Lots of busy work.

Today I worked on drafting a message that I will personalize and send out to each of my Facebook friends inviting them the the site and seeing if I can fulfill any ticket related services they have upcoming. My hope is I won't annoy my friends. I don't want to come off sounding like an advertisement when in reality I genuinely need the help of others to get this thing launched. I guess I'll know who my true friends are soon.

While workin on this I noticed the default thumbnail that Facebook shows for TixPix looks really bad. I spent a a couple hours figuring that out and working on some much needed artwork. Now the TixPix thumbnails in Facebook look great.

Also fixed some other minor bullshit with how buttons appear in safari on iOS devices. The trick is -WebKit-appearance: none;

Also started a google Adwords account and crated my first campaign, which is temporarily paused.

Tomorrow I will really purchase some tickets.

Ready to Launch

After one year of solid web development I am ready to launch TixPix. Tomorrow I am gonna secure some tickets to list on TixPix. Goal is to get 6 pairs of tickets, each pair being to a different event in a different city. I'm going for variety. Once tickets are purchased then the advertisement phase of this begins.

Planning Stages

Many brainstorming sessions took place to help shape the concepts of what I wanted to TixPix to be and in what ways it would be better than existing secondary ticket markets. One thing occurred to me early on was that just starting out my costs would be very low and this would allow me to significantly undercut StubHub. I would also allow users to list their tickets as an auction. TixPix would become a hybrid between Craigslist, StubHub and eBay.

What is TixPix

So what is TixPix and how did I conceive of it.  In 2008 I got the idea to start a website that would improve upon the clinching and elimination scenarios for NFL teams as the playoffs drew near.  I worked on the project passively in my spare time while still employed at NASA's Johnson Space Center as a Flight Controller for the Space Shuttle Program.  The domain I wanted was PlayoffRace.com but another person already owned it.  I contacted the owner and explained how it was that I wanted to use the domain and he had similar ambitions but not the time to bring the site to fruition.  I offered to buy the domain from him from him for $150 plus a $100 dollar donation to a charity of his choice.  He agreed, and I made the donation to the MS society per his choice.  In 2008 I launched this website and it has doubled in traffic every year since its launch.  I always viewed PlayoffRace as a stepping stone to a more profitable website.  For months I contemplated how I wanted to eventually turn PlayoffRace profitable.  I had thoughts of creating a paid for app and possibly adding gambling into the mix.  After long consideration I concluded the best use of PlayoffRace would be to try and steer some of my growing PlayoffRace traffic onto a site that sold tickets to the events for which I was computing stats on.  This would certainly be a much smaller legal headache then trying to run a gambling operation.  And so it was.  I would create a ticket website where fans could buy and sell tickets to one another and compete with the monopolies of eBay and StubHub (which eBay also owns). I must have searched over 1000 domain names before I found one that I liked and was within my price reach.  "TixPix.com" was for sale on a domain auction site and I placed a bid of $300.  My bid won.  TixPix.com was born.

Purpose

The purpose of this blog is to document the progress of my new startup company, TixPix LLC.  My goal is to write at least one blog entry per week highlighting the main progress points for the week.  I believe that the American dream is still alive and well, so follow me on my journey from unemployment to riches in the weeks months and years to follow.