Invisible Guides

The is both nothing and everything to report.

InvisibleGuides.com is in its final weeks of development before it is ready to go live for all the world to see. It’s a funny feeling to be on the verge of going public with something you’ve been working hard on for a year or more, but that no one has been able to see.

I’m feverishly working on the marketing materials, the launch event, and creating national protocols for everything we do so that we can repeat it as we go into other cities around the country.

Some big ideas have come to perch in the last few months though - things that will not be earth shattering here for the beta-test, but that are going to be great moving forward. The first is the idea of partnering with a print-on-demand company for our create your own guides feature. This will allow us to offer this benefit way way before we thought we could. The other is a T-shirt campaign around local screen printers. In each city we go to we will commission a screen printer to create a design for that city (Invisible Austin T-shirts), and we’ll sell the shirts on our site. It can be a competition, and we will buy the design for use in national campaigns, as well as give a percentage of each shirt sale to the artist.

That’s the news. Don’t wear it out.

ari

Tags: big ideas, soon, t-shirts

I wanted to have a brunch launch for the initial launch in Portland. The idea was that we would move into Local 188 for a sunday morning, not close the place, just be there with our computers on the bar and our movies projected on the walls. We would give away free cappuccinos and mimosas for reviews. It was ideal because it brings in such a good cross section of folks. And it supports local business.

But the variables are just too great. I found myself completely stymied as I tried to approach the planning of the event. And no restaurant owner in their right mind would allow us to fool with Sunday Brunch, which is one of the biggest meals they have all week.

So, we are back to a regular launch. I think we’ll either go to Space Gallery again, with our tails between our legs and try and make a date, or we’ll rent out a room somewhere.

Other things we aren’t going to do:
little digital boxes with codes for our PR grabbing scavenger hunts
light up placards
work with blurb.com
Other news: Ben Corum is down in Wellesley preparing for the beginning of his MBA program.
The site is looking like it is on track and the developers are doing the good work.
Former State Representative John Eder has been working with me a few hours a week helping me to refine the message and keep my head in the grass roots/non-profit world where it needs to be. He is consulting and adding a huge amount of insight into approaching the first adopters and the non-profits which are so key to our success in these small cities.

Tags: brunch, Launch

I’m meeting with the developers this afternoon about the site and I haven’t sat with them in about a month, so I’m anxious to see their progress. So far the hardest part of this project has been letting things go, and the decision to have outside developers create the site carried the most possibility of disaster and of success with it. They certainly have the skills to do a better job creating this site then we do in house, but this isn’t their first priority, and they are not in my head, so they can’t have the vision of it that i do.

I have a lot of faith in the guys we are working with though. So my hopes are high. If there is something to look at this week from them then I’ll post a link to it here.

Tags: faith, skills, web developers

Invisible Guides is a company that I’m starting.  Our guides are user created guides to small cities that you can access online and as traditional guide books. We began last June as just barely more than an idea and now are going to launch locally in my home town of Portland, ME in about a month, and nationally at the beginning of 2009.  

On this blog, I’m going to just keep track of what’s happening as we launch, as we grow, and as things inevitably fall apart and are rebuilt again and again during the process.  Welcome and I hope you’ll come back.

Ari Meil

Chief Executive Operative

Invisible Guides, LLC

Tags: Launch