
Hack your life for fun & profit with Mitch Altman (creator of the TV-B-Gone) - gourneau
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4600578110948529551&hl=en
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asmithmd1
Interesting history of TV-B-Gone; all the way from inspiration to
recommendations of good Chinese contract manufacturers.

Also a good caution about not warning your credit card processor if you are
going to be exceeding your stated velocities. When he first set-up TV-Be-Gone
website he thought he was wildly overestimating his first years sales when he
told them $100k/year. Three weeks later he had orders for almost $300k - good
problem to have, right? Well the credit card processor was worried he wouldn't
be able to fulfill all those orders so they told him they were holding back
the money until he did. The trouble is he needed that money to pay for the
shipment of new stock, almost causing the exact problem they were worried
about - He was bailed out by a loan from family.

TV-B-Gone now employees 11 people!

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3pt14159
This is actually a lot more common than you would think. I knew a oil
prospector that 'struck it rich' but had his line of credit called on him by
the Bank of Montreal because they didn't think he could handle setting up that
many oil rigs at once. Nearly drove the guy out of business. He ended up suing
them (he was successful in an out of court settlement and ONLY because BMO
called it within 30 days instead of the 60 days specified in his contract) and
to this day refuses to sign any agreement with any financial institution
without his lawyer rewriting everything.

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SwellJoe
Anyone else think his "presentation" enunciation is strikingly similar to that
of pg?

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alabut
Yeah, absolutely, and I thought the same thing when listening to Bruce
Sterling's SXSW talk. I don't know the technical name for it - it's the
professorial thing where the speaker lowers the tone of the voice at the end
of the sentence (like the opposite of what you do when asking a question).

