My last post highlighted my arrival to the StartUp Scramble. Unfortunately, I had experienced tire problems prior to arriving and as a result my weekend started off on the wrong foot. But the moment I walked through the door and met up with some of my colleagues I realized why I was so excited in the first place. And who else to kick off an entrepreneurial event like NEPA StartUp Scramble than Kris Jones, Founder and Former CEO of Pepperjam.

Kris built his success over time using the power of the Internet. What started as a venture selling a family food (pepper jam) online soon evolved into one of the fastest growing full service internet marketing firms in the nation. Kris was gracious enough to share his story with the attendees of the StartUp Scramble.

Now, as an online entrepreneur myself who started long after Kris began experiencing his success I was very familiar with Kris’s and Pepperjam’s story. I have heard his story on video and read it in print but was never able to get the first person experience.

While I am not going to provide a synopsis of his presentation I can tell you Kris is not shy about telling his story exactly how he sees it and holds no punches doing it. The first thing Kris did was to evoke a Tony Robbins-Like approach to kick things off and get all of our adrenaline flowing. While there were some in the crowd who were rolling their eyes and asking if Kris was serious I learned very early on that my way isn’t always the best way and if someone successful is good enough to share his story and what he did to get there you’d be out of your mind to question his tactics.

During his keynote address Kris looked back on his success and provided us with a glimpse of the route in which he took to get where he is today. While some people might shy away from the success they have reached Kris embraces it and recognizes it. He talked about what success has been like and the opportunities it has provided him. Although matter-of-fact about his success, Kris doesn’t come across as cocky or arrogant. It comes across as just one part of the overall whole.

After sharing his story Kris did some Q&A and was great enough to provide all attendees with a copy of the 2nd edition to his best selling book, SEO: A Visual Blueprint. The dude just gives back and recognizes the importance of giving back to the startup entrepreneurial community. This is probably the most important lessons I have learned from the time I have spent with Kris.

After leaving to get ready for vacation the next step of the Scramble was for attendees to give their “elevator pitches”. The individual had one minute to get up there, provide some general self information and tell the audience about their initial idea. After watching a few people I decided to give it a try. It’s not easy. I love public speaking and am pretty good at it but this one minute pitch was very difficult. But it was a great learning experience. If you are an entrepreneur and have an idea you better be able to make it sound good within one minute. Often times, the ones you are giving this elevator pitch to won’t even give you the full minute.

It’s after the pitches are finished when the real scrambling began. The attendees decided which pitches they liked and self-grouped themselves based on their feelings regarding what was pitched. What ensued was a collaboration of many different ideas forming into one single idea. Over the course of the next few hours these self-selected groups began the initial outline of what their venture idea was going to look like and is what set the path for the rest of the weekend.

What venture concepts were created? What concepts didn’t make it? I’ll touch on that in my next post as I continue my Scramble Review tomorrow. What do you think of the Scramble so far? Does it make sense to have something like this made available to the young entrepreneur in the NEPA area or any other area?

And so it began.  The NEPA StartUp Scramble is a no-holds barred, balls to the wall, action packed startup event that brings together some of Wilkes-Barre & Scranton, Pennsylvania’s foremost experts in various subject matter with up-and-coming entrepreneurial startup hopefuls.  The goal of the event is simple.  Start “something” within 54 hours.  So you want to know how it went?

Social Media is now and it has become more important, in some respects, to that of a website.  Gone are the days of traditional media where we are interrupted in our daily routines from marketing that pushes itself into our psyche via annoying radio spots, TV Commercials, newspaper ads, etc.  Nowadays, with technology being what it is, marketing has advanced from the push technique to the “pull” technique.

While in a meeting with a client the other day at Rinish.com’s offices in the Innovation Center (or Rinivation Center as we like to call it) he mentioned some reasons as to why he decided to go with our company in redesigning and rebuilding his company’s website.  Those primary reasons were 1) We had a live person answering the phone, 2) We were local and 3) We did what we said we would.  And with that, I began to reflect on some of the smaller things I believed in when building the company that seems have made the biggest impact.

I really wanted to believe.  I really did.  I am one of the biggest technophiles you’ll meet.  In fact, I held off for two generations of iPhones until I broke down and made the lateral move from Verizon to AT&T.  I was lucky enough to have family members take over my Verizon plan so my other half and I could get an account on AT&T thus securing me an iPhone 3G s and her a 3G.

One of the primary reasons I was so happy that I got to keep an open Verizon account is I kept hold of the belief and hype that an iPhone was coming to Verizon: a vPhone if you will.  I was sooooooo inclined to believe the hype that I actually waited until the second shipment of new 4th Gen iPhones instead of buying on the first day  But as I continued to get my daily dose of Tech News (my RSS reader has thousands of new posts daily on Tech alone) I started to wonder if there was ever really a chance that an iPhone would come over to Verizon.  Despite Apple having a much larger base capital, Verizon rules in terms of providing the best cell phone service in the states.

I’m the spontaneous type.  I make a decision on a whim and go full blast one hundred percent until something happens.  So when I came out of the grocery store last week, looked up in the sky and said, “I need to go sky diving”, it was just another instance of my spontaneity making decisions for me.  So I pulled out the trusty iPhone and began searching for local skydiving facilities in the Wilkes-Barre & Scranton, Pennsylvania.

I called Above The Poconos Skydiving Facility in Hazleton, PA.  The lady told me on the phone there is a two week waiting list but she could probably sneak me in on the Fourth of July.  This all happened within ten minutes of seeing the plane in the sky and making the decision to skydive.  You have got to love the “smart phone”.  I gave them a deposit over the phone and was schedule to jump at 2:30 PM on the Fourth of July.  But the excitement didn’t actually set in.  In fact, I didn’t get excited at all during the week wait nor did I really think about skydiving until getting dressed on the day of the event.  It just didn’t seem like it was happeneing.  Looking back now, I guess I know why.