Re: From janitor to VP

On Sun, Jun 16, 2019 at 8:14 AM The Hustle <news@thehustle.co> wrote:

The Hustle Issue #58 Sunday, June 16, 2019 How a Frito-Lay janitor invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos Richard Montañez went from cleaning toilets to being one of the most creative executives in the food industry. BY Zachary Crockett On an early morning in the late 1980s, a group of the highest-powered executives at Frito-Lay — the CEO, CMO, and a platoon of VPs — gathered in a California conference room to hear what Richard Montañez had to say. Montañez didn't share their pedigree. He wasn't an executive. He had no fancy degree. He had a 4th-grade-level education, and couldn't read or write. Montañez was a janitor. But he was a janitor with an idea — an idea that would make the company billions of dollars and become one of history's most celebrated and iconic snack foods: Flamin' Hot Cheetos. But first, he had to convince the world to hear him out. Picking grapes Montañez grew up in the 1960s in Guasti, California, a tiny unincorporated farming town 40 miles east of Los Angeles. Under the sweltering Cucamonga Valley sun, his family — mother, father, grandfather, and 11 children — scraped together a meager living picking grapes, and slept together in a one-room cinderblock abode at the labor camp. As a first-generation Mexican immigrant at an all-white school, Montañez had access to few resources and struggled to understand his teachers. "I remember my mom getting me ready for school and I was crying," he later told Lowrider magazine. "I couldn't speak English." One day in class, the teacher went around the room asking each kid to name his or her dream job: Doctor… astronaut… veterinarian. When she called on Montañez, he froze. "I realized I didn't have a dream," he says. "There was no dream where I came from." The Cucamonga Valley region, in San Bernardino County, California, where Richard Montañez grew up (Image: Paul Hofer III) Montañez soon stopped getting on the school bus and began boarding the work truck with his father and grandfather. After dropping out of school, he worked the fields in 110°F heat, and took on odd jobs slaughtering chickens at a poultry factory, washing cars, and picking weeds. With a 4th-grade-level education and few economic opportunities, Montañez saw no path out of poverty. Then, in 1976, a neighbor told him about a job opening that would change his life. "There's no such thing as 'just a janitor'" Down the road, in Rancho Cucamonga, the Frito-Lay plant was looking for a janitor. At $4 per hour ($18 in 2019 dollars), the job paid many multiples of what Montañez made in the fields. It represented a better life — insurance, benefits, social mobility. Unable to read or write, the 18-year-old recruited his wife to help fill out an application. He journeyed down a dusty road, met with the hiring manager, and got the job. When he broke the news to his family, his grandfather imparted a piece of advice that would always stick with him: "Make sure that floor shines," the man told his grandson. "And let them know that a Montañez mopped it." Montañez decided he was going to be the "best janitor Frito-Lay had ever seen" — and he quickly made his presence known. "Every time someone walked into a room, it would smell fresh," he says. "I realized there's no such thing as 'just a janitor' when you believe you're going to be the best." The Frito-Lay plant in Bakersfield, California (via CLUI) Montañez also developed the philosophy that "it's not about who you know — it's about who knows you."  In between shifts, he set out to make himself seen, learning as much as he could about the company's products, spending time in the warehouse, and watching the machines churn out crunchy snacks in the lonely midnight hours. And eventually, his insatiable curiosity would pay off. "I saw no products catering to Latinos" By the mid-1980s, Frito-Lay had fallen on tough times. As a way to boost morale, then-CEO Roger Enrico recorded a video message and disseminated it to the company's 300k employees. In the video, Enrico encouraged every worker at the company to "act like an owner." Most employees brushed it off as a management cliché; Montañez took it to heart. "Here's my invitation… here's the CEO telling me, the janitor, that I can act like an owner," he later recalled. "I didn't know what I was going to do. Didn't need to. But I knew I was going to act like an owner." After nearly a decade mopping floors, Montañez gathered the courage to ask one of the Frito-Lay salesmen if he could tag along and learn more about the process. They went to a convenience store in a Latino neighborhood — and while the salesman restocked inventory, Montañez made a fortuitous observation: "I saw our products on the shelves and they were all plain: Lay's, Fritos, Ruffles," he recalls. "And right next to these chips happened to be a shelf of Mexican spices." In that moment, he realized that Frito-Lay had "nothing spicy or hot." A few weeks later, Montañez stopped at a local vendor to get some elote, a Mexican street corn doused in chili powder, salt, cotija, lime juice, and crema fresca. Cob in hand, a "revelation" struck: What if I put chili on a Cheeto? Elote, the Mexican corn treat that inspired Flamin' Hot Cheetos (via Vallarta Supermarkets) Introduced to the world in 1948, Cheetos — crunchy corn-based nuggets coated in cheese-flavored powder — were a flagship product of Frito-Lay. And while they were popular among California's growing base of Latino consumers, the company had yet to consider re-tailoring the product's taste profile. "Nobody had given any thought to the Latino market," recalls Montañez. "But everywhere I looked, I saw it ready to explode." So, Montañez heeded the CEO's words and "acted like an owner." Working late one night at the production facility, he scooped up some Cheetos that hadn't yet been dusted in cheese. He took them home and, with the help of his wife, covered them in his own concoction of chili powder and other "secret" spices. When he handed them out to family members and friends, the snacks were met with universal enthusiasm. He just needed a bigger audience... So he called the CEO "I was naive," Montañez later said. "I didn't know you weren't supposed to call the CEO... I didn't know the rules." Finding Roger Enrico's phone number was easy enough: It was listed in a company directory. He rang the line, and was put through to the chief's executive assistant:        "Mr. Enrico's office. Who is this?"        "Richard Montañez."        "What division are you with?"        "I work at the Rancho Cucamonga plant."        "Oh, you're the VP of operations?"        "No, I work inside the plant."        "You're the plant manager?"        "I'm the janitor." The assistant paused for what seemed like an eternity. "One moment." Richard Montañez, via Twitter Then, a voice on the other line: "Hello, this is Roger." Montañez told the CEO he'd heeded the call to action. He'd studied the company's products, identified a demand in the market, and even crafted his own rudimentary snacks in his kitchen. Enrico loved the ingenuity: He told the janitor he'd be at the plant in 2 weeks and asked him to prepare a presentation. Moments after Montañez hung up the phone, the plant manager stormed up to him. "He said, 'Who do you think you are? Who let the janitor call the CEO?'" recalls Montañez. "Then he said, 'YOU'RE doing this presentation!'" The birth of the Hot Cheeto Montañez was 26 years old. In his words, he couldn't read or write very well and had no knowledge about how to formulate a business proposal. But he wasn't about to give up. Accompanied by his wife, he went to the library, found a book on marketing strategies, and copied the first 5 paragraphs word for word onto transparencies. At home, he filled 100 plastic baggies with his homemade treats, sealed them with a clothing iron, and manually drew a logo and design on each package. On the day of the presentation, he bought a $3 tie — black with blue and red stripes — and had his neighbor knot it for him. As he gathered the bags, his wife stopped him near the door: "Don't forget who you are." Hot Cheetos, in all their saturated glory (Frito-Lay) Montañez stepped into the boardroom. "Here I was," he says, "a janitor presenting to some of the most highly qualified executives in America." At one point during the presentation, an executive in the room interjected: "How much market share do you think you can get?" "It hit me that I had no idea what he was talking about, or what I was doing," Montañez recalled. "I was shaking, and I damn near wanted to pass out…[but] I opened my arms and I said, 'This much market share!' I didn't even know how ridiculous that looked." The room went silent as the CEO stood up and smiled. "Ladies and gentlemen, do you realize we have an opportunity to go after this much market share?" he said, stretching out his arms. He turned to Montañez. "Put that mop away, you're coming with us." Feeling hot, hot, hot Six months later, with Montañez's help, Frito-Lay began testing Flamin' Hot Cheetos in small Latino markets in East Los Angeles. If it performed well, the company would move forward with the product; if it didn't, they'd scratch it — and Montañez would likely return to janitorial duties. This was his one shot, and some folks didn't want things to work out for him. "It seemed there was a group of [executives] who wanted it to fail," he later told the podcast, The Passionate Few. "They thought I got lucky. They were paid big bucks to come up with these ideas... they didn't want some janitor to do it." Montañez signs a young fan's Hot Cheeto bag (@daliaabbas9, via Deskgram) So Montañez assembled a small team of family members and friends, went to the test markets, and bought every bag of Hot Cheetos he could find. "I'd tell the owner, 'Man, these are great,'" he recalled. "Next week, I'd come back and there'd be a whole rack." In 1992, Flamin' Hot Cheetos were greenlit for a national release. And in short order, the snack became one of the most successful product launches in Frito-Lay history. From janitor to VP Today, Flamin' Hot Cheetos are one of Frito-Lay's hottest-selling commodities — a multi-billion-dollar snack celebrated by everyone from Katy Perry to middle-schoolers on meal vouchers. There's even a rap song about them. And Montañez is no longer sweeping floors: Over a 35-year career, the former janitor rose through the corporate ranks and is now the vice president of multicultural sales for PepsiCo America (the holding company of Frito-Lay).  Before Montañez joined the executive team, Frito-Lay had only 3 Cheeto products; since then, the company has launched more than 20, each worth $300m+. Recognized by Newsweek and Fortune as one of the most influential Hispanic leaders in America, Montañez is a gifted speaker who often tours the country giving keynotes. And soon, his story will hit the silver screen: Fox Searchlight Pictures is currently working on a biopic about his life, appropriately titled "Flamin' Hot." He still lives in Rancho Cucamonga, where he gives back to his community through a nonprofit he launched, and teaches MBA classes at a nearby college. Recently, a student asked him how he was teaching without a Ph.D. "I do have a Ph.D.," he responded. "I've been poor, hungry and determined." Share & discuss this story ON OUR WEBSITE ON FACEBOOK ON POCKET 0 SHARE THE HUSTLE REFERRALS http://ambassadors.thehustle.co/?ref=6d508b07aa YOUR UNIQUE URL Zack Crockett SENIOR EDITOR Bobby Durben AD WRITER Brad "Broken Mitt" Wolverton HEAD OF CONTENT Ben Thaire-Dundat He's done it all SUBSCRIBE JOBS ADVERTISE EVENTS SHOP Join our Instagram community → You opted in by signing up, attending an event, or through divine intervention. 251 KEARNY ST. STE 300, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108, UNITED STATES • 415.506.7210 Never want to hear from us again? Break our hearts and unsubscribe

Content marketing and a SXSW presentation

Content strategy guides the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, reusable content.

http://braintraffic.com/blog/the-truth-about-content-broken-dreams-and-the-big-fix

New Zealand has a certification level for assistant coaches

Investing into the internet - bubble?

INVESTING IN THE INTERNET

BACKGROUND

The Internet economy has grown at an unheard of rate -- over 170% annually -- and may be responsible for a third of the growth in the national economy. Many e-commerce-related IPO's have been super successes, encouraging investment in yet more startups. Traditional businesses like Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble, and Compaq also are working to "e-commerce" themselves and compete in this new environment. The Internet as a global phenomenon permits information to move freely, at little cost, across continents.

Nearly everyone, including individual investors, corporate investors like Microsoft, and venture capitalists has been betting on the Internet as The Next Big Thing.

A selected and limited number of sports organizations have jumped on the internet bandwagon as well. However, most of the players in sports have not tapped into the potential of the internet, just yet, due to many reasons.

But is the Internet economy a "bubble"? Could it burst? What then for entrepreneurs and their prospects? Entrepreneurs have seen e-commerce and Internet initiatives as welcome avenues for business creation. Will this remain the case if the bubble pops or will the entrepreneur be blasted away? How can an entrepreneur plan for possible dramatic change?

ATI filings

See the Filings from Allegiant Yourself:

• http://www.sedar.com/dynamic_pages/assoc_docs_e/d00008500.htm

The official filings are to be found at the above page. However, these documents are in Word, WordPerfect and PDF formats. We've taken these documents and used cut-and-paste, with a bit of HTML mark-up to save everyone the pains of getting the documents transfered to be read on your system.

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Document Date: April 28, 1998

ALLEGIANT TECHNOLOGIES INC.
1500-609 Granville Street, Vancouver B.C. V7Y 1G5
Telephone: (604) 687-0888   Fax: (604) 687-0882		

April 28, 1998

Trading Symbols: 	Vancouver Stock Exchange:   AGH.U
OTC Bulletin Board:               ALGT

PRESS RELEASE

The Company has reached an agreement to sell all rights, title and interest in and to the Company's software products and technology marketed under the trade names "SuperCard", "Marionet" and "Flamethrower" to IncWell DMG, Ltd. of Arizona, U.S.A., an arms'-length private company controlled by Keith Shaw, for US$40,000. The sale is subject to shareholders and Vancouver Stock Exchange approval.

_______________________________
Bill McCartney, Director

The Vancouver Stock Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

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Document Date: May 5, 1998

ALLEGIANT TECHNOLOGIES INC.
1500-609 Granville Street, Vancouver B.C. V7Y 1G5
Telephone: (604) 687-0888 Fax: (604) 687-0882
May 5, 1998

Trading Symbols: Vancouver Stock Exchange: AGH.U

OTC Bulletin Board: ALGT

PRESS RELEASE

The Company has arranged, subject to Vancouver Stock Exchange approval, to:

borrow US$50,000 from a director of the Company. The Loan will be unsecured and payable on demand at any time after May 1, 1999 together with interest accrued at the rate of 10% per annum. The loan proceeds will be used for general working capital purposes.

amend the terms of an existing $100,000 secured Note payable to a director of the Company. The holder of the Note has agreed to waive default and interest payment provisions under the Note and to extend its term to May 1, 1999 after which time the Note together with accrued interest will be due and payable upon demand. The holder has also agreed that any proceeds received by the Company on the proposed sale of the Company's technology assets and inventory may be retained by the Company for general working capital purposes.

issue a maximum 150,000 common shares of the Company, after giving effect to a proposed four for one reverse split of the Company's common stock, as a bonus in consideration for the Loan and the amendment to the Note

_______________________________
Bill McCartney, Director

The Vancouver Stock Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

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Document Date: May 4, 1998

ALLEGIANT TECHNOLOGIES INC.
1500-609 Granville Street, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, V7Y 1G5
Tel. (604) 687-0888   Fax (604) 687-0882

May 1, 1998

British Columbia Securities Commission 
200- 865 Hornby Street 
Vancouver, BC 
V6Z 2H4

Attention: Anne McTeer, Statutory Filings Department

Dear Madame,

I am writing in response to your letter of inquiry dated April 30, 1998.

Year Ended December 31, 1997

Sales & Marketing expenses-$287,386

• Trade Show Expense = $ 60,321
• Advertising = 55,924
• Salaries & Wages = 171,141
• $287,386

Research & Development expenses-$231,260

• Technical consultants = $ 15,863
• Supplies = 3,308
• Engineering salaries = 212,089
• $231,260

This information is filed as an addition to the original submission of the Company's financial statements and FORM 61 for the year ended December 31, 1997 on SEDAR, project #82326.

Yours truly,

Bill McCartney

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Going out to hold meetings about the budding SportSurf.net

News Media Alert and Invitation

Please pass along this message and pointer to others who might be interested.

April 26, 1998 - updated

Contact: Mark Rauterkus

Publisher, SportSurf.Net
108 S. 12th Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15203-1226 USA
mrauterkus@SportSurf.Net

Voice: 412-481-2540 - Eastern Time Daylight Only PLEASE
Cell: 412-720-0108 - When on the road

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E-books (Electronic Books) Technology Briefings and FREE SuperCard Concepts Visits Eastern US Cities

Open invitation. Everyone welcome to attend.

Past Tour Locations:
San Antonio, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Corolla, NC

Future Tour Locations:
New York City, Long Island, Hartford, Boston and Corolla, NC

PITTSBURGH, PA -- 1998: E-books present a fantastic solution to a wide audience of readers and content authors. Learn about E-books and discover why the FN E-book document type is well positioned to become a "killer-application" in 1998 and beyond. Furthermore, an in-depth discussions of the possible future acquisition and resulting setting FREE of the technical assets of SuperCard family of titles, is part of the agenda.

FootNotes is an internet-linked, interactive multimedia electronic publishing, authoring and delivery system target to the education sector.

Students and teachers can use point-and-click methods to create documents that engage the internet. These web-linked E-books with pages, chapters, index, glossary, citation references give access unlimited multimedia files. The client-side E-books can grab files on any local disk, CD, Syquest, Zip or network. The E-books remove most mysteries of downloading any FTP file or http page. The E-books also live-link to the user's Browser for direct URL connection.

FootNotes E-books are extendable by the addition of home-grown or third party plug-in modules. Supplied modules include an HTML Publisher, eMailer, Launcher and Browser-Assistant.

The Books are lockable by the author and the free player allows for unlimited distribution. Registered users get to deploy the "Send to Bookshop" menu to automatically publish on the internet.

The latest release includes better email, LiveLinks to any browser and unlimited use of graphics as links.

Future releases, very speculative at this point, center upon the possible acquisition of the technical assets that are now being sold by Allegiant Technologies, Inc -- that include SuperCard. SuperCard makes the core foundation to the FN E-books platform. The S.S.S. Trust has been established to accept donations for the possible acquisition and freeing of the code base to SuperCard.

Independent publisher, Mark Rauterkus, of Pittsburgh, Pa. is touring to present information on E-books and the upcoming release of an academic E-book authoring tool, FootNotes Mac.

Rauterkus' book-imprint, Sports Support Syndicate, produced more than 100 titles in the past 10 years. "We've abandoned all book production and associated costs of paper, ink, storage, shipping and returns. The transition to strictly digital delivery has been a bumpy."

In 1989 the SSS released books with computer-disk supplements. Those E-books failed to gain marketplace acceptance. "Publishers and teachers with valuable lessons materials have living the saga of content positioning, hitting all the stops: CDs, web sites, email responders, e-zines, discussion groups, hybrids and shareware. We are gearing for DVDs as well. But, by far, the most elegant, most compelling, and most astonishing process and tool suite centers around FootNotes E-books."

The half-day events are being held to convey an understand and future vision for the E-book framework to early adapters and cutting-edge publishers. Authors, independent publishers, educational technology leaders in school districts, college professors, webmasters and multimedia producers should be interested in these tools and insights. Furthermore, Mac users who have used SuperCard and HyperCard should have keen interested in the advantages of these publishing format options.

The entire FootNotes on-line user manual is 44 pages in length. It is simple, interactive and extendable. Junior High classrooms can master these documents right from the start. Quizzes, homework assignments and lesson plans can all fit into FootNotes E-books. The E-books make sense for an academic setting.

The official new-product release date from the USA publisher was set to occur in March, 1989. However, a digital version of SuperCard could not be provided for the bundle as exected. So, the FootNotes E-book program has been made available, but without the fanfare of a first release, yet. Nonetheless, school site license options are available.

FootNotes Mac trial version is posted to the web and FTP site for free downloads. The trial version is free and allows for E-book authoring with a restricted number of pages.

Only the paid version of FootNotes entitles web authors to utilize the built-in posting to the publicly accessible internet bookshelves. The E-book contents can be exported into HTML and posted to the web. Or, E-books can be put onto the internet with a special FTP location set-up for each author and their E-book users.

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A schedule of technology briefings includes:

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Boston, Phili, New York, Hartford people should send an email message to Mark, mrauterkus@sportsurf.net.

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These "work presentations" and discussions are part focus group, tutorial and consulting/feedback. The topic areas cover software development issues central to multimedia, RAD and software development

If you, or user-groups you know, are interested in meeting and spending a half-day of your time covering these topics with me this week --- please write.

The Phili meeting is going to be in Hatfield on Wed AM. (South of Allentown) The other meetings, Thurs, Fri. Sat. Monday the 30th, 1, 2, and 4th.

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San Antonio, Tx., 2:00 pm, February 21, Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort
9800 Hyatt Resort Drive, San Antonio, Tx 78251 phone: 210-647-1234

Local Host: Tommy Simmons, Employment Law Advisory Network, Inc.
www.hirenfire.com

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Dallas, Tx., 7:00 pm, February 25, Univ. of Texas Dallas, Callier Center
1966 Inwood Road, Dallas, TX 75235

Map to the Callier center on the SportSurf.Net/tour web page.

Located half mile north of InfoMart.
Exit I-35 at Inwood. Right onto Medical Center Drive. Center on Left.
Look for Green Awning for entry.
Host: Paul Dybala, dybala@audiologyinfo.com phone: 214-905-3041

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Dallas Part 2: 11:30 am, February 26, Tony Romas, Addison, TX
Beltline Road and Addison - Tony Romas Restaurant 972-661-2671

Local Host: Jeff Hoffman, jeff@timeleverresources.com
Time Lever Resources phone: 214-943-4522

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Pittsburgh, Pa., 2:30 pm, March 6, Pittsburgh International Airport
Main Concourse, Air-Side, Fridays Restaurant, Fridays = 412-472-5160

Special Visitor: Robert Abrams, rhabrams@cats.ucsc.edu
Local Host: Mark Rauterkus phone: 412-481-2540

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Cleveland area, Mentor, Ohio, 1:00 pm, March 17, Performance Concepts Inc.
7855 Division Drive, Mentor, Ohio 44060 phone: 216-974-9550

Host: www.pcioh.com
March 17 meeting is the date for the new product release.

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Corolla, N.C., May 17, 1:00 pm.
Contact Mark Rauterkus, mrauterkus@SportSurf.Net

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Background:

SportSurf.Net is teaming with academic programmer, Hugh Senior, Flexible Learning Company of the UK to promote, resell and support the FootNotes E-books. The hosting of the technology briefings are in preparation of the official USA release. The technology briefings include some focus group activities. There are no admission charges to attend the technology briefing, sans food and drinks.

FootNotes Mac is a new commercial software title that is geared for the Educational vertical markets. FootNotes Mac is the first in a series of FN E-book products. Various white papers and information tours are forthcoming to be delivered on or before March 17.

K-12 Solution Bundle Expected! Probable titles include:

• SuperCard, www.Allegiant.Com
• FootNotes, www.SportSurf.Net/FootNotes
• WebAlias, www.Lakewoodsoftware.Com
• Life Map for Concept Mapping, www2.ucsc.edu/mlrg/clr-conceptmapping.html
• Cascading Style Sheets editor, http://interaction.in-progress.com

Thanks for your interest.

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FAQs

I live near Philadelphia and may be interested in attending, but please fill me in a little more on the agenda. Is this SuperCard or FlameThrower or both?

Both

Is this you showing some of your work product,

Just a little bit -- as we talk about the possibilities of Killer Applications -- and FN E-Books come up in the talks.

Is this talking about the future of SC/FT based apps on the internet, or what?

Mainly the future.

Have you done these before?

Yes. 3 in Texas 2 months ago. Cleveland, Pgh.

Who has attended?

I've now met about 10 from the SuperCard list, and so. Some of my vendor partners and a couple authors have attended too. These are just small group meetings, but some have take some trips of some miles to attend and meet.

How have the meetings gone?

Very well. Great feedback. I realize objections. Lots of extra examples come out of them.

What are the objectives/goals for these meetings?

In part, to explain plans -- so to sharpen the saw when going to VCs (Venture Capital) in due time to help save the SC Assets.

I'm the one, who for the past year nearly, has advocated putting $ up to buy SC and FT and such, and then putting the code into the FREE REALM. I call this FREE SC. Not no-charge -- but rather OPEN SOURCE Code. I've got a trust fund open now to collect money to make this occur.

I think some info on the meetings is on my www site about tour, alert.

And, some info on the FREE SC promise is on the site too, about /Allegiant and the trust.

mTropolis was killed by Quark

This product was killed and many were not happy.

https://code.swimisca.org/mtropolis-inspired-multimedia-software-and-its-licensing-proposal/

Trying to acquire the SuperCard software to make it open source

This didn't work. Thankfully, in due time, MetaCard was turned into LiveCode. 

Update on biz planning process to insiders

Progress with Plans - update for April 1997

From: Mark Rauterkus, @sportsurf.net

Here is a splash of news to catch everyone up to speed on recent activities. Sorry for the lengthy period of silence, but it was necessary to get a few internal things back in order before moving forward. Some quiet strides on many fronts have occurred in the past number of months.

In the near future, you and the other insiders are going to be able to take a gander at the re-launched public WWW site and the private plans. These notes do not cover the core parts of the actual business, but rather provide you some insight into our planning progress and recent activities.

At this time, nobody needs to make any promises. Hopefully you and the others are going to say, "Sure - keep me under consideration."

As always, thanks for the time and consideration. If you'd like to be removed from future correspondence and updates, or if you would like to widen or increase this communication to you and others close to your operation, please let me know.

Update News with New Partner - MDI.NET

A deal is about to be constructed with a local firm, MDI.NET. This established Pittsburgh firm is an ISP with a T1 line and a SUN reseller status. MDI is going to help with the SportSurf.Net efforts by providing in-kind services on a long-term basis. This new "partner" is considered a final cog that is going to allow these projects to advance to the next level.

Timeline Construction

Phases, goals and milestones with specific time-lines of implementation are now being charted for the future.

Next steps include:

1. a re-write of my business plans.
   1. The plans will appear on a newly constructed private WWW site.
   2. The plans are going to set the stage for a new corporation with investor financing.
   1. Angel investors are needed to secure trademarks and retainers, but we quickly seek
   2. Venture capital funding (>$2 million) - to come in stages of access.
2. a reconstruction of the public WWW site (http://www.sportsurf.net).
   The site is going to include offers for sales/services in both a freeware and cash-producing manner. Many chat rooms, forums, mailing lists, and book-content things and such are going to be free. Our product line-up for the near-term is going to be catered to the sports business marketplace and start with small, specialized items -- not comprehensive bundles.

Some of the short-term goals include:

The sale of the book publishing business.

Opening the public WWW site with >10,000 pages of mostly free goodies (forums, chats, link pages, etc.)

Promotions on the net to get visitor count to more than 1,000 per day and 30,000 per month.

Opening of a "Proving Ground" section

• The Proving Ground is going to be the mechanism for creating alliances with developers/resellers/consultants.
• The Proving Ground activities include satellite services and value-added tech-support. This more formalized line-up of service offerings should provide for the short-term common ground between the smaller, cutting-edge software developers and this organization. Plus the Proving Ground activities are going to expand into future resale operations with the pending bundles.

Bundles of Tomorrow

The future bundles are going to be called:

1. Sandlot Servers and
2. Stadium Servers.

These will be turn-key server bundles (to include software, hardware, customization, integration with the headquarters, leasing options, extra support meetings, value-added content offerings) are to be marketed to the 6,000 sports magazine publishers in North America.

Sandlot and Stadium Server packages provide server platform options for the customers. The servers are going to be built for the following operating systems:

• Macintosh,
• NT,
• Linux and
• SUN

Without Investor Strategy

At this time, there isn't any "investor strategy." However, I am starting to craft a draft INPUT strategy. Without the legally formed business organization, and paperwork for the new one is expected to be filed in the late spring of summer of 1997, talk of "investors" is premature. Instead, these ideas only relate to Input Contributors.

The A-B-Cs of Input...
Begin with "Angels"

The finance input strategy is soon to turn to the discover and solicitation of much needed "Angels." The input from Angles can fund the next phases. Early finance requirements project a need of approximately $50,000.

The Angel-level-finance amount, given the scope of these plans, is modest. A great distance has already been traveled through our collective careers and with these associated plans and prototypes. Great cost reductions are in place from lots of sources including family. Present day overhead is low, and nearly all of the tools we've been utilizing are getting crafted to fabulous levels of power and sophistication.

Furthermore, the pending sale of the SSS book business could yield additional income and turn back the tide on some debt issues. The prospective income from the transfer of the SSS book business is a tenuous situation however and not to be counted as a liquid asset.

The goal of the Angel finances is to allow for the growth of the on-line activities to a self-sustaining level while allowing for the completion of the business plans. Angels are needed before any serious audience with the Venture Capital crowd can occur with confidence. For instance, angel income would allow for fees associated with obtaining trade-marks for program-specific names, business plans re-writes, law-team retainers, and expert accounting consulting.

After Angels

After the Angels come the Venture Capital investors. This progression from one to the other can occur quickly.

The pending pitch to Venture Capital people includes two main points:

almost all the development is already COMPLETED.

The full extent of the service offerings can be taken into the marketplace in a matter of weeks -- almost everything has proven to work!

Today's venture capital crowd is NOT interested in funding long-term internet research and development efforts. Funding for Sport Surf Net is a sure thing as all the computer systems are proven to work as advertised. The venture funding is needed to enter into the marketplace and handle the resulting demands.

If there are incomplete elements of the project lurking, they can be completed in one quarter and can be tested just before sales get underway.

Very low RISK. Only small amounts of up-front cash is needed for early risks.

The first stage of expenditures comes as these plans and finished prototypes head to focus group research stages.

A respected local focus group company that works with advertising agencies is ready to help. The fee is about $100,000. Focus group research is a wise investment.

If these products and services should pass through the rigors of independent demographic-type studies, the the organization is going to need additional funds for marketing (advertising, seminars). The advertising/marketing campaign for dealers and consumers for the new product roll-outs could cost $500,000 or more.

Both of those investments (focus groups & advertising) are "short-term investments" and can offer a quick returns.

Modest Infrastructure Costs

Some venture capital money is going to be needed for infrastructure support. The organization will need back-ups, engineer staff, demo units, telephone operators, mailings to magazine publishers, meeting reservations. As far as the net transactions are concerned, today's access capacity is already strong.

The full product launch is going to require available cash for overhead, plus there is the matter of acquiring or retaining our key partners -- with and without stock equity.

Jack, I'm counting on you to be the one who is going to be able to provide the Linux server packages.

Furthermore, this is a pipe dream at this stage now, I'd like to be able to have a section in the pending business plan that is going to deal directly with the acquisition of your services -- either in a retain basis or more -- so that you can be fully-funded and a part of our total mission. I don't think these venture capital people are going to be in the mind set to invest money into this project unless we have a good amount of control/ownership and assurances that things are going to get done/happen at a top priority. Obviously, for this type of control to happen, $ needs to come into play first. Plus, my present business and capabilities are not nearly big enough to engage the type of market-cap potential that is going to lure the interest of venture capital types. We need to have proven assets that are worth the investment dollars or else those guys just are not interested. I feel that my team of cutting-edge developer buddies -- all small guys when you look at the likes of Fortune 500 companies -- could band together in some manner and be able to command a sizable equity investment.

To make this work, we're going to need to go on some type of "acquisitions" spree and be able to circle our wagons and say -- hey -- for $10-million you get A, B, C, D and so forth all the way to L,M,N,O, P -- or Z. But, as you might guess, the hand-holding is going to get to be a chore - and we are going to need to have everything pulled together in tight, neat packages for this to succeed.

So, you can see how it is of prime importance that you work these days with this in-mind for the future. All the players will have to have an eye toward this "summary day" and would be able to present some valuable plug-and-play business facts and figures for inserting into the master plan. I'll create the overall master plan but include parts of your data. I'd even say a 1-page executive summary would be too long for the Venture Capital Crowd to digest.

Then comes the matter of $ amounts. Part of this could be with "funny money" in the form of equity, stock options, etc. But, it will also need to boil down to knowing the following:

1. How much is your present business worth in real money at that point in time?

2. How much value does your contributions bring to the overall value of the whole business?

3. How much (on the low, medium, and high side) would you be willing transfer in your venture's ownership -- given that you are still going to play a most valuable role in the continuation of your efforts.

4. How much investment is really needed to take your products and services to the next level of profitability for the short-term and long-term.

5. How much of your day-to-day challenges, work-load and management can be better optimized with OUTSOURCING to the Headquarters staff - resulting in increased productivity for all? ---- As to the EASY-Server side of things: Here is what I'm thinking.

It is going to be great to be able to go to any magazine publisher and say, you need to buy into either our Stadium Server ($50,000) or Sandlot Server $15,000. You'll get everything you need, plus full integration into our headquarters' site databases, traffic, resources. And, our server line-up comes with many different flavors: Macintosh, NT, Linux, SUN -- with many options. On the low end, a publisher can just rent rooms on our site. So, the Linux solution is more of a middle-line-up product. The Easy-Serve gives great bang for the buck. Plus, it allows for local dial-up support for the magazine staff out of the office. Heck it uses the #1 server in the world wide web - Apache. This is important to our efforts.

subscribers dashboard for mailing lists - code

Welcome Members of the E-Mail Marketing Digest

Subscribers' Dashboard Examples to Empty Locations

The following buttons show the various supported servers. The server matters as some discussion groups are hosted on Majordomo servers, while others are hosted on ListServ. There are plenty of others too. The commands for each server host are not the same. You'll need to know what type of list-server software is being utilized.

These buttons are empty, so the end-user needs to type in not only his or her email address, but also the list address and the list name. The slightest typing error shows the unforgiving nature of the internet and the commands fail.

A better set-up puts hidden content inside the code so that the Subscribers Dashboard can open with various elements already in place.

Tip:

1. Select the right server from the buttons below.
2. When in doubt, view source on this HTML page (and others) to see how everything is accomplished.
3. For long-term security reasons, this page is not going to be kept up on the net. Get this info now.

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Create an HTML form like the following:

&lt;form method=POST action=http://www.SportSurf.Net/cgi-bin/MailServ/server&gt; &lt;input type=submit value="This button's description"&gt; &lt;input type=hidden name=errors value="err_address"&gt; &lt;input type=hidden name=to value="list_addr"&gt; &lt;input type=hidden name=list value="list_name"&gt; &lt;/form&gt;

Make the following substitutions in the above code:

1. server

   One of the following:
   • listserv
   • listproc
   • majordomo
   • mlp
   • smartlist
   • subscribe

2. This button's description
   • Suggested Name: Subscribers Dashboard for the expanded name of the service.
   • Avoid jargon and short names to lessen confusion.

3. err_address

   • The address to which bounced messages should be sent.
   • Use your full email address please.

4. list_addr

   • The address of the list server.
   • For example: Majordomo@SportSurf.Net

5. list_name

   • The exact name of the mailing list.

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Make Your Own Subscribers Dashboard for your favorite discussion groups

You can make your own subscribers dashboard without the need for your own web server. Use the SportSurf.Net server instead. Simply visit the SportSurf.Net site -- or -- build your own HTML form to kick-start the communications with the SportSurf.Net server. The HTML form can be a button place on a public or private HTML page. These instructions contain the specifics for that form. Once the dashboard is built, you don't have to remember and re-type remote server email addresses and user commands.

Local Operations - because you have to master these various groups yourself.

• Use a text editor to cut-and-paste the code between the snips.
• Save the text into a new file. Create the file in an obvious place within your hard-disk drive's file directory.
• Name the file something like, "subskey.html."
• Make the necessary changes to the code. The section on this page tells you how to create the form. The form needs some advance knowledge so that it can remember the location and commands.
• Connect to the intenet and have your web browser open. You have to be able to visit other sites on the web.
• Within your web browser, use the pull-down menu and "open file" -- and select from your hard disk drive, "subskey.html."

Questions:

Please feel free to contact the List-Clerk, Mark Rauterkus, for additional help if needed.

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Other Pointers

• Article #2
• MajorCool Interface at SportSurf.Net
• SportSurf.Net Home Page
• Smartbounce Home Page