Martin's Stimulus Plan

**** Contest Suspended ****
I didn't get any great business ideas I felt I had to fund. My original thinking still holds: it is worth betting everything to create magic. I just didn't see the magic. If you contemplated entering thanks and best of luck. I would have had a hard time funding a start up and my planned bicycle ride across the country in September 2010. I've decided to focus on a life long dream of getting to Santa Monica on a bicycle. If you have great ideas I wish you nothing but the bes of luck.

Marty












My california friends, who must have business plans sitting under their pillow, are sending some cool ideas for Win Your Dream With Martin's Money contest. I'm hoping to keep my investment in North Carolina, so come on fellow North Carolianians dust off those dreams and send me your business plan ideas.

Learn Martin's Win Your Dream Contest Details Here

Is LuLu.com Going Out Of Business?

*** Nope, Lulu is having the right kind of scaling problems - too much demand. I will blog more soon, but LuLu is thankfully NOT going out of business. ***

I love LuLu. Their self publishing idea seemed elegant and very web 2.0. I talked my company into publishing a book with them. They were skeptical of LuLu and self publishing. We've sold over 1,000 copies and need 200 more immediately as we are now in back order. I am guessing selling over 1,000 copies puts us in the upper tier of LuLu publishers. Last print run Lulu misprinted our cover. I contacted customer service. They told me that this kind of misprint was a "problem our system is having". I noticed three things:

1. Lulu eliminated anything other than email customer service support recently. Lulu used to have online real time help operators. That function is long gone.
2. Their customer service email says they are having more than usual volume and may take more than 48 hours to get back to me. I bet they are having problems if their system is misprinting other books like ours.
3. Lulu is run by Bryce Boothby, Jr (I think) who has "cost cutter" and "closer" written all over his resume. Tried to contact Bryce on LinkedIn and received no response.

I hope I am wrong since LuLu is a cool idea. I attended a seminar when LuLu's creator Bob Young spoke. He seemed funny, smart and interesting. Bob, if you ever get a chance to read this note PLEASE help people that depend on your company. Have your customer service agents actually help instead of just emailing back and forth. If you are going out of business, let those of us who have published books with you know. If you are not, please comment into this post so I can correct the record. In my experience when 2 out of the three things above are TRUE dissolution is not far.

Hope all is well at this North Carolina based cool business. If not, I hope they fess up so I can find another publisher.

Martin (martinsellingzoe(at)aol).

The King's Daughter's Inn

Meeting one of the owners of Kings Daughters Inn in Durham at Tyler’s a few nights ago made me curious about why the inn's name was so familiar. I had a fleeting memory about Kings Daughters Home. I called my mother to confirm that she and my grandmother visited the Kings Daughters Home years ago. This post is about my lighthouse keeper’s daughter grandmother and her visit to the Kings Daughter. - M

There was always a quiet fortitude. Mabel Wescott Martin, my grandmother, grew up in an outer banks lighthouse. Home schooled until being packed off to Trinity Women’s College in the 1930’s, Mabel Wescott was doing an unusual thing. She was attending college. Imagine the transition from lighthouse and two siblings to college at Duke. Trinity Women’s College is now Duke’s East Campus. Hardship hardly describes life on an island off the North Carolina coast at the turn of the century. Weather, limited contact, spare quarters and hard work made life harsh and almost unimaginable now.

My grandmother’s life plan was forming. She had vague ideas of being a teacher. She formed a life long relationship with a Women’s College librarian. My grandmother knew how to write letters. When you live on an island letters become lifelines. Letters are connection. Over sixty years my grandmother and her mentor exchanged thousands of letters. Family details mixed easily with Duke Pageants and events. More than ten years ago Mabel visited her never married Duke Liberian friend at the Kings Daughter Home.

My grandmother’s friend, after a lifetime of service to duke, was able to finish her life near her one true love – the Duke library. My grandmother’s report of her visit, I foolishly didn’t join her and my mother, seemed wistful and sad. Wistful because I heard a “road not taken” note in Mabel’s voice. Sad because a time of lighthouses, women’s colleges and career Liberians was passing almost without notice.

Owners of the newly renovated King’s Daughter Inn understand time. Their in captures time in a bottle. Who we are remains tied to grandmothers, career librarians and The Kings Daughters Inn. Such a loving project, the restoration of a grand dame into a modern Bed and Breakfast in historic downtown Durham, is about homage and hope. The King’s Daughter’s Inn pays homage to caring roots. Its performing art is recovery of meaningful bones, bones of a house, bones of a time lovingly restored and willingly shared. My grandmother died several years ago at 99, but I visit her special spirit on Duke’s East Campus and at the Kings Daughter’s Inn.

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Live Your Dream with Martin's Money

**** Contest Suspended ****
I didn't get any great business ideas I felt I had to fund. My original thinking still holds: it is worth betting everything to create magic. I just didn't see the magic. If you contemplated entering thanks and best of luck. I would have had a hard time funding a start up and my planned bicycle ride across the country in September 2010. I've decided to focus on a life long dream of getting to Santa Monica on a bicycle. If you have great ideas I wish you nothing but the bes of luck.

Marty












I graduated into a recession (1980). If I knew then what I know now I would do many things differently. The time to start living your dreams is NOW. I've created a business plan contest to help someone (or possibly several someones) start living their dream by the fall of 2009. Use these links to find out how to win support for your dream.

Martin's Live Your Dream Contest Details

Deadline = Labor Day

Good Luck. Send your business plan to martinsellingzoe(at)aol

Martin

Larger Martin Contest Graphic


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Martin's Google SEO Rules

I’m torn. Either Google is a giant divining rod separating truth from spun fiction or it is Casino Royal. Wind blows my judgment hither and yon. On days when Google seems understandable and fair holding the large triangular stick feels good. Other days when Google Gods seem to be smiting my team and me with thunderbolt and lightfoot a surreal circus is in town. Here are the rules I use to NOT lose my Google sanity.

Martin’s Top 10 Google Search Engine Optimization Rules

1. All page one search rankings start with a unique idea.
2. If you’ve done everything (title, meta, keyword density, on page factors) right and you are still not ranking highly then return to #1.
3. All systems including your hard won search engine rankings move toward entropy, your rankings will regress to a mean, enjoy whatever limited time you have with great search engine rank.
4. It is better to win one search term than rank on page 3 or higher for a dozen.
5. Great search rankings are what you do + what people think of what you do.
6. Google karma swings both ways (helps and hurts).
7. Because you CAN do something doesn’t mean it is the RIGHT thing to do.
8. Truth as understood by you and your customers is more important than sleep (you can sleep when you are dead).
9. Whatever IS happening is what is SUPPOSED to be happening.
10. DO NO HARM
    

Importance of Being “Purple” (having a unique idea)
Imagine a purple cow. Seth Godin did and he used the anti-pattern to make a point. The world is full of normal boring patterns. For you and your business to stand out in an overly crowded field you must be “purple.” After our team read The Purple Cow we put every idea to a simple litmus test, “Is it purple.” Some ideas are unique and worth exploring. Others are knock offs of something already occupying high ground. Leave these “also ran” ideas and look for purple. Remember Martin’s baseball lesson. Hit 3 out of 10 ideas and you are in the hall of fame. Another way to put his is expect to fail 70% of the time. Purple is not easy. If it were everyone would already be doing it.

Are you purple enough?
You’ve read the books, looked at who is winning your terms now and done hard search engine optimization work, but your pages are still not ranking. When this happens don’t be a gerbil. Get off the wheel and realize you are not as purple as you think. Time to get RADICALLY PURPLE. Radical purple gets attention. Attention flows to it like rain down a gutter. If, and that is a BIG if, you have all page elements right and still aren’t getting rank then you are not batting 300 as you think. Recreate the idea.

One caveat is sites can trap spiders. Sites can mangle spiders. Sites can abuse spiders. Dynamic sites are bigger spider killers, but I’ve seen some NASTY head code on flat pages too. Use your brain. Read a book. If you have a dynamic site create a flat portion and test with that. We just did this and what a difference. Our flat Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) site ranked almost immediately and very high on its term. We couldn’t buy that kind of listing with our bloated dynamic site. What a programmer doesn’t know CAN kill you.

Search Engine Rank Entropy
I’ve had GREAT rankings personally and professionally. Some are still there some are long gone never to be recovered. C’EST la guerre. Best way to combat inevitable search engine ranking entropy is create something new. Create a lot of something news on enough of a regular frequency and you will replace decaying search rankings with new ones.

Content, sometimes called content marketing, has what direct marketers call a RFM number. R is recency. How recent is the content. F is frequency or how frequent is content blogged or updated. The more you update the more visits you get from spiders. M is monetary and in the search context is traffic. Traffic is a proxy for money. Traffic is what I like to call an “arbitragable event”; you can turn it into people you have profitable relationships with.

Second = Steak Knives
Remember in Mamet’s play Glengary Glen Ross when first was every reward you ever dreamed and second was a set of steak knives? Being on Google’s page 5 is outer space. Better to win one key search term than finish on page 3 on a bunch. Page three is good. It says, “Do the right thing and you are on page one.” Page 3 is steak knives. Use the knowledge tools such as WordVision provide to define your “low hanging fruit” and then create a plan to move to page one.


What You Do and How They Like It
Our lives are intertwined. Creators create and a legion picks every creation apart. This kind of creation is tricky. Play to your eventual audience too much and YOUR truth slips away. Play too little attention to reception and no one will care. Every marketing battle now is over hearts and minds. I discussed this in Martin’s Long Tail (that link takes you to my presentation on Slideshare). Hearts and Minds, Hearts and Minds, Hearts and Minds should be your search marketing and marketing mantra. There will be a test ☺.

Google Karma
Google giveth and Google taketh away. Ye thou I walk through the valley of professional death I shall fear NO EVIL.

Because You Can Means Nothing
We are capable of doing just about anything now. Just say no is my advice. Anyone who tells you they can get your site listed #1 is lying or will do more damage than good in the long run. Organic search work is like picking cotton. Your hands bleed. Your back hurts and that is the way it is supposed to work. Snake oil will only get you bit.

Truth = More Important Than Sleep
You can sleep when you are dead. The important thing to do now is find and articulate your truth. Your truth is only yours when someone else plays it back to you almost word for word. If your customers aren’t blogging your truth it doesn’t exist. If they are blogging something other than what you call truth they are right and you are about as wrong as you can be and still have a job. Truth is tricky. It can change and evolve. Never assume. Check in, check in and check in some more to see if your truth is their (your customers and stake holders) truth.

What is…is
I stole this one from Eckhart Tolle, but it applies. First rule of search engine marketing is don’t fight city hall or Google Gods. Better to relax, flow with the energy and understand organic search doesn’t change in a day or a week. It takes time, patience, understanding the rules, creating something purple, and a dash of luck, some Google Karma and energy conservation. Our CFO gets red in the face. He wants something to happen NOW. When he was ranting recently I said, “I CAN make something happen in organic search tomorrow BUT you won’t like it.” I was being a bit of a smart ass and he didn’t appreciate it. Point is valid. Only BAD things happen fast. Good things you see coming. Whatever is happening is what is supposed to be happening and it is all good.

Do No SEO Harm
This is the hardest rule. We want to tinker, change and mess with stuff. That is cool; just understand you can tinker your way right out of your #1 Google listings (been there, done that). First rule of SEO = DO NO HARM. I put it last figuring anyone whose read this far really cares about this stuff. If you leave with no other Martin SEO Rule other than DO NO HARM then I’ve helped in some small way.

Good luck.

Martin

An Dy War Hol

One of my favorite Warhol interviews. I love how the interviewer plays such a perfect straight man. Ivan Karp, Warhol's dealer and friend and the gentleman on the right is laughing so hard he can hardly keep it together. Andy's fifteen minutes may never be up.


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Martin's Live Your Dream With My Money Contest

**** Contest Suspended ****
I've been feeling only alright lately. If you read ScentTrail regularly you know I have Leukemia (read Why Do Republicans Want To Kill Me? to learn more). Since it seems unlikely any health care reform will pass my conservative side says best to keep my mother's 50th birthday gift, a $100,000 check, for a rainy day. I didn't get any great business ideas I felt I had to fund. My original thinking still holds: it is worth betting everything to create magic no matter how sick or poor I am. I just didn't see the magic. If you contemplated entering thanks and best of luck.

Marty


Memorial Day Business Plan Writing
I hope entrepreneurs spend some time this Memorial Day Weekend working on their business plan. Remember to use Martin's Business Plan Outline as a guide and get your thoughts down on paper. The realization of every dream starts with a simple action, a step. Years ago I write a business plan for Found Objects. We dog and ponied my plan to every Angel investor in our area. Timing is everything and our timing was lousy. We pitched FoundObjects.com just as the Internet bubble burst. Whatever is happening is what is supposed to be happening, so it is all good. I don't regret creating our plan.

Writing ideas down and sharing with others is a valuable exercise even if no cash comes sliding across the table. Remember my Win Your Dream with Martin's Money Business Plan Contest ends on Labor Day. Summer's start may seem like a strange time to think of summer's end. Almost before we know it days will shorten and Labor Day will be on us. One business truth is everything always takes twice as long and three times as much money as you think. I hope you don't miss the opportunity to write your dream down and share it.

Good luck and have a great Memorial Day,

Martin

Spitting on Frank Gehry

On Frank Gehry
You are floating in space and time. Einstein’s speed of light universe seems far away. Disorientation gives way to a quiet comfort. Once a large Canadian told me if ever swept away in an avalanche I should spit. If my spittle came back slapping me in the face dig straight up. If spit went down turn around and dig. This is why I spit in front of architect’s Frank Gehry’s tubular Rasa, his fluid chaotic steel avalanches.

"I love painting, painting is my whole shtick as it were," architect Frank Gehry said to Charlie Rose tonight (I will post a link to the interview tomorrow). Yes, I see that. Gehry is the most painterly architect. He thinks like a painter molding steel, space and time more like paint than something with mass. Mental vision required to see, for the first time, Gehry’s steel building ballet is a special, special thing.

Think of Gehry’s real achievement. See those beautiful Bauhaus boxes. Boxes require intense ideology. An ideology so rigid and puffed with its own importance compliance seems the only acceptable reaction. Gehry steps into the ring, removes his gloves and swings off Cirque du Soleil-like. People came to watch a fight and Gehry gives them the next unexpected thing.

Gehry’s SHOCK is the impossible lightness of massive floating formed steel. Sculptor David Smith’s dream writ large. Smith never had Gehry’s mental POWER. Smith was a blacksmith cobbling junk into meaningful scrapes. Gehry’s audacity is simple. Nothing is outrageous. When you start any art from such a perspective, such a free and beautiful beginning, great ends are assured. This super perspective redesigns frame of reference. We see differently after Gehry. We feel differently after Gehry. By any measure, this is great art or the very definition of great art. What should you do standing in front of the Disney concert hall in LA or Bilbao in Spain? You should spit and follow my Canadian friends instructions for survival.

Peace Frank.

Martin (Marty) Smith

Justin R. Levy = King of Madison Ave

Justin's blog is cool. I like his tag, "The musings of a restauranter, social media ninja, and marketer." Look for his review of The King of Madison Avenue.

Go To Justin Levy's Blog

Organic Flatbread - New SEO Term

Organic Flatbread Defined
Ever tasted a great melt-in-your-mouth Indian flatbread? Search engine spiders have food preferences too. Search Engine Optimization is about many things INCLUDING feeding spiders. I manage a multi-million dollar e-commerce dynamic web site. Dynamic sites are the opposite of flatbread, they are quad-decked sandwiches search engine spiders need a ladder to eat. Only the most talented programmers know how to create dynamic pages, pages created on the fly simultaneous to its "call" from a customer's computer, search engine spiders love.

Flat Is Beautiful
Even HTML can be junked up with tables. Tables are like pieces of bread - more than two and it is hard to eat the SEO sandwich. CSS (cascading style sheets) don't pile on the bread nor the carbs. When I created Found Objects I only knew table based HTML. Keep in mind when looking at the first site I ever created this was ten years ago, November of 1999. The site was flat because flat was all I knew. It was a true pain to maintain. I manually made any change to over 300 pages. BUT oh the search engine rank. Type "Found Objects" into Google right now.

You will see my old Found Objects site #4 on 79MM documents. Here is the kicker. My ex killed FoundObjects.com OVER THREE YEARS AGO. Page one search rank maintained without any new content for over three years. Some reading this may think, "So what." Others will know how AMAZING that accomplishment is. Now I work for months to gain page one ranking. Even hard won listings can be lost in a day. Next time your site receives a page one ranking TURN IT OFF and see how long you last on page one.

BTW, PLEASE click on the FoundObjects.com link on Google and leave the window open (there is nothing there), but your action will help maintain the site's miracle rank.

Dynamic Hurts SEO
Since I didn't know any better, I created tables for every state to load our "cool store" partners. The data was very dynamic, always changing. I hired a programmer to put all our store information into a database. My life was MUCH easier AND our page one rank for the term "Cool Stores In XYZ state or town" slowly disappeared. This is also called tripping over the million dollar bills to pick up pennies (don't do that is my advice). Those fifty flat tables commanded the high ground in way the new dynamic site couldn't. My advice is don't let the tail wag your online marketing dog. Create organic flatbread on your web site whenever possible. Jettison your tables in favor of CSS. Tell your programmers thanks but not thanks on your most valued content. Can't do this for stores with 50,000 Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) and live to tell the story. Happily turn that mess over to your programmers. Look for places to create organic flatbread and feed search engine spiders.

Martin


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Visiting Fermi Lab

It was a Chicago summer day in 1989. We lived in Chicago for several years. My ex's job as the Store Manager for the Museum of Contemporary Art kept us in museums and galleries regularly. On this August day I suggested a different trip. "Let's go to see Fermi Lab," I said excited. Physicists are like rock stars to me. I love reading about physics and physicists (not that I understand much of what I read LOL).

I love reading about uncertainty principles, string theory and the history of quantum mechanics. Physicists and artist share many traits. Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) comes immediately to mind:). The search is the same - to understand the mind of god. Small "g" god because this artist/physicist search is not institutional religion as much as "why are we here" wanderings. Large G god may be in there for some, but she is not a requirement.

On this August day I convinced my ex to take a road trip to Fermi Lab. Fermi Lab is a beautiful modern building. Amazingly, we could walk right in (bet that is different now). No one was around on this Sunday afternoon. There were workers putting out seats for a violin concert later. The long pendulum traced a quiet line in its sand box. Notices were clustered on a bulletin board next to a "radioactivity report on Fermi Lab". The report proudly stated Fermi Lab emitted no more radioactivity than a swamp.

The particle accelerator is underground. I knew this, but thought I could see something. There was a large concrete loop on top of a grassy knoll on the side of the building. I walked about a quarter of a mile inside the loop. "Let's go," my now fully bored ex insisted loudly far away. "Just a little longer," I asked. I didn't know or couldn't articulate why we were at Fermi. I wanted to see and feel something, but I couldn't explain. I couldn't connect then what I can see now - my visit was about the search for the "god particle". There was something courageous and similar about such a search. Understanding how things happened had to help with why right?

"How does the pendulum work," my ex asked as we reentered Fermi's building. "The pendulum traces the same line over and over to infinity, but the earth moves. The earth's rotation makes the pendulum appear to move around inside the sand box," I said. "Oh," my ex said taking her car keys out and giving me her "time to go" look. Turning toward the door I heard the swish, swoop, swish of the pendulum. "Making the pendulum a lot like us," I remember saying quietly under my breath. We drove down the long drive in silence. The sun was setting. People were arriving for the concert.

Super Partners vs. Affiliates

I've been thinking affiliates are over. Google is killing them. Google is forcing e-commerce sites to care about content. This is all good. E-Commerce sites should care about content. Problem is once everyone who does what I do, manage big e-com sites, gets the right brain of commerce to live next to the left brain of content people will do what they want to - buy from sites they have relationships with. Traffic arbitrage, creating content sites for no other reason than moving the traffic over to an e-commerce site, ends the day Overstock et al. add content (and we are all doing that as fast as we can). Here is my slides on what I think is next - Super Partners:

Superpartners Vs Affiliates

View more presentations from Martin Smith.

Death of Affiliate Marketing

Google is killing affiliate marketing. Affiliates always seemed like the enemy of my enemy is my friend to me. The link below describes Super Partners....the next big thing.

Super Partner vs. Affiliates

Martin's Millionaire Poll

Keith Haring's Studio

I remember a strange quiet reverence. There was a handful of crowded rooms. Offices, papers and people seemed to be everywhere save one long rectangular chute. Shadows of paintings long too valuable to be kept here decorated the chute’s studio floor. No graffiti characters on the floor. There was just right angles, the sharp corners of works on paper, painted over and over each other creating a red, black and white right angle collage. Looking down at Keith Haring’s studio floor I tried to trace work long lifted off his floor.

We were at the Haring Foundation (c. 1999) to beg forgiveness. My ex represented Special Editions Limited (SEL). SEL was Hugh Hefner’s creation. Playboy supported contemporary art often buying publishing rights from artists. Hugh paid more to secure image rights. SEL turned publishing rights into products upsetting foundation and artist heirs. My ex was explaining an ethical yet immoral business practice – turning freely sold magazine publishing rights into products. The Haring Foundation saw product creation as their exclusive right and privilege no matter what Keith signed while alive.

I was transfixed by Haring’s floor comparing it immediately to my studio floor. His was much neater. Next the slide projector in my head put Pollack’s studio floor (recreated at MoMA’s retrospective) up for review. Pollack’s floor could be a Pollack. It was thick, balanced and beautiful. For all of Keith’s painting anything that didn’t move in New York subways, his floor was a few spills and left over corner spray paint. Keith’s characters had left the building.

Foundation members were well meaning, earnest, friends of Keith and hopelessly over matched. The foundation's commercial efforts seemed tawdry and small in comparison. SEL’s packaging could have appeared in How Magazine's yearly "best of design" issue. Some of Haring’s Pop Shop magnets actually used baggies. The Haring Foundation’s efforts were inchoate, the brand message unclear. SEL’s packaging was a thing of graphic design beauty. Each Haring watch arrived in a beautiful tube complete with die cut foam insert. Playboy spent more money on packaging a single watch than the Foundation could afford for the entire Pop Shop.

Money is no guarantor of success as our Wall Street banker friends can attest. SEL’s beautiful packaged watches couldn’t solve Playboy’s cash flow problems (especially not with that packaging). Christi had to abandon SEL. The limited edition watch business imploded. The Haring Foundation won by attrition and I will never forget Keith’s studio floor.

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NonZero Effect

Robert Wright's Nonzero Idea
Is human history predestined to get better? Turns out we wobble but we humans are hard to knock down. I'm half way through Wright's book and it is helping get over a severe Bill Moyers bummer. I respect David Simon, but his, "We are doomed" riff in a recent Moyers interview was too depressing. I see his point. The system is rigged and not in the little guy's favor. The American Dream may be dashed on rocks of over protected banks, failing car companies and outsourcing everything to some far off land, BUT who can live like that. As much of a poor opiate our American Dream may be it is preferable to NO HOPE AT ALL.

I picked Nonzero back up. I needed a mental adjustment. How, despite a stacked deck, can man evolve toward empathy, support and nonzero sum relations. There is something to this idea of innate goodness. My story and I am sticking to it :). At least until I have another one. Martin


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Martin's Contest Business Plan

**** Contest Suspended ****
I didn't get any great business ideas I felt I had to fund. My original thinking still holds: it is worth betting everything to create magic. I just didn't see the magic. If you contemplated entering thanks and best of luck. I would have had a hard time funding a start up and my planned bicycle ride across the country in September 2010. I've decided to focus on a life long dream of getting to Santa Monica on a bicycle. If you have great ideas I wish you nothing but the bes of luck.

Marty

Martin's Win Your Dream with My Money Contest
By the end of the summer I hope to award $100,000 to someone with a unique vision. We (me + 3 judge panel) will be judging business plans in a variety of areas. Here is the format we would like to use for Martin Marty Smith's Win Your Dream Business Plan:

Executive Summary

I. The Business
A. Business and Market Description
B. Marketing: Business’s Unique Selling Proposition
C. Competition: Strengths and Weaknesses
D. Blue Ocean: Where is the opportunity and why aren’t other
sharks already swimming there?
E. How will your company change the world?
F. Management Team (Bios, Resumes, Personal Capital Involved if any)
G. Board of Directors (Bios, Resumes, Personal Capital Involved if any)

II. Financial Data
A. How will $100,000 be used? Last?
B. What are total capital requirements of your business idea?
C. Breakeven analysis: when will business breakeven?
Pro-forma income projections (profit and loss statements)
(month by month detail for 1st year, quarterly in out years, years 2 and 3)
Pro-forma cash flow
D. Exit strategy

III. Strategy and Key Milestones
A. Describe Company’s “Crossing the Chasm” strategy.
B. Define 3 Go / No Go milestones.
B. Define 5 key business milestones.
C. Describe relationships between milestones, time and money.
For example: If strategic alliance A can’t be achieved by date (D1) alliances with
B, C and D must be in place by date (D2).
D. Who achieves what by when?

Martin's Win Your Dream with My Money contest is described fully in my original post.

Martin Marty Smith's Contest: Who can win?

Live Your Dream With My Money
If you've ever not followed a dream because you didn't have the money I may be able to help. My name is Martin Marty Smith. About a week ago I decided to put up a substantial part of my 401K to help someone realize their dream. I am not rich. Far from it. I drive a 10 year old Nissan Sentra (cars are stupid) Why am I risking hard won savings on a crazy contest?

There is no short answer to that question, but you can get an idea from my first post: Martin's Live Your Dream With My Money. I've had a lot of questions about who can win, so I made a list of possible winners:

programmers
moms
charities (not-for-profits = earn special bonus points)
students
punk rock bands
gift creators
writers
teachers
ex-military (special bonus points for military service)
laid off or currently unemployed (special bonus points)
bicycle creators (cycling is my favorite sport)
web site designers
friends (bonus points for putting up with moi)
graphic designers
artists
musicians
consultants
ex-newspaper anything (special bonus points)
failed entrepreneurs (special bonus points)
college students

Who can't win my contest:
Bernie Madoff

Enter Martin Marty Smith's Contest: Full Details
Entering is easy. All you have to do is write a business plan. Find a full business plan out line here: Martin's Business Plan Outline