I was stoked when Connie Bensen, Community Manager at Network Solutions, contacted me a week ago to ask if I’d be interested in doing an interview about ClickBricks. Connie and I were able to connect last week and I had a great chat with her. She notified me that she posted the article/interview on Network Solutions blog, Solutions are Power, on Friday. Thanks Connie and here’s to small businesses thriving!

My hypothesis: take a common everyday thing that Christians spend a lot of money on (in this case online job postings), capture that revenue and redirect it to charity. Oh, and involve the church in the process. Will it work? I have no idea. But I just had to try. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Note: I’ve been contemplating different ways to use my design and web knowledge to catalyze the spread of “pure and undefiled” religion so there may be more of these ideas introduced in the future.

When Henry Ford launched the Model T there was the railroad. When Sam Walton launched Wal-Mart there was K-Mart and its blinking blue light. When Edison invented the light bulb there was, well, I guess a bunch of messy candles and smoky kerosene lamps. The point I’m trying to make is great ideas often start as really big underdogs in the face of current behemoths.

And so it is with ClickBricks. (Haha, ok so I feel a little silly for equating it with the above examples, but you get the point.) I’ve wanted to try to compete with blow Yellow Pages out of the water for 3 years and the time has finally come to fire my first (deliberate) shot. Hopefully, with much more blood (ok not literally), sweat and tears, this little pea shooter will prove to be a worthwhile business endeavor and allow me to recoup the time, energy, legal fees, programming fees, emotional strain and brain cell consumption that has gone into it and ultimately provide the unique excitement, satisfaction and societal benefit that only entrepreneurial adventures can bring.

In the words of Tiger Woods (sort of) “I feel good, the site looks good, I like my chances.” (If you know where that comes from I’ll give you a cookie.)

Thanks to (in no particular order) Mike Skaggs - Economic Development Director for the State of Nevada, Doug Thomas - Assistant Dean at Anderson School of Management and Tom Carroll - president and founder of Carroll Strategies for sitting on the Advisory Board. Your input has been valuable thus far and I look forward to your continued involvement.

And if you know business owners that advertise online be sure to tell them about ClickBricks - I’d greatly appreciate it!

I’m not wired to over think things. On the contrary, more often than not, I tend to “ready, shoot, aim”. I have a feeling in my gut and I go with it. The few times I have over thought things, it has caused me to be positively influenced by opinions that I initially didn’t agree with, which has then led to tremendous stagnation. Paralysis by analysis if you will.

There is one particular project where this has clearly been the case. Shoot, I’ve been working on it since 2004, all the way back when I was in business school.

I’m kind of embarrassed that it’s still lingering, but have realized that it would be more detrimental to my character if I abandoned it, than if I put my head down and plowed through it. So that’s what I’ve decided to do. In the process I have realized the vital importance of Proverbs 4:23 and a practical (and probably rather loose) application of Matthew 6:7 (the “don’t cast your pearls before swine” passage.)

What can I say? You’ve got to be who you are and I like implementing ideas as fast and as well as I can. More on this post to come soon…

Modern Olive is the first “pay whatever you want” Adventure in the Youkipedia family. There are a lot of Christian job posting boards, but they are too expensive and poorly designed. Would love to hear your feedback!

PS - We made it to Florida! I’ll post some pics of the trip shortly!

Some people expressed confusion regarding what Doctor Div is so it’s undergoing a makeover to clarify. Here’s a sneak peak. Should be live on the DoctorDiv url within the next few days.

I love having kids. Repeat, LOVE it. Being married and having kids simply feels like how life should be lived. I’m not a believer in overlaying personal experience as mandated advice for others so if you’re not married or don’t have kids that is A-OK. In fact, I’ve got lots of friends that are single and kid-less and they are great people. Ok, enough with “parent, married” valuations. Bottom line is that me and my wife currently love married life and children. Hopefully, we’ll daily tend to it so the wheels don’t come flying off at some future date.

So, anyway, my oldest son likes to watch me work on the computer and one of the things he frequently tells me (while watching from over my shoulder or sitting next to me) is “Nice website daddy!” It’s nice to have your kids appreciate what you do, but his design sensibilities are at a point where I could be the worst designer on the planet and he’d probably still like what he sees.

So, what does a three word sentence have to do with anything?

Well, over the last several weeks, some very nice people have asked if I design blog themes and I thought, “that would be fun.” So I started to put together a few designs and thought it would also be fun to call the Adventure “Nice Website Daddy”. So basically, some people have asked for designs, my kids like them and I’ve tried to respond to the market. Yay! I’m being a true Friedman free market capitalist! (i.e. use economies of scale available to you to sell the same products and services for a better price OR sell better products and services at the same price). At least I hope that’s what I’m doing.

Cheesy, lame, expected? I don’t know. What I do know is that it jives in my guts (which by the way I’m trying to use as the barometer for my biz decisions - at least as much as all of the business school “knowledge”. By the way, if you know what that “knowledge” consists of I’ve got twenty thousand dollars and 4 years of my life that would like to know.

Come to think of it, this might be a good time to introduce Youkipedia which is the result (as other forthcoming Adventures are too) of my overly active drive, evil ambition and lack of focus (at least according to some fellow humans who have previously crossed my path).

Well, here’s to those three “vices” - i put in quotations because I think all three critiques are silly - which I’ll take any day over your timid, insecure, careful business acumen.

Late! (sorry, I’ve had a little pent up moxy that needed to get out).

So without furthr adieu, here is the first Nice Website Daddy theme. I don’t have an official name yet. Any suggestions? You can purchase the theme here (I’ll email you zip file of theme within 24 hours). If you’re wondering why it’s not free, check out Youkipedia to get the lowdown.

I hope you have a good day! Brandon

You may recall a rambling post about “voices in my head” that equated to a bunch of business ideas. If you’ve got a few minutes to waste you can read it here. Otherwise, feel free to keep reading.I’ve been having so much fun slicing CSS that I decided to create a little website to manage the projects that I’ve been doing. There’s a cool little admin interface that allows people to post projects, upload files, track progress, leave feedback, preview their files and pay their invoice.A couple of cool benefits of using the Doc (haha, so cheesy), include getting every 10th slice free. I am also slicing for a wide variety of CMS apps like Blogger, WordPress, Drupal, Movable Type and Joomla!. So if you’ve got a custom design for one of these or another site and don’t want or have the time to do the slicing yourself feel free to give the Doc a try.Overall, I’ve had fun putting this project together and am excited about how it will streamline the current project flow and am looking forward to how the service will grow and evolve.Cheers!

…to find a few hours to do some work on ClickBricks over the weekend. I am happy with how the idea is developing and feel good about the new design. More to come soon. Now I need to find the time to update the design of this site. Yuck, it is pretty bad.