By Luke Murray
We wanted to answer an inevitable question up front:
What’s the deal with AwesomeCamp?
Now, I’m not going to insult your intelligence by just copying and pasting the information from the page itself (you can obviously read) so I’m going to talk more about the story BEHIND AwesomeCamp and more of what AwesomeCamp will feel like…if you want to know the schedules, mentors, cost, services, etc. – check the actual page.
Okay, so the back story. Needless to say we have a TON of people come to Awesome Inc and just say ‘hey, I’ve got an idea for a company. What do I do?’. We’re happy to meet with these people and sometimes they have a specific request (i.e. funding, marketing, software development) and we can point them to the correct resource and we’re done….but other times it’s not that easy.
Oftentimes they will have no clue what they think they need to do. They’ll just have all these ideas about what they think they should focus on. Their mind is spinning around like a Tazmanian Devil. So we’ll spend 30 minutes to an hour with them helping them get their head on straight and figure out what they need to do, who they need to call, what they need to write, or figure out, etc.
This point is critical because now we've been able to:
1. help them get everything out of their head
2. organize all these thoughts and concepts (i.e. people will say things like "I need to design a website, do marketing, make a flier, and get a facebook page up" We’ll help them mentally simplify and ‘chunk’ things so it’s not overwhelming.  In this instance, we'd point out that ‘marketing’ is really the heading, and all the other things they just mentioned go under that)
3. prioritize them
4. clarify what the three most important next action items are.
Everyone that we’ve met with that’s come to us with an idea has said that just this 30 minutes to an hour long session helps them SO MUCH by making the whole ‘business idea’ less overwhelming.  It’s empowering because they know EXACTLY what they need to go out and DO IT.
If they were doing a 2 hour session with us then we’d probably be able to help them knock out the first 2 of their 3 most important action items on their list just through the contacts that we have or the zillion other business ideas that we have tested out.
It’s like the iron is red hot and ready to strike!
Heck if they spent the afternoon with us they might even have a first stinking customer! But they don’t have all afternoon…they don’t even have two hours….now this doesn’t mean they couldn’t just go ahead and make the calls right there at the conference room table once we’re finished meeting…they could. We don’t schedule meetings for longer than 30 minutes, unless it’s an entrepreneur with an idea – in which case we sometimes give them an hour – but nothing is stopping them from making progress except their own schedules...
They just don’t have time…to run their business?
To pursue their dream?
To take action on that thing that’s been eating at them for months and sometimes years?...No time?...Really?
Well the fact is of course they have time and of course this their dream…and so is eating healthy, getting in shape, being a good dad, student, son, etc.
So other things get in the way – makes sense. Don't worry, this happens to us all the time.
But what about the things they do make time for? Video games, sports, cards, kids, work, etc.
They are comfortable doing these things. Why? They have LOTS of experience with them. They’ve done them for hours and hours on end so it just feels natural, relaxing…like they are in the zone….
Well, what do you think we feel like at Awesome Inc all day long? Startups are our ZONE! What if you came home and instead of playing video games you worked on your idea and it felt JUST AS GOOD…or how about BETTER than playing video games, watching TV, or whatever else you spend your free time doing?
How Awesome would that be?!
Okay so back to the backstory….we meet with people, get them totally psyched and prepared, they leave right when they are ready to get to work, and never actually get started (although they are completely ready) because they don’t have ‘time’ which really means they are just not comfortable with it yet. It feels like ‘work’, it’s awkward, etc.
Another thing we realized is that almost as soon as we send someone on their way, if they do start making progress, one random piece of advice or feedback from someone (especially someone that is a ‘successful businessman’ but that has never started their own company) and they jump off track in heartbeat.
Even people that have started their own business, pulled the trigger on their dreams and are living them right now come to us and tell me how they know that there are certain parts of their operation that are just plain screwed up…and I mean WAY OFF…they want to get our advice or time, etc. Sometimes we will spend some time with them right there on the spot and try to see if we can get them squared away.
But they often end up not doing anything with the system we set up for them because they have ‘so much other stuff going on’. Translate: ‘they aren’t comfortable with it yet’.  It's feels awkward.
PLUS we see a lot of the same problems in both the pre-launch and post-launch companies that we know or that come to us for advice.
SO…the thought process went like this “Okay people with ideas all need to go through a similar process to get started. They need to get comfortable with the tools and systems necessary to get them rolling and we’ve got to get them to take action as soon as they are clear about their next steps. But they need more time and probably not just an extra hour because we’ll have to keep recalibrating them for their first few steps or they might fall hopelessly off.  And regardless it will take them some time to be comfortable. The same thing is happening with small startup businesses…how do we rock them more effectively and efficiently and make them not just comfortable with the process, but enjoy it?â€
BAM! AwesomeCamp! (details on that page).
Okay great…so that’s the need that we saw and the backstory…now to what will Awesomecamp feel like?!
Here it is in mathematical form for you tech guys in the house:
Party + bootcamp + deepest conversation of your life + most efficient networking event ever + personal trainer pushing you way past your ‘last rep’ + jumping off a cliff with no parachute and a box of metal…planning to build a plane on the way down = AwesomeCamp
If you’ve read about how we came to the idea, what the week should be like should be pretty obvious – we’re going to get you clear and focused, and get you to PULL THE TRIGGER, CRACK THE WHIP, MAKE IT RAIN!!!!
You’ll have super short deadlines to hit multiple times per day. Brian, Luke, and others from Team Awesome will be there to coach you in real time (almost none of the classroom lecture stuff, we will be there guiding you AS IT GOES DOWN – ever heard the phrase, it’s impossible to steer a parked car?...yeah same thing…it’s also the same reason that the UK basketball team doesn’t spend all of every practice session listening to Calipari talk and draw up plays…they GO PLAY BASKETBALL).
You’re going to be in the trenches next to other people that are pushing towards their definition of awesome.
As soon as you need to get a question answered or connected to someone – we’re on the phone with them. We’ve got a list of mentors that have agreed to be on call for the week – willing to answer any emails or phone calls that have to do with helping AwesomeCamp participants.
We’re going to make you comfortable, with all the aspects of starting and running a business by making sure we get you spending as much time as possible ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING and that what you are doing is THE RIGHT THING.
By the time you’re finished you’ll not only be comfortable with moving rapidly on an idea, but you’ll be coached on how to move rapidly IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.
We’re going to take you to some places in Lexington that we guarantee you’ve never been, introduce you to people we know you’ve never met, and most importantly we’re going to GET YOUR BUSINESS FARTHER IN A WEEK THAN YOU COULD GET IT IN A MONTH BY YOURSELF.
You’re gonna be dead tired by the end of AwesomeCamp on Saturday….but you’ll have an IDEA that is ALIVE!
So that’s the backstory. And that’s what it’s gonna feel like.
Any questions? Ask Jay Z…
"I came I saw I conquered" Rule #76 No excuses. Play like a champion. luke@awesomeinc.org