Serial Entrepreneur

Somewhere right now, a snake-oil salesman is devising his next killer app, one that will "revolutionize social media as we know it" or some such crap. Ten years ago, he was going to "take the dot com world by storm!" with SEO. He will survive, because bullshit is his art, and he knows how to sling it.

 

Click for the large.

(Yes, there are people out there calling themselves "serial entrepreneurs." That's like telling a venture capitalist, "I can't stick with anything for too long. I like to set it up, run away with some cash and then watch it crash because it was a dumb idea all along.")

Seriously, Not a Good Name For Your Daycare

Field Hockey By Any Other Name Will Still Fail

When Native Americans played the sport, each team had 60 players. That might be awesome. (Click image for cool view.)

Got your season tickets yet?

Heavy metal soundtrack? Check.
Overexcited announcers? Check.
Scantily clad cheerleaders? No.

But that omission won't be responsible for killing the latest sport to try to establish a foothold in Orlando. Here's what will: No one will care. This town can barely support an NBA team that made it to the championship last year.

Professional Indoor Lacrosse.

And trust me, no edgy slogan like "Stick It!" is going to help.

Lacrosse, a fun and fast-paced game requiring speed, stamina and toughness, was apparently tired of being kicked around the edges of college campuses with the likes of Ultimate Frisbee. So they established a pro league. I'm sure it's a huge hit in Edmonton and Calgary, but Florida ain't gonna play. Here's the crowd turnout in Minnesota, an established lacrosse hotspot. Everett, Washington is getting a team this year. Boston got one last year. How's it going, Beantown? Yeah, I didn't think so. Boston's average attendance for their new team is 8,470 in an arena that seats 18,000. That's not good business.

Down here, it will be worse. No one is going to go to the games. I give it two years. Two years of front office staff and players going on radio stations, hyping it up, encouraging people to come and "See what it's all about!" Two years of poorly produced local commercials. And then, just as they left New York, the Orlando Titans will move somewhere else.

Good luck, boys, but I wouldn't start establishing any roots here.

Starchtastic Carb Overload

I haven't tried it. Don't think I ever will. Has anyone had this thing? Pasta in a bread bowl. C'mon. This seems like it was invented for inclusion in This is Why You're Fat. What was that meeting like at Domino's headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan?

(Harp roll-down SFX)

"Papa John's is kicking our asses!"

"Papa John is a dick."

"Yeah, I know. But he's been moving in on our sales."

"You not worried about DiGiorno's or the other frozens?"

"Phhhft. Those require work on the part of the consumer. Get in the car. Go to the store. Put it in the oven. We're after the lazies. The stoners. The losers. The fat-asses."

"Then it's easy."

"What?"

"We make this giant crust thing that's just freakishly massive."

"And what? Stuff it with cheese?"

"No. We did that."

"OK. So?

"I'm thinking we fill it with pasta!"

"That sounds disgusting."

"To you. But let's test it on a couple focus groups of lazy fat-asses and stoner losers and see."

"His Confident Smile and Kind Eyes"

It's not quite a painting of Elvis on black velvet, but I suspect that's coming soon. We're striving for new lows in American kitsch with this gem - and this gem of a production from The American Historic Society. To have been assigned this abomination of a script to read would be pure torture. Behold, "The Victory Plate."

I Don't Usually Jump Onboard With New Apps

But Kwooky looks pretty promising. It's got everything a Web 2.0 app needs. Nonsensical, made-up name, silly, quirky font, dumb tagline and the all-important "beta" designation. What Kwooky does no one is certain, since I just made it up after searching to make sure the URL Kwooky.com was available. But that's all it takes. Now I just need some developers and some venture capital and I can sell this idea to Google in about a year.

Stupid ideas keep getting funding, and I won't single out the ones I find stupid, but here's a clue: if the "About Us" page contains super-hip, irreverent bios of a bunch of guys with titles like "ninja" who all reside in diverse locations, then I would keep my venture capital away from those dudes.

Then ask yourself, "Would I use this app? Does it do something that another app doesn't? Is it maybe just some reverse-engineered ripoff? Can I live without it? Will it change the way I do business?"

Also, do a little research into the principals of the start-up. If they can't seem to hold down a job for more than a year, it's a good bet they're probably just ne'er-do-well punks looking for a fast buck.