Friday, April 30, 2004

Taubman Provides Wi-Fi in Texas

Slightly disappointed...

TimesDispatch.com | 'Online shopper' has new meaning:
"Internet lovers take note: You can now surf the Web wire-free in the outdoor commons areas at Stony Point Fashion Park."


I have been planning on providing either free or free-ish wi-fi from The Chippery in Wellington Green but this looks like it won't happen. My idea was to "light up" the surrounding area with a hot spot that would be free for a limited time for those that purchase anything from my place or give the user the option of registering for a regular account. I've been planning to use Airpath's Wi-Boss platform for this. I'll bring it up with the Wellington Green management and see if it can still fly. In either case, this wouldn't have been available until a few months after opening. I would want to gather some feasibility info before plunking down a grand or two on the service and hardware.

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Meeting Set

We finally have a meeting date with the guys from The Chippery. They're set to fly down to Miami on Monday, 5/10, and leave Wednesday, 5/12. I'll meet with them first thing in the morning on Tuesday and take them around to some of the target malls. If we don't come to an agreement by the end of their trip, I'm going to have to walk away and pursue other options.

Monday, April 26, 2004

WARN Letter

I got an email from our HR lady today that my WARN letter was ready to be picked up. Apparently MOT has to give me 60 days written notice prior to the day that they "Exit" me. I thought it would be funny to go over there and pretend I didn't know what was going on. I show up at her cube and ask what the letter is all about and she says it's my 60 day notice.

I ask "Notice for what?"

She starts to show concern... "ahm... Notice for your June 25th Exit date."

I hesitate. "I'm being fired?!"

Deer in headlights! Ahh the simple pleasures :)

Friday, April 23, 2004

Slate's "Gourmet" Chip Taste-off

Slate published an article that pinned a few gourmet chips against each other in a taste-off. Not very thorough but it was interesting to read. NPR also ran a piece on the article.

Thursday, April 22, 2004

On Negotiations...

I was pretty excited when I got out of my first negotiation call with the guys from The Chippery. It seemed things had gone well; I got them to agree to giving me pretty much all of Florida in exchange for a healthy development schedule and zero cash. We agreed that I would rework their original supplier agreement and that we would get back together to finish up the deal. This was on March 11th!

After submitting the revised agreement to the Chippery guys, it seemed that we weren't all on the same page during our first call. All sorts of issues came up and hesitations delayed us quite a bit. We went through four rounds of revisions. Each time, I would ask during the end of the call if we had an agreement or not. The answer was always yes, but when they received the updated drafts, things would change again. At the same time, we found that the corporations that they had formed in the states were not in good standing. The Nevada company was in default for failure to file an officer's report (relatively simple process) and the Delaware company was void altogether for failure to file capital tax forms for the last two years. These forms were also relatively simple and inexpensive to do. I ended up getting very frustrated and informed them that if they didn't get things settled by yesterday (I gave them a week), I was going to have to walk away.

Luckily, when I called today, Geoff recognized that the week off helped him realize the amount of risk that I was willing to bear to get their brand up and running in Florida. He agreed to fly down to meet me in person during the next week and iron out the remaining details.

My big lesson has been not to assume things are settled until the ink is dry. Needless to say, the ink isn't even on the paper yet, so I'm still in limbo in terms of the license.

Monday, April 19, 2004

I'm Linked In

I got an invitation to join Dan's network on LinkedIn. This looks pretty interesting - there's potential if the people you invite take it somewhat seriously.