Munio Blog - Our random thoughts
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007
Reaching out to San Diego and Los Angeles Counties
As I watched the CNN report on the devastating San Diego and Los Angeles County fires I couldn't help
but feel guilty. As the news report switch from how the big insurance companies were feeling the financial pain of the event to
how home owners were going back to their homes in search of a photo albums and other irreplaceable memories. I couldn't help but
feel like my partners and I owe it to families everywhere to let them know about our Memory Assurance product. I imagined how differently
these stories would be if it was as common for these families to have Memory Assurance as it is for them to have home owner's insurance. It
would feel so good to have stories about how families were getting their memories replaced through Munio. Since we're not quite there
we'll have to participate in this story as we have in the past by offering free policies to those effected by the fires and to donate money
from the policies sold in California.
Munio would like to help protect their future memories by offering free Memory Assurance
to the first 500 families from San Diego and Los Angeles Counties that contact us at
califires@muniocorp.com. We're also
donating $25.00 to the LA Times Family Fund and KTLA Charities Fire Relief Campaign for each policy sold in the State of California over the next 30 days. Munio will kickoff the campaign by
donating $500 directly to the fund on November 1st, 2007. To make a donation please visit their site
McCormick Tribune Foundation.
We choose this fund because they are offering to match the first $500,000 in donations at fifty cents on the dollar.
(Update) Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Reaching out to other flood victims
An agent contacted me and reminded me that Big Lake may have been hit the hardest by the Midwest floods, but there're still
plenty of other cities and people who've been hurt as well and could use some help. With that said, I'd like to ask that
if you know of another town that needs our help or if you know a specific family that could benefit from our service please
e-mail me directly at michael.droz@muniocorp.com and I'll do what I can to help.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Big Lake, Missouri
On Monday night a town within 50 miles of my birth place was completely destroyed. This time it was
Big Lake, Missouri. The heavy rains caused the Missouri River to swell and burst through
5 levees. The event sent a wall of water through the town of Big Lake and basically submerged the tiny town of 300.
"The town is a loss. At this time, we don't know, but it looks like that's what's going to happen," said Mark Sitherwood,
presiding commissioner of Holt County.
My thoughts are with the people of Big Lake. While it's too late to protect the past memories of the people of Big Lake,
Munio would like to help protect their future memories by offering free Memory Assurance to the first 50 families from Big Lake that contact us at
biglake@muniocorp.com. We're also
donating $25.00 to the town of Big Lake for each policy sold in Missouri over the next 30 days.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Greensburg, Kansas
Over the weekend a horrific tornado swept through the small town of Greensburg, Kansas. This particular event is
close to my heart as Greensburg is only a few hundred miles from my birth place, St. Joseph, MO. My heart
goes out to the entire town and especially to those families who suffered the loss of a loved one.
While it's too late to protect the memories of the people of Greensburg, Munio would like to help protect their future memories by offering free Memory Assurance to the first
50 families from Greensburg that contact us at
greensburg@muniocorp.com We're also donating $25.00 to the
town of Greensburg for each policy sold in Kansas over the next 30 days.
I plead with you to donate money to the people of Greensburg through the United Way:
HOW TO DONATE MONEY through the United Way
Make checks payable to Green for Greensburg Fund and mail to United Way of the Plains, 245 N. Water, Wichita, KS 67202.
Here's a video showing the absolute destruction of the town of Greensburg.
Video:
Pictures:
Click here.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Too tired to blog...
All I can post tonight is the quote of the day from the Munio offices:
"I finally found something I can't do...labels."
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Northwest Entrepreneur Network
I attended the Northwest Entrepreneur Network meeting at Seattle University tonight. The topic was "The Art of the Deal: Financial and Legal Considerations for Your First Financing."
The most interesting speaker was Jim Harding, he's one of the guys who sold DOS to Microsoft for $50,000 in the early 80s. Since then he's went on to start and sell over 12 companies including Cartia and PhotoTrust, which were both sold to Amazon.com. He currently owns the venture capital firm, Series A.
Anyway, all this talk about financing raised the question to me and my partners. Is this a $50 million dollar a year company or a $500 million dollar a year company. The answer to this question will determine our financing strategy. If it's a $50 million dollar a year company we probably just need $500,000 or less in angel money to turn a profit and grown the business. If it's a $500 million dollar a year company we're probably going to need $10 - $15 million in venture capital.
My partners were leaning towards the $50 million dollar mark. Basically turning our business into a small "life style" business. But I see things much differently. I think if we stay conservative (small) we'll be crushed by Google or Microsoft. Going big and trying to capture a huge portion of the market is the only way we can insure the long-tem future of our business.
9 days until the release of our beta! And so much to do!! Before we make $500 million we need to book $5 in revenue.
Quotes from today:
"This company is built on tape."
"They're great developers just bad people."
"Will surfing MySpace get our beta released?"
Monday, March 26, 2007
Share Mark - a future service of API Market Place, a subsidiary of Munio Memory Services, LLC.
After listening to a podcast tonight from Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, and Fox Interactive (MySpace) CEO, Ross Levinsohn, I realized the next big "certification" or "trust mark" market place will center around user generated content.
This market place will be managed by one company, API Market Place, a subsidiary of Munio Memory Services, LLC.
API Market Place will launch with the following services; Share Marks and API development services.
Share Marks Explained:
A "Share Mark" will be an image or mark that is implemented in the footer of websites that indicates that a company allows users to share the content or files they generate as a user of that site with any other site. As a MySpace user you can think of it in the following scenario. Imagine that MySpace isn't the greatest company on Earth and instead they're just a fad...like a rocking pair of Run DMC style Addidas shoes cool in the early 80s, but maybe not so much now. Imagine that a new personal networking site called YourSpace develops some killer features and all your friends start using that site instead of MySpace. Well now you have a problem because you've spent months or maybe even years adding files and content to your MySpace account. What are you to do? Well today you only have two choices. You can either do nothing and ignore the newest fad (YourSpace) or you can buy the new fad and create a new YourSpace account. If you choose to create a YourSpace account you'll have to spend hours adding files to the YourSpace account and you'll never be able to recreate all the cool content that you created during the "MySpace" years....
Do you see the problem? The solution is coming to a site near you...although it won't be that soon because MySpace and others want you to be stuck using their services for obvious reasons.
The solution will be an API (Application Programming Interface). Basically companies tell other companies how to access their system which allows a company like the fictitious YourSpace to create a tool to allow users to import their MySpace data into their newly created YourSpace account. The idea is akin to the portable cell phone number. In the old days your cell phone number was tied to the phone or carrier, so if you switched carriers you had to give up your phone number...sounds crazy doesn't it? Well so is the lack of user generated content portability.
So, companies will implement the API Market Place "Share Mark" because it will announce to users that they're dedicating to giving their members real ownership and portability of their files and user created data.
A description of the process:
Step 1: Application Pending
The moment that a company like MySpace decides they're committed to portability they'll come to www.apimarketplace.com and submit an application for a "Share Mark". While their application is pending we'll provide them with a temp "Share Mark" that will indicate that the company has started down the road of portability. The only functionality that the temp "Share Mark" will have is a content pop-up that will explain what a "Share Mark" is and why consumers should care about it.
Step 2: Application Approval
The final step in the "Share Mark" application process requires the company to submit their API schema and instructions to API Market Place for testing. Our team of developers and testers will the build a test framework for the company's API. This framework will then be used to test the company's api. If the API works as expected a notification will be sent to the company. The company will then come back to API Market Place and retrieve their fully functional "Share Mark". The fully functional "Share Mark" will allow customers to click on the Share Mark to initiate a test of the API. If it's successful the customer will get a message from API Market Place indicating that the company is a verified "Share Mark" participant.
Or something like that :)
Pricing will be something like this:
Application fee $199.00 :: API Testing $199.00 - $20,000
API Consulting services will be billed out at $299 per hour.
I have to wrap up now so I can go purchase the domains for apimarketplace.com and submit a patent and some trademarks for the idea.
Good night!