I just read on Drudge that the opening receipts for King Kong were the 21st best Wednesday opening in history. It didn’t even do as well as the Pokeman movie when it was released on a Wednesday.

I had to laugh. Only because I was reading all these glowing reviews and how it might become the biggest blockbuster in history…etc. All the while, I had absolutely no interest in it whatsoever, myself and I couldn’t imagine many people having an interest in it either.

The days of big monster movies are gone. We waved goodbye to that era when “Apple” was only something we ate. Jurassic Park was an exception only because they were monsters that actually roamed the earth. They were real, which lended a certain curiosity to it.

Just because you spend a LOT of money on a movie doesn’t mean people are going to want to see it. Even if it does have a compelling story and critcs fawn over it. It doesn’t matter. If the public in general doesn’t have an interest in the overriding subject matter (large apes), it’s going to flop.

I’m adding some ecommerce capabilities to my blog here. My first batch of products will be these EXTREMELY cute keychain type of hangy bobber thingys (to the right in the sidebar.) We’re working on the cart system to take orders for them as I type this. It should be done soon so if you want one, check back soon. They will be $13.95 each with free priority shipping.

Update 12/30/05: As you can see, I still haven’t gotten around to implementing the ecommerce stuff. Anyway, I took down the keychain images as they looked awful against that different colored background.

I had a small milestone the other day in my entreprenuerial journey. This may have occurred before, but a few days ago is the first day that I actually noticed. I had sales from 5 of my businesses all in one day. That’s 5 streams of income that are actually bringing in money. Of course, the challenge is to do the things necessary to grow them all.

I was watching a special on Leonardo Da Vinci the other night and it quoted from one of his notebooks, wherein he said something to the affect of:

To create an idea from nothing is noble but to carry out the idea into practice is servitude.

I’m VERY much paraphrasing here, since his was so much more profound, as you might imagine.

I’m diligently working on my biggest project to date. Technical details are holding us back (I absolutely despise the crappy details of establishing an SSL secure server for taking orders… despise it, I say!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I can’t wait to reveal it to you to get your opinions and of course, your business, as each and every person that has access to the internet in the US and other western nations could use my new website at some point. Talk about a target market, hey?

I think I’ve touched on this before, but not this particular idea.

Why not take an ad out in your local paper or even go door to door (”we’re in the neighborhood” kind of thing) and advertise your services to set up a computer backup system for people so they won’t lose any of their data if their computer goes down? You would be absolutely AMAZED to know how many people do not have their computers backed up. Almost every single house you go to is a potential customer.

Take a cool looking hard drive with you when you go door to door. Use this one. It’s very cool looking and if you happen to get a Mac household, you’re a shoe in. Tell them you’ll set up the hard drive and ensure their data is being backed up every night at 2am (or whatever time they want) and they’ll never have to worry about it again. Their data will always be backed up.

The hard drive comes with backup software so you can just install it, tell it what to backup and you’re done. Tell them they can get it done now for $250 (which includes the hard drive and backup software and your services to set it up) or if they want to schedule another time, it’ll be $275. You can use that price difference to close the deal. After some talking, etc… just say, “You know, I’ve got some other installs in this area on that date, so I’ll do it for the $250 if you can commit to X date.”

You get the drift. The drive cost you $200 and you just made $50 for maybe 20 minutes of work, if that.

Be sure to choose neighborhoods that might have $250 to spend on backup solutions and it would be a very good idea to take credit cards for your payment.

Carrying the actual hard drive with you will give the customer something to lust after. When you get to the door, hand it to them as soon as they open the door and have them hold it while you talk. It keeps the door open and gives them something to start desiring. Add in your sweet talking about how they absolutely NEED to backup all those MP3 files, pictures, word documents, emails… etc. They know they’ve been putting it off and so many will just say, “Yeah, okay… I need to get this done and I’m never going to do it if I wait for myself to do it.”

Congrats. You are now a career backup technician. Of course, now that you have a relationship with them, give them your card and tell them what other services you do or partner with a tech in the area to give their card to them for a share of the profits in the future… or something like that.

Go forth.