Those of you that know me that some of the sites I have started are not ones which are for the faint hearted. However there is a demand for these types of site, I am merely providing a facility for these good people to use. And there are very large numbers of these people too!

One of the favorite domains I have ever purchased is fuck-buddies.com. A site since 2005, it is exactly what you would expect!

Though this site has been around for a long time, it has just re-launched it with a new platform. The complete feature list is actually simpler to what was there before, but with a good reason. The key differences (apart from a cleaner design) are:
- more user friendly features
- improved mailing notifications & member alerts
- more members, of which there are:
   - more real members
   - more active members
   - less fake/scamming profiles.

All of this means a much better customer experience, and I hope this will result in higher conversion rates, higher retention rates, and obviously higher per member values.

I am always intrigued by viral marketing videos. It is something which once my companies have a few more sites could be used to drive traffic to them. I do not know what makes a good video vs. a bad one. So take a look at this one and let me know what you think:

Primarily the success of a viral campaign comes down to the amount of views it gets, and the amount of traffic it can direct to a website. However in business terms it has to do one more thing. It has to generate business; in most cases this means sales. This advert I am sure will get plenty of views. I myself am fuelling it in a little way by bringing attention to it, but will it actually make them many sales. I am not convinced…

The original file can seen and commented on here by the way.
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-58396

Here is a little clip for all you Apprentice fans, and in particular Raef Bjayou fans!

Based on this kind of sensible and logical thinking Raef should be doing much more than… well, whatever it is that he actually does now!

I had the great privilege of being in halls with Raef while at Uni and am so pleased to see him do so well, and that he has not changed at all.

He is now so well known as “Raef”, but funnily enough while we were at Uni he always insisted to us that his name was “Ray”, like we were not clever enough to get “Raef” round our tiny minds! Hopefully this won’t be my only claim to fame in the future, but at the moment Raef is my best shout - keep up the good work.

Its 11pm and I think I am going to go to bed nice and early. It has been a been a tough day you see. Got up after 9am, did a not much to 11.30 then went to Silverstone to bomb about in a Ferrari 360 Modena. And that really is about it!

Considering I am definitely not an experienced track driver, and it was pissing down I think I did quite well to make it back to write this. Fun as it was, the 360 will unlikely be the first Ferrari in to my garage.

I’m exhausted. Bon night.

I have finally shed my shackles and am free!
No more busting my balls to make someone else’s company grow, no having to be at someone else’s beck and call and no more having to justify any ideas I have. The biggest advantage is that I now have probably near 16 hours a day I didn’t have before to work on my own projects. All of which have been pretty much on hold for the past 18 months.
Obviously its safe to assume there will be a hell of a lot going on now!

Am sure to most people it will seem ridiculous that I, someone claiming to be some sort of entrepreneur would have spent 18 months devoting all my hard work to someone else. They’d be right, in hindsight I would not have done it, and I would not recommend any one else to sell out as quickly as I did (I didn’t actually get rid of any of my previous ventures but I did prevent myself from working on them)! I had my reasons which sadly don’t seem to have been worthwhile. However, I did for the most of it enjoy myself, I learned a little, and met a number of good people. So I am sure some good will come of it.

I’ve just come back from my week off, fully revitalized and ready to throw myself 100% in to all my business ideas.

So now its onwards and upwards. I have a few things on the go which I hope will all be ready soon, and will certainly be keeping me very busy for the next few months…. exciting stuff!!

As promised here are a few pictures of my drive and the cars on it. I know they’re dirty and I know one isn’t working… There is in fact a 3rd car on the drive which also doesn’t work! Marvelous.

Back of a broken car

What a bloody morning! I got up, was running nearly on time and the sun was shining. It was set to be a good start to the week. But then at 8.15am on the M4 my car died. The radiator hosing exploding right off with radiator still attached, the engine losing all pressure and won’t start now, completely knackered.

The rest of the day was spent sat on the side of motorway, then sat in a garage, then sat in a recovery vehicle in non moving traffic on the motorway to being sat on the train, to finally being sat in a car at the end of the day.

The only upside to the day is the spare car I have borrowed is a Lotus. Looks like I may have found an engine to drop in to my car too…. fingers crossed!

I’ll stick a photo on tomorrow of the cars collecting on the drive.

Oh, I did get confirmation of my little deal too - so atleast the went smoothly!

Things are rolling forward nicely with everything I am doing at the moment. And in the last week another opportunity presented itself to me. As a result I am now 50% share holder in a new company - Splash Solutions Limited.

It is not your typical sort of investment, a world away from my usual work and it is in an area which I know very little about to be honest. However I am investing in a young entrepreneur who will give 100% to this, and with some money and guidance it has every chance of success.

For me its really the first off-line company I’ve been involved in since my early days, and I am glad to be diversifying a little bit. It is also somethign which unlike most of my ventures will be very quick to turn in to profit as there is no long development schedules.

The only risk here is the unknown, I have no guarantee that I will make my money back, no guarantee that it is a value proposition. But what I do get is a new distraction, the chance to guide and support a hard working individual with a unique idea, and an influence in giving it every chance I can to be a success.

So seemed like a perfectly logical thing to do, embrace not fear the unknown. As soon as all the official paper work is complete, and the website is up I’ll post a link on here and add updates.

Its 7am and this is my final morning in Tokyo…. I’m in Tokyo by the way!

Went on a nice early morning walk around Imperial Palace. Literally. All the way around, outside, around the moat. Its too early and its closed!

I’ve actually been up all night because I want back in to UK time as best I can and try to get some sleep on the plane. Very annoyingly I’ve come all this way and been so busy I have seen nothing of the place. Did go out for a meal last night in a very nice restaurant overlooking the whole city, other than that my only other excursion involved extreme Vodka, I can recall nothing.

So, from what little I have seen these are my conclusions!

If I were a lot less busy I would probably even investigate business out here. The population is 140m, with very high internet and phone usage… that has to be a a good starting point. Now you just have the simple problem of deciding what the business is and what the competition and market is like for that now. There is also a huge cultural difference that has to be understood.

7.10 am now, time for breakfast and check out.

It really isn’t worth going to bed now, but it has been worth staying up to nearly 5am even though I need to be up in an hour!
Having recently been ill, most likely from over working I should probably be more careful. Providing I do this just once or twice a week I should be fine.

I hope.

Sadly sometimes it’s just required to work through the night. However much you are able to work smarter and not harder, there are always times you have to knuckle down and work through, tonight was one of those nights.