Science tells us we can only keep 4 ideas in our head t a given time, and that’s why phone numbers are grouped in 3s and 4s.
So when it comes to business, does this same data apply?
Look at Zuck, he runs Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Meta and somehow also has time to for this:
Do a Lot of Thing That Don’t Scale?
The reason I bring this up is because I’m looking at my own limitations as possible reasons for my failures to live up to my potential.
Have I simply been doing too much?
Up until this weekend, I was doing a lot, making incredible progress, with very limited resources, but it was in pursuit of 3 very different goals. I was:
Getting my MBA from CryptoCollege via Twitter
Launching a 10k NFT Collection
Salvaging my “Uber for Photography app” with Video Services
Writing a ton of content to become the #1 crypto affiliate for [brand]
Publishing 60 episodes per month on my social
Whew, that just looks exhausting. And I am. It’s a grind.
But luckily, finally, I’ve realized the answer, and it was right in front of me this entire time.
It’s All Been Leading to This…
Occam’s razors is a a principle of theory construction or evaluation according to which, other things equal, explanations that posit fewer entities, or fewer kinds of entities, are to be preferred to explanations that posit more.
We launched Capture in NYC in December 2019, and in 30 days we:
Shot 17 couples/travelers, every single one LOVED the experience
Signed a $10B client, booking $160k in revenue with the option for 15,000+ in Q2-Q4
Delivered 15,000 photos in 35 different locations, with 35 different photographers, all using a stick and glue Zapier+Google Sheets setup
The Descent
By March 2020, we lost the contract, in addition to the other two $25k+ deals we had in the pipe.
I had self-funded the venture up until that point and was looking forward to repayment in 2020, instead, I was in the hole. My other venture, my Travel Blog, which was provided 1/3 of my income, also vanished as Brands pulled budget.
So I was down 2/3 of my income, and my 1 remaining source needed rehab.
I focused, put in the work, and built it up to a position to be sold in June 2020.
Found a broker, who believed we could get 3X more than I thought we could.
After numerous calls in which the Prospective Buyers offered me a job, but not to buy my business, November came.
That month, one of our largest Clients went public via a $SPAC, and ate up two of our other Clients, effectively killing our business. That same week, I got Covid.
It was Thanksgiving.
The Climb
During my 10 day quarantine, from my wife whom I hadn’t been apart for more than a weekend during our 14 years of marriage, I realized I needed to dig myself out of this.
I launched a spinoff, Medicare business, and in 6 months sold it for 6-figures.
This weekend, while staying at a friend’s house in the Hamptons, I noticed a number of things:
They have a lot of space in their house. 2 floors, unlimited rooms, and nooks, and dens
They also had two beautiful children whom they loved cherishing their memories
And finally, I noticed some fugly “digital picture frames”
The Capture Canvas is a smart, beautiful digital art frame designed for NFTs.
We’re tapping into our original vision of, “turning moments into memories”, by enabling anyone to easily cast their favorite memories.
What is the Capture Canvas?
There are a number of “digital picture frames” on the market, and the vast majority of them are marketed at the Senior market (which I encountered running my Medicare business).
November 2020 not only marked the moment everything began to fall apart, but it was also the first month we lived in our new home.
We had Champagne dreams with a Beer Budget, so we turned to Alibaba. We sourced the most expensive pieces from a supplier, and saved 90% off MSRP.
As I’m writing this, we have Clients using the space to take photos for a DTC Brand.
How big is the Market?
There are 10,000 Crypto Punks, the most valuable NFT Collection
The lowest priced Crypto Punk last sold for $111,519.73 (23.69 $eth)
There are 536+ NFT Collections on Rarity.Tools
Most of which have 10,000 pieces of Art
That’s 5,360,000 Pieces of Art
And we’re not even looking at Solana and future growth
The Future of NFTs is Utility
NFTs right now are more about Art than Utility. We believe that the best Utility for Art is to keep it as Art.
By using blockchain, we can store our Clients’ Art securely, and make it accessible for them anywhere in the world, at any time, to be displayed wherever and however they’d choose.
We also see web3 and NFTs as our future opportunity to monetize our 1,100 Photographers Catalogs and act as the distribution channel for the Art that will live on Capture Canvas’ for generations to come.
The Competition
Existing products fall short in a number of areas:
The devices are simply not easy to use
Software is an afterthought, as opposed to a strength
(Luckily, our lead Capture Developer has been heads down on building software for Connected Devices)
The devices are dumb. No rolling software updates like you see on Tesla
The form and functionality is not designed to support NFTs natively
You can’t connect a wallet, the portrait display isn’t best for square images, and most competitors don’t support GIFs or Videos
We believe that by tapping into our Network of 1,100+ On-Demand Photographers, The Extensive Future Library of NFT Art, and the 7 years of DTC product marketing experience as a Creator better position Capture to surpass competitors.
The Product
We are now in the process of ordering samples from every manufacturer and running through the software requirements.
The great news is most products appear to run some flavor of Linux, which gives me an opportunity to break out my command-line skills and open up that Ubuntu manual I have floating around here.
We are using our home and existing network of Clients and Partners to quickly validate the best features to incorporate into our Beta release.
Learning From Our Mistakes
One of the key mistakes we made when we originally went to market with Capture was that we were undercapitalized, which is a mistake we won’t be repeating.
We’re starting our fundraising now, reaching out to Friends, Family and Friendly Angels. If you’d like to have a conversation about what we’re doing, why we’re the ones to do it, and how we’re going to succeed, please drop me a line.