”. So many on web2 still have no ideas what is happening with decentralized domains, crypto, NFTS, metaverse worlds. Even I am having trouble learning and keeping up. The idea is – in one form or another – I am totally convinced web3 is the future. And I hope facebook loses, as they are making obvious moves where they want to be the bully again (last week announced an approx 47% commission on NFTs sold on their platform). But of course I know the majority of humans will still flock to the Facebook version of the metaverse – just hope enough of us use the “real ones”.
So today’s week plan – I hope it educated you a bit. Hope it helps you connect the pieces of all the projects we are doing. Even NowShenzhen, I can see having an NFT community around it (more tricky with China regulations). And while some communities and brands will be able to convert to web3 sooner than others – the core value is the people and the content inside of them.
And this is where we are investing.
Going through the projects, keeping the above in mind:
* Flamingo Handshake – auction platform and marketplace for Handshake (maybe more NFTs in the future) . Have a few “tricks” up my sleeve not ready to disclose on how to reward those supporting using account.skyinclude.com (still in early stage development) and the physical sunglasses.
* Client work – most of our work you will see is about website and content. That is where we hope to grow. We may partner with social media agencies, as that is just not our strength (and hard to be good at everything).
* Excalibur Brothers / Blimp – hoping to finish the product dev on the last 3 products, the polishing cloth production is ending soon, and ordering the packaging. Just a massive upfront investment on setting up all the branding and products.
* Indigitus – huge discussions behind the scenes with foundations, believe we can say more this coming week. And reward those early backers who have stuck with us.
* GFA / CBM – have a great podcast coming this week (was a bit of a writer block last week), and need to start to really push the Cross Border Matchmaker for June 16-17. Also a GFAVIP session w/ the podcast guest needs to be confirmed for end of this month.
* More amazing client work hopefully being kicked off this coming week – crowdfunding, community, crypto. It is all so fascinating.
* Just so many beautiful projects we are doing
Which reminds me – we are hiring. We need more amazing people.
We want to showcase our amazing team to do more internal training. It is so beautiful to see the team develop and grow in their skills, and we think it is a good chance to have them share their skills to others on the team – so we all learn and grow together.
My brain is overloaded with projects and creation. But that is what I love to do. Some business gurus tell me I need to see a physiatrist as I always make new projects and never stop. But I have come to realize, no matter what – I just love to create and build.
And believe this year the metaverse will really re-shape society. We will be able to have team meetings in a 3D world, not in a zoom room. The things we buy and sell, the money we earn – will be owned and verified on blockchains, not banks and centralized gaming and evil social network database servers.
Then the things we build and create online will truly be ours. Not some “checkbox terms of service” crap that can sell ads on our content (well now theirs) and delete us at any time for any reason they choose.
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