Start Me Up

Some of you may know that I am working on my first startup.  For those of you who don’t - um, I’m working on my first startup. :)

I would love to tell you all about it because I’m so fired up, but I can’t.  I assure you that I have absolutely no desire to be stealth, but I don’t want to build up one idea, just to iterate and have it be something totally different.  That’s just what happens.

What I can tell you is that it’s called Dashbuzz and what we aim to do is help people streamline their social media marketing experience.  We all do it in some form or another, whether it’s marketing ourselves via a blog, or a Myspace page, or marketing a company through Yelp and Youtube.

I know I personally market my blog.  I use Twitter, Facebook, Ustream.TV, FriendFeed, Pownce, Plurk, Digg, Reddit, FeedBurner, MyBlogLog and Google.  It’s a little overwhelming at times.  Each attempted solution seems to just make it worse.

I had a social media marketing company for 3 years.  I used to just use Myspace, but slowly as other services got more and more popular I struggled with setting up an infrastructure to manage each service for each client.  This need is what gave birth to Dashbuzz.

I have not been able to sleep for the past month.  I finally understand the fire that drives entrepreneurs and what fuels their every move.  Everything I have done has brought me to this point, and I am obsessed with getting it done.  I am extremely fortunate that I have a co-founder, Scott Sullivan, who shares this obsession with me.

It’s this passion that has kept me strong when people have told me that no one will invest in a first time entrepreneur without a prototype.  It’s this drive that implored me to look for a new, unique way to raise money for Dashbuzz.

Which brings me to my point.  I am turning to you, dear Blogosphere, for help.  You can call it a crowd-sourced friends and family round.  We need to get to prototype to get more funding, and we need a little bit of money to get to prototype.

I’ve seen it done before, so I know it’s possible.  One of the bands I worked with raised $40,000 for their new album, solely through Myspace.  Michel on GiveBoobs.com raised $4,500 for a boob job in 2003.

This is a product for you.  If you use more than one of the aforementioned services, this is for you.  If you have used social media to market anything (yourself, your band, your blog, your company, your videos) this is for you.

Donating will have its rewards.  Seeing as I will see each and every donation as a personal favor to me, I will owe you a favor in return.  The most obvious of the rewards is that you will be enrolled in the beta testers list, so you will be the first to use the site.  I will not open beta up to anyone else until every one of you has had the opportunity to use Dashbuzz and give feedback.  So bloggers who donate will be the first to be able to write about it.  You will also receive discounts on memberships (when the time comes for that) and receive preferential treatment on advertising and strategic partnerships. And the top 100 donations will receive a lifetime premium membership.

My goal is to raise $25,000.  It can be done, but I need ALL of your support.  I can’t do it alone.  If you can’t donate any money, spread the word and get others to donate.  If anyone says that they were referred by you, you will be added to the list of donations anyway.  You can donate through the “Donate” button in the sidebar.

So, please, help us build this.  If you have any questions or would like more information about Dashbuzz, find me on any of the social networks listed in the sidebar, or email me at calley at calleynye dot com.  Thank you :)

UPDATE: Clearing up some details…

xoxo

Calley