Why Weebly is soo Important for us?

 

“Ask the Weebly founders who their core audience is and they’ll tell you, proudly, that it’s entrepreneurs — people who are trying to build their own small businesses, across every industry, not just techies”

Weebly allows entrepreneurs to innovate quickly. They get to have their number one problem: infrastructure; partially solved.

The service is mostly free, unless you also want to attain a domain and such services in another package. This package supposedly has more tools and options but I haven’t even found a reason to inspect what exactly these improvements are. I’m soo good right here.

Check it out for yourself though, the amount of edits that you can make on the free themes is a major: Yessir! 

the leap forward

Image Courtesy of: maxxburrows.com

It takes a lot to attain what you truly want from life. Especially the: “What DO I Truly want?” part. The question arouses thoughts of childhood experiences that stood out to you. Those moments when you were like: “this is soo cool, I wanna do this forever!”

We begin to understand the relevance of all of these seemingly trivial experiences and we see what they really meant to us. But once we’ve gone past that though, we begin to plan. We plan, plan, plan and then plan again until we are certain (and we never are) that “THIS particular way/method will lead me to what I truly desire from life.” At that point, we understand what it takes to get moving; but too many of us, too often just… run out of steam. The engine just becomes tired and runs out of gas, I mean: you can’t just keep it on idle forever?!? The idea now gets eroded by this cloud of uncertainty. “Is it ever going to work? Will they like it? Do I like it?”

From this sh!t, arises an even bigger pool of nonsense -> the excuses: time, responsibilities, ability, money, destiny, luck etc. So we never actually get it done, we never see the fruition of our greatest ideas until we are pressed into a situation where we are compelled to finally do something about it.

By then, it could be a bit too late. It becomes harder as time goes by because as times passes by you accumulate too many habits and responsibilities. And maybe you’ve succumb to the biggest habit of all…

Monotony

For some reason, society has managed to get us to despise all these other “illicit addictions” and have, rather, led us onto an even worse addiction. We think that by becoming monotonous, we are ensuring our security; our kids’ futures… our futures. And society does this with the most venomous dangling carrot, consumerism. We get manipulated into consuming more and more, spending more and more and eventually: borrowing more and more.

When does it stop?
When you finally get your sh!t together and you wake up and realize that this life is not meant to be wasted. It’s a wonderful opportunity to create the reality that YOU wish to exist in.

So on a Saturday morning, take that leap from your bed and land right in to your working shoes and toss the slippers to the side.

Wake up 4a.m so that you can work on Your passions and business aspirations before the “9-to-5” life starts to take over your day.

Own the day, don’t let it own you!

Finally stop talking about it and just:

Take that leap forward!

@TheCalm101
@ZooLooConcepts

HOW MINIMALISM IS CHANGING ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Blog Post Courtesy of: The Minimalists

On a white-skyed afternoon in March, the two of us teamed up with our friends Joshua Becker and Courtney Carver to discuss “How Minimalism Is Changing Entrepreneurship” in front of a crowd of roughly 200 folks at SXSW 2013. You can listen to the 60-minute audio recording below.

Play the audio here

Timetable

• 0:00 Joshua Becker states the case for minimalism
• 11:59 Joshua Fields Millburn discusses cultivating your passion
• 21:35 Ryan Nicodemus discusses overcoming the fear of money
• 28:35 Courtney Carver discusses practical applications of minimalism
• 40:00 Q&A with the crowd

If you’d like to discuss our panel, you can do so using the #simplework hashtag on Twitter. You can also check out Emily Lyons’s write-up at SXTX.

Draft Is The Best Word Processor You Can Write With Today

Draft Is The Best Word Processor You Can Write With Today

A great “non-MS” word processor to rival all word processors… well at least for bloggers! The startup chose to focus on developing an “editing” feature which is also equipped with a range of kick-ass writing features.
Don’t take my word for it, Follow the Link and check it out for yourself!

Here’s a startup with a messaging app to change the way we text. Open platform messaging, where have you been all this time????
Crazy thing about Yuilop though, is that they are expanding from just the European market towards the U.S. Africa, any time soon?

Weirdos Welcome

Eyes are magnetically inclined to attract towards his presence. Necks break as they try to propel themselves towards every glistening beam of his aura. He is not beautiful, neither is he handsome. He isn’t necessarily dressed well either… in fact, his outfit is rather odd to say the least. We are all looking at him because He. Is. Weird.

We were ‘that guy’ this weekend at Primi Piatto, Maponya Mall. We were co-hosting an event with another group of striders, Collected Effort. The event was set to be a sophisticated gathering of some rather dapper individuals who seek to amass themselves within the spirit of ZooLoo. The crowd that Collected Effort and ZooLoo generated was mixed- but the same. In that, even though many personalities were on display at the event: they were still just a bunch of hip/young kids having a good time at a premium venue. Everything was kosher.

Till #TheZooLooCamp finally decided to show-up donning their symbolically leopard printed vests. Because of this, entry into the venue (of our own event) was a challenge. The dress code was Smart/Casual and the atmosphere at the time was rather- ‘mellow’. We, however, looked like this!

Yes, we are weird- and so are many other people around us. Even you, yes YOU reading this! The only difference is that we embrace this authentic separation from the norm(pop culture). It is our creative prerogative to do so. So why would any young company want to resemble what has been deemed “proper”, “normal” and “business-like”? Well, that’s easy:

        to be accepted as business “worthy” and to be taken seriously with every single syllable thy mouth ought to utter. You want to represent a “company”. A corporate structure. Pertaining to the feeble trail layed down by “the pioneers” of last. Everyone wants to become a “Donald Trump” of their own so as to be treated like Donald Trump (an important/superior figure)…. Fuck that.

We don’t live in a world where keeping up with the Jones’s is in the best interest of any organisation attempting to instill positive change within their own ‘market’. In fact, it actually hinders on the whole move towards change. The fact that your business exists means that you’ve identified a gap within that area of industry. A room for change.

Remember, when we once mentioned how your business should not only flow with the natural transition of things but innovate these transitions? So, BE that change. Let what your business is all about resonate throughout every move you make as a business/team.

Unique-ness sets the expectation that the same quality will be reverberated throughout your products. This is what everyone is thinking about right now. Who/what is the next big thing. In the same way that the “weirdo” turned heads. That’s what your company has to do. There needs to be something about you that is left behind after that presentation. Something that is so special that it emerges as a light of: potential. So that even if someone walked in right after you and did that exact same presentation- yours would still be highlighted by whatever it is that sets you apart (the Difference)

Being young is all about being against authority and structure. Why abandon that in order to please some ‘Uncle Toms’ when we’re really just trying to please ourselves? Why not amplify this inherent quality so as to re-create the norm. Making it what we want it to be… authentic; reflective- relevant. This whole “In your face” approach has brought about a lot of success to “organizations” such as Young Money, the legendary Wu-Tang Clan, and the ever controversial Odd Future. All of which are musically orientated groups that have metamorphosed into lucrative businesses.

Odd Future has based its whole “business model” on being so different, so authentic and so reflective of the punk/rebel teenager who just wants to scream out “Fuck You” at every “white lady riding around in a Volvo”. Because of this, many teenagers have responded by creating this massive cult following that has spread across shores. Odd Future hardly makes profits from record sales. Their profits are derived (for the most part) from their concerts and “merch” (merchandise). No one ever really thinks of Odd Future as these “great Hip Hop artists”. People buy their weird shirts and come to their overly eccentric-energy filled-drugged out shows simply because: OFWGKTA (Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All) is weird. They are reflective of change. Of a Difference

We live in a world where being unique is rewarded with Twitter followers, Facebook Likes, Retweets, Reblogs, YouTube views and a bunch of “WOWs”. All of which drive sales of any sort.

So how does your business/startup stick out like a sore thumb?

Next week we’ll be posting up various businesses that attempt to push the envelope.

So just go to our Facebook page, Like the page then write on our wall. Tell us what it is that you are doing to instill positive change towards our generation.

@ZooLooConcepts

@TheCalm101

@HlengiKing

@AudioSkillz

OpenSource Life

Building an OpenSource community.

If you haven’t heard of the term “open source” then here’s a quick introduction:

It’s a philosophy ” that promotes free redistribution and access to an end product’s design and implementation details”
So such software has been based on the open source principles. Good examples are the likes of VLC Media Player, Audacity, Foxit Reader and even Android. They all began and still run as open source projects. Why? That’s simple, it is because this process of development- works.

The implications of open sources projects can be simplified with one story:

Tammy is a Computer Science student at Wits and she has this dream of creating a mobile application that will help young girls do their make-up properly. Offering all the advice involving your skin tone; your skin sensitivity, your budget etc. So having learnt about open source development, she develops the application using the open source principles and licencing it as an open source project. Thandi is only in her second year at varsity, she isn’t exactly a Mark Zuckerburg type of programmer so she isn’t very good- but good enough to make it work and launch it.

Tshepo is also a Computer Science student but he is studying at the University of Capetown. Difference is: he is currently studying for his Masters and is often creating and re-creationg programs that he finds on the net and feels as though he could add his own input into the development. So he goes on an open source forum and finds out about Tammy’s application. He goes through it and thinks that it’s an overall great idea. But Tshepo is not a woman and neither is he an expert on female beauty, he is just a good and well experienced programmer. He decides to look at some of Tammy’s program’s source code and sees that he can actually make the app run faster by changing this and that; he also sees that he can add a necessary but difficult-to-code feature to greater the app’s abilities and he sees that he can code the program to be easier to use . Tshepo has now created a better version of Tammy’s application and he emails Tammy to show it to her or just “publishes” the application on the forum. By definition, because it is an open source project with open source licensing- Tammy could add all this code to her application and modify how she feels fit then publishes this ‘new’ version. So long as Tshepo’s contributions towards the project are noted and published alongside the program.

Now, let’s just take a look at what has happened here:

The target market in this case was woman that like to look beautiful using synthetic advice. That target market, or rather that society was blessed with the publication of Tammy’s application as it was relevant and it just made sense. After Tshepo had made his contributions towards the site this version was added onto that very first version of Tammy’s work and thus the application had become  better.

Who benefits from these imoprovements?
-First of all, the community is delighted with the new improvements and acts accordingly
by downloading the application and donating to more improvements and most importantly: by
becoming our brand evangelists.
-This creates loyalty among your first ‘customers’ and thus more people are getting excited about this new application.

Time to monetize.

Point is this, the benefits that come from OpenSource development or OpenSource inspired projects( crowd funding, crowd sourcing) are infinitely immense as the contributions to the application just make it better thus bettering the lives of the community as a whole. So why not let go of the paranoia filled profit margins, secrecy and privacy.

Be open so that we can be open to use and improve your creations.

How open is your business? Or is secrecy your “kraal”?

Be OpenSource

 

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter:

@ZooLooConcepts

@HlengiKing

@TheCalm101

@AudioSkillz

 

WaR (The Mission Statement- The Mantra)

 

You go in to war with all your necessary essentials: your weapons, shelter equipment, food etc. You head on to war with a clear set of strategies that you are certain will secure a victory. A victory amongst who?

The mothership, the company…. the troops. The war isn’t merely fueled by assets and ideas; its fueled by blood, sweat and tears- by man power. Man power which is fueled by The Burning Desire to be victorious. This is something that is only obtained through belief/faith in the company’s mission and vision. What the company wants to do for its employees, customers and owners. Every company needs a destination. A goal that is adequately comprehended by its customers, owners and EMPLOYEES. A call of duty. A mantra. A MISSION STATEMENT!!!

It is then the duty of the CEO to be the company’s strategic compass, he/she steers the ship towards the goal. That also entails being able to identify those that are a part of the team but don’t share the amount of faith that the rest have in the goal. Such components of the machine must be eradicated, for it is much better to have a man that is not so good at his job but is devoted to the company’s mantra than a soldier with all the right credentials but doesn’t believe in the purpose of this war.

The company’s mantra (traditionally known as the ‘mission statement’) is the company’s declaration of its common goal. It is what you are all there for at the end of the day. It is something that when thought about should bring meaning to every single function you act out as part of the company. Thus it has to be clearly defined in such a way that all those that read/hear it can comprehensibly adhere to and walk towards this ‘bright light’ at the end of the tunnel. Its that one statement you have all over your office, on your car as a bumper sticker, on your office fridge door, on all the computers, every wallpaper!!!
The importance of this lies in the theory of auto-suggestion. You repeat something so many times in efforts to sustain your faith and it eventually physically manifests itself in reality. The repeated statement of success gets entrenched into your sub-conscience and becomes a Burning Desire which will the manifest itself in everything you do. This is how a mission statement can be realized through a company– repetition. This repetition creates focus, this focus creates results and results create the company.

We pride ourselves in our ability to cater to the needs and desires of every member of our youthful generation. Through Innovation. Persistence. Resilience. And Consistency, we plan to grow into becoming the central hub for the life of a grown-ass-kid.

“Sometimes seeking for opportunities can get to you and not turn out the way … but hey… Keep going and someone will notice”

– #StayHumble

That’s our company mantra, have you found yours?

 

Follow #TheZooLooCamp

@AudioSkillz

@TheCalm101

@ZooLooConcepts

The journey of a man on a quest for freedom (A reflection)

I’m just the typical guy you know? I slacked through high school and barely got by. Found myself a decent university that could do themselves the burden of having my existence exist upon theirs. But I always new that my life would be a constant trek towards freedom. Freedom from the grips of the economy, the temptation of greed, the perception of opposites…good/bad, perception of needs, materialism etc..

But in regards to my startup, I’m on another journey towards freedom. Freedom from the suppression of thoughts un-materialized or rather never ACTIVELY materialized thoughts that were “too big for us”, “not practical”, “too costly/time consuming”.

I declared it to everyone that I know, even those that I’ve never met (some of my Twitter followers and blog followers) . I declared that I would win, that I had it in me… So there is no turning back

Unless, I wanna look like a total douche bag.

Which I don’t.

There can’t be an obstacle that I do not bulldoze through to get to where I need to get. If I gotta get money, then I damn well gotta make that money. If I gotta sell dope, then I’mma get myself a key and Tony Montana that shit immediately!*

Grind at all cost. The journey is full of foolish mirrors disguised as opportunity and some even disguised as doubt. Push through the obstacles, use your mind and your staff and become the manifestation of David in a world full of Goliaths waiting to see you fail.

Push.

Bulldoze.

Journey on.

*I’m not a drug seller and I do not endorse any illegal activities 

 

Follow us on @ZooLooConcepts

Weekly Report

This week was all about scratching for that startup change.

I’m glad to say that after being so doubtful about people’s (specifically my father) willingness to fund a project with absolutely no other investors involved or better yet- a project run by a 19-year old undergrad with dreadlocks- I was proved wrong, gladly.It turns out that the gates weren’t so hard to open. All it took was an email to my distant father with my “proposal” attached, it then became the longest 48-hour wait I’ve ever had to go through.

Everything depended on the response from this man so there was absolutely nothing to be done this week except for some coding of the site’s system (which I had no involvement in as I’ve only recently been taking an online course in Javascript- making me pretty useless). So I spent most of the week creating, editing and revising my 30-second sales pitch, catching up on some writing and vehemently pending a response that could just make or break our progress in terms of the deadline we had set for the project.

Two hours of practicing, 12-pages of writing and 48-hours later I couldn’t wait no longer so I reached for my BlackBerry and sent a text to my father: “Have you gone through the document as yet?”
His answer was so simple and yet so significant: “I… finally got thru it, it’s brilliant.”

My reaction was synonymous to that of an 8-year old after finding out that he’s getting a new bicycle! I was just so over-joyed. He then sent the document to my uncle and we’re now going to have a meeting to discuss exactly how much we need and what the way forward looks like.

Next week is going to be all about prioritizing, delegating and committing.

Stay tuned.

Follow me: @TheCalm101