Before I get into it, a brief update on the NIX Technologies venture.

The gentleman that I was going to purchase the technology from went south on me with his kids getting involved.  In Feb '08 he decided NOT to sell and the whole deal fell apart.

Now for the exciting news!

I taught a Memory Course based on the book by Harry Lorraine and Jerry Lucas called Super Power Memory clear back in 1976.

Since then I've wanted to put together a course for Home Schooled kids to give them a system to learn better by.  I watched a friend of mine's 10 year walking around repeating endlessly trying to memorize all the presidents, in order, and the years they served.  Eventually that process took the better part of 3 days.  With a memory system, that could have been accomplished in about 40 minutes with perfect recall.

The educational system for the most part teaches the basics, letters, words, sentences, and communicating, numbers, equations, and formulas, but NO memorization skills basics.

Then they have you "learn" the 100+ elements of the Periodic Table of Elements or "learn" the 50 states, their capitals, and the year they became a state.  The students NEED memorization skills to better utilize their study times to REALLY learn.

So I'm currently building an online memorization system from Ron White's Memory In A Month course that I recently took.

In 2009, I'll be building a "basic" course for elementary level children, to be followed up with an "intermediate" course, an "advanced" course for topics in high school, and finally a "super advanced" course for college level memorization and those just wanting to excel at memorization skills.

With 1.1 million Home Schooled kids in the U.S., the market is vast and I haven't even looked at the overflow from private and charter schools that will invariably see the value and promote it within their walls.

My goal in 2009 is to put 35,000 "basic" students through the initial course and have the "intermediate" and "advanced" courses online by years end.

I'm looking to build a STRONG team of people to make this vision a reality.  So if you or someone you know could really get onboard with this vision and would like to be a part of a very exciting venture, please get in contact with me ASAP.

Well by the end of day Friday, I'd assembled completely 9 swimming pool units and painted 6 of them.  Wow does that glue stink!

My estimation is about 60 minutes of assembly with parts preparation on these first 9 units.  But its a big learning curve and I think I over engineered and over assembled them significantly.

Am waiting on parts for the other 11 units and will be setting up appointments for my time in Los Angeles to meet with Pool Maintenance companies to establish Distributorships for a few lucky companies to launch this into the Orange County and Los Angeles county markets.

My goal is to sell ALL 20 units and pre-sell another 20 before returning to Wichita to build the next set.

I'm looking for successful Pool Maintenance companies that can help me setup a meeting with other Pool Maintenance companies to introduce them to this marvelous technology.

Who do you know? 

It's been way too long since my last post and with things happening so fast, I'll start posting almost daily.

To date we've raised $30,000 cash with commitments to another $30,000.  Raising $100,000 for first round product launch.

Jun 2007 - Kathryn Booth became our Project Manager 

09/18/2007 - Formed the NIX Technologies, LLC in Nevada

09/30/2007 - inventoried Cecil's parts and equipment, attained parts enough for several pool units and house units.

Oct 2007 - Gene Kamarasy started working with us as CFO.

10/18/2007 - built first swimming pool unit, and yes, its in my garage.

Decided that the Swimming Pool market is the lowest hanging fruit, lowest barrier to entry, and just happens to be our highest profit margins.  Currently working on building 20 pool units, the Pool Maintenance brochure, the Swimming Pool Owner brochure, and a relationship with a good friend in Orange County who runs a successful Pool Maintenance business and belongs to the Independant Poolman Association of 70 guys.

With 55,000 pools in Orange County, California, this looks like as good a place to start as any.  An estimated 35,000 are currently being maintained by Pool Maintenance companies. 

If you know someone who owns/runs a Pool Maintenance business, I'd love to add them to our growing list so that after the first of the year, we can start rolling this out to them systematically.

Below are some of the pictures of the Assembly Bench and the first several units in process:

11/01/2007 - I glued the first 8 units into their bases which had to be modified to ensure a high quality product.  Steve Hirsh is also onboard the team as our Manufacturing Design Engineer and delivered the first renditions of the Home Unit will have a futuristic look and very easy assembly.  Built the stand to paint 3 units at one time, I'll see how that goes tomorrow. 

Natural Ion eXchange (aka water softener)

Today we signed the Purchase Option giving me the exclusive rights to buy all the MagnaCare intellectual property, manufacturing techniques, jigs, parts, etc. up till June 1, 2007. Yeah!

So now the fun REALLY begins.  

I've been working on the Business Plan and have Eric Gilboord from Phase2Marketing and Ed Bogle on board for marketing and strategizing.

Have in my possession 4 of the household units and will be shipping them to LA to for my booth at the Free Enterprise Forum Expo.

Another IBIer is interested in OEMing the unit for their Healthy-Buildings business.  Will be working out the details of that shortly.

The big 350 house build is still in the process of deciding on whether to use our unit or not.  No word yet but am expecting to have a Letter of Intent before the 307 class.

Air Alert Caps

Working with Johann Haldors and there may be a hint that NASCAR is possibly interested in this device.

Several more have signed up to be affiliates and I've added personalized affiliate subdirectories for some of the more high powered affiliates.

Mark Spencer of Safe 444 is now an affiliate and we are planning to do an interview for a Podcast in the near future.

Movie Business Plan

Preparing for a March launch, now with photos for the Director, Writer, and Producer being able to be added.  Will be adding an Audio file for the Director or Writer to tell about the project and let us "feel" their passion.  You won't be able to do that with a paper baed biz plan.

Look for the BIG announcement by David Stanley at Class 307.

My-Intouch

I love networking, meeting people, and making new contacts.  But the existing system of either Outlook, spreadsheets, or one of the online systems like Salesforce just seemed to either be too complicated, took too long to learn even the basics, was too expensive, or just plain didn't do easily what I needed to make notes, set scheduled call or meeting times, e-mail, or keep track of what it was I am supposed to do next.

So I built one.  My-InTouch.com is a simple but powerful tool to help manage my contacts.

I'd love for anyone interested to register and give me feedback on the system before I get to the Free Enterprise Forum and announce the launch of this system.

Until the domain name propagates to my new server, you can see it at:

www.my-intouch.com 

Please comment.

Air Alert Caps Project 

Well I placed my first free standing countertop display in David's tire business today January 23rd with 4 sets of the Air Alerts on hooks I added to the back of the display.  So I've picked up parts to make 2 more displays and plan to have them out next week.

The Tell a Friend system has been down for over a week due to complaints from my Co-location hosting company for using their Exchange e-mail server.  I've installed my own SMTP e-mail server and will begin testing tomorrow so I will be self sufficient and can get back on track. 

The inventor is working on a longer running display for me.

If you'd like to learn more about the Air Alert Caps, my website is:  Here

Movie Business Plan

My 1st IBI Free Enterprise Forum was Class 706 (July 2006) and I met David Stanley and Gail Lynn of Impello Films.  His very inspirational talk Monday night started with a statement that if you could write a "Movie business plan software" you'd do very well with it.  So I gave David a See Me card immediately following the session.

We talked more about my technology and that I'd like to move forward and partner with him do build and promote an online Movie Business Plan system to create business plans for Independent film makers.

At 906, the 3 of us sat down and formalized the partnership, company name, and what the role would be of each partner.  I'm the technology guy, surprise, surprise.

So I've obtained the domain name for the site, and am working on finishing the technology.  It is presently about 95% done having just added Rich Text Editing so that you can format the text for the html similar to what we use in the blog posting window.

We will be announcing the full release of the Movie Biz Plan technology at Class 307!

Natural Ion eXchange (NIX)

Enter Cecil Schniepp, of Wichita, Ks.  An 86 year old gentleman that has been very successful in the pool design and building industry, having retired 21 years ago, he turned to his passion of perfecting a water softening/revitalization system that requires NO salt, NO chemicals, and NO electricity yet not only softens water so that it doesn't produce the calcium and magnesium scaling, but will actually REVERSE the process and clean the pipes.

I've learned A LOT about the water conditioning industry lately and have become very impressed with his MagnaCare devices. 

Currently in negotiations with Cecil for purchasing his company, intellectual property, and all products and parts for future builds.

He sells about $50,000 of these a year by accident.

Have a couple of possible big projects that are already interested in putting them into their next development.  One is 350 houses.

Am looking for team members to get this project going and am currently writing the biz plan for it.

That's all for now. 

At Class 1206 weekend I introduced for the first time a unique device that warns you when your tire pressure has dropped by 4 or more pounds.  They were a big hit and it generated enough interest to warrant ordering my first 3  dozen order.

The guy who invented them lives in Southern California and has been producting them for about 2 years with most sales in Europe.  But with 150 million vehicles in the US, I figured there should be a very good market for them here and have gotten involved with him to promote them here and via the Net.

Working to get them on QVC and HSN, I'm working with Carrie Jeske of Sport Shade fame.

Built a Tell A Friend system to deliver 5 autoresponders.

The Affiliate Program is in full gear and anyone can now sign up to be an affiliate to promote and earn $10 commissions on each sale they generate first level, $5 second level.

Banner ads have been created and are now on 3 websites, with promotions starting this week from them as well.

Working with a contact given to me by a fellow IBI'er, thank you Sandy Vosk, and they are very interested in the Air Alert Caps for Truckers and we are getting ready to send them a set for 5 trucks to start testing.

I've updated the new Sales Letter and would like your feedback on it at: here

Had my first meeting with David who owns David's Tires here in Wichita and he likes the Air Alert Caps and wants a display for his shop.

Talked with an Oil Change place and they referred me to their corporate office.

Feedback has been very good so far with the only negative being that some think they will get stolen.  My comment is that we "almost never" look at tire valve stems and what is on them and if it is flashing you should go get air in the tire and it won't be noticable any longer. The inventor of the Air Alert Caps is working on a sleeve to make it harder to steal them as well.

I've also set a goal of selling 1,000,000 sets this calendar year.  Which means that I won't be able to do that just by myself, so if you know of anyone who is connected to the tire industry, oil change industry, or auto parts houses, I'd love to talk with them!
 

I've been involved in starting new businesses since I was 14 years old, following in the traditions of my grand father and my old man.

Having been in and out of corporate America, being an Entreprenuer suits me better.

I have been blessed to have a unique perspective on things and see things that "could" be with a very optomistic future.  As I always have my eyes open for opportunites, the last year has furnished several that are now utilizing my gifts and talents to finish development and bring them to the market.

My background ranges from the US Navy on FBM Nuclear Submarines to the Kennedy Space Center working on the Shuttle program, to consulting with Gillette, Mattel, and  Disney.

The primary expertise has become Business Process Re-engineering and streamlining processes using a variety of technologies of which I currently own 3 BPR technologies.

The latest being the AutoSave for web-forms on the Internet. Have developed 2 versions, one for the Web Application Developers and one for companies that deal with the general Public.  The "Commercial" version is now in the market, having been released December 1, 2006 and we've had our first sale.

Several months ago I started working on a design to help warn people when their tire pressure was low and found that I'd been beaten to the punch, which was fine with me, that way I didn't have to spend a year in development, testing, and patenting.  The Air Alert Valve Caps are a really terrific little valve cap that goes on each tire, learns the pressure, and flashes a bright red light when the pressure drops by 4 psi or more.  I'm working with the Inventor to open up markets for them and working with Carrie Jeske to get them on QVC during "National Tire Safety Awareness Week" during the week of April 22 - 28.

I've also found a new device to soften and revitalize water that requires no salt, no chemicals, and no electricity, yet from all I've been able to find does a far superior job over all the competitors.  Currently in negotiations to purchase the company and all the Intellectual Property for both the Residential and Commercial markets.

I'll keep you posted on progress on these 3 main ventures, so check back often as this stuff seems to move very quickly.