Based on the success of the twitter article by Eric Brantner last week I wanted to start a new feature on YGG, we are going to call it “tweeter of the week.” We are going to feature a bunch of great followers of YGG at least once a week, maybe more. If you are interested in being featured please find me on twitter by using the follow button near the bottom of the page and send me a message!
We are going to kick it off with a longtime friend of YGG, Michael Castilla from WPCandy. He has helped me get through a few WordPress issues in the past and saved me a lot of hair in the process! So here we go! I hope you like the interview and give him a follow as well! @michaelcastilla
What got you interested in Twitter?
Initially, I found out about Twitter via some blogs and from a few friends who were using the service. After a few days, I stopped tweeting because I thought it was lame and pointless. A few months passed, and my good friend Pasquale persuaded me to get back into it.
What do you like most about Twitter?
Hmm. What I like most about Twitter is the relationship I’ve built with my followers and the people I follow. In my eyes, we’re sort of an online family.
What program do you use to check Twitter and why?
Out of all the Mac apps I’ve tested out, I keep falling back to Twitterrific. I’m in love with it. It’s perfect for what I need and the interface is sleek and simple.
Name your five favourite people you are following right now. And let us know why they are your favourite!
I couldn’t think of 5 favorite followers, so here are a few:
Adelle Charles (adellecharles) – She’s a very active Twitterer and she loves to retweet useful links.
Tim Van Damme (maxvoltar) – He’s pretty funny and always has something interesting to share.
Daniel Brusilovsky (danielbru) – He’s so young and so active in the business world, it’s crazy.
And last but not least, why should people follow you?
Well, I tweet about the Web, WordPress, my some-what interesting life, and random stuff. I like to keep things interesting!
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Intro
We are no strangers to the “interview” here at YGG, I think it is a great way to interact with other YGG’s that you haven’t heard of or want to get to know more about. This week I went local, to a good friend to talk about his success. I learned a lot from this gentleman on how to sell, but more importantly on how to stay positive and how that effects everyone around you.
He is a class act, and you will see a strong leader and team player. He has made great success for himself through that positive attitude. Please help support him in his new endeavors, there is a lot that can be learned from what he has to say and the message is beneficial to everyone!
I hope you enjoy!
Interview
We know you’re a “Young Go Getter”, but so our readers know, how old are you?
29
Can you tell us the quick history about yourself, and what drives you to succeed?
Currently I am the General Sales Manager at Winnipeg Hyundai, Canada’s Largest Hyundai Dealership, and in the process of launching BrentSayles.com. A Professional Training, Sales, and Non-profit website.
I love my current position and have developed my passion for training and coaching through my amazing team of professionals.
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Shawn David Nelson is a creative, intelligent, savvy, determined entrepreneur. He’s also a crazy, impulsive, risk-taking, spike-haired rebel. It’s this dichotomy that’s helping Shawn—and his Original Oversized Sacs—defy generally accepted convention and make LoveSac the greatest brand for the world. He is establishing his name as the next-generation CEO.
First of all Shawn, I would like to thank you for taking the time to do this interview for YoungGoGetter.com.
Joey: We know you’re a “Young Go Getter”, but so our readers know, how old are you?
Shawn: 31 now. I started LoveSac, technically, when I was 18. Registered it officially as a business when I was 21.
Joey: Can you tell us the quick history on Love Sac and how it came from an idea to product?
Shawn: I thought it would be funny to make the biggest bean bag chair in the world when I was 18, and just graduated from High School. I actually got off the sofa, drove to the fabric store that day, bought 14 yards of vinyl fabric, cut out the biggest baseball pattern I could draw, and my girlfriend’s mom sewed it up. I spent 3 weeks trying to stuff it with every soft chunky thing I could find. Bean bag beads made a mess. Foam from our yellow camping mattresses worked the best. The Sac was born – and it was much better (and far larger) than a bean bag, no doubt.
Everybody wanted to buy one. Three years later, after abandoning the Sac for two years to become a missionary in Taiwan, I returned home and took the Sac out to the drive-in movies again. I had so many people trying to convince me to make them one, that I started the company, registered the name “LoveSac” in October, 1998, as the name seemed the best fit for a bean-bag like thing inspired by the love-piece-hippie generation. My friends and I made them in the basement, and sold them at home-shows, boat-shows, car-shows, and out of a van, as we finished college. We showed them at a trade show and secured and order for 12,000 small Sacs for a retailer’s Christmas merchandising. We had to build a real factory to make that many, so we credit-carded a lot of farm equipment for shredding foam, and built a factory in an old warehouse in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah.
After completing our first large order, we had spent all of the money on inefficiency in the factory. We opened our first LoveSac store in a brand new shopping mall out of desperation—luckily the mall, at that time, was just as desperate to fill empty spaces. We had to pay for this factory somehow, and the big furniture stores just weren’t willing to stock gigantic oversized Sacs from us yet. The first store, at the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City, Utah, was a huge success! We sold far more than the Sac-a-day we had hoped for to pay the rent. Ten days into it people were asking about franchise opportunities. Six weeks into it, and we had sold every single Sac our little factory could produce before going home for Christmas on Christmas Eve.
Years later, LoveSac is still small, but growing fast with 25 company owned stores in high-end shopping centers, from Los Angeles to New York City. LoveSac.com is a major part of our business now too. In 2005 I won a reality TV show on FOX Network called “The Rebel Billionaire,” where the host, Sir Richard Branson of Virgin fame, took us around the world facing business and risk taking challenges. I won $1 Million which I invested in LoveSac, and Richard became a minor investor in LoveSac as well. LoveSac has had to completely re-organize, start over, and grow again because of mistakes made along the way, but somehow, not only are we still alive, we are about to explode!
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I finally was able to sit down with Jake Nickell, one of the founders and CEO of our favorite t-shirt company, Threadless.com and ask him a few questions. Enjoy the interview Young Go Getters!
First of all Jake, I would like to thank you for taking the time to do this interview for YoungGoGetter.com.
Joey: We know you’re a “Young Go Getter”, but so our readers know, howold are you?
Jake: I was born in 1980 and am currently 27 years old. I started Threadless when I was 20.
Joey: Can you tell us the quick history on Threadless.com and itsparent company Skinny Corp and how it came from an idea to product?
Jake: Well, when I was going to college I became a member of an online art forum called Dreamless and entered a tee shirt competition that wasbeing held there. I won that competition and then got to thinking how cool it was and came up with the idea of Threadless. I bounced it off a friend, it resonated and we decided to do it. Threadless was created as a hobby, a way for artists to spend a little free time making something on their computers that could become an actual object. skinnyCorp was started as the parent company to Threadless because we also did web development work for clients. We don’t do that anymore thank God.
Joey: We know you are the founder of Threadless, but I am sure there is more to you than that. What are some other things you have done prior to founding Threadless or things you are currently working on?
Jake: Before Threadless I was going to school and working as a web developer. I like to hang out with my wife and our daughter… My dad was in the army and we moved around a lot growing up. My favorite place I lived was Colorado and my wife and I are moving back there in the Fall this year. I love snowboarding and hiking and just being outdoors. I really want to get into whitewater kayaking. As far as other things I’m working on, I’m interested in starting a summer camp and growing our other projects at skinnyCorp like Naked & Angry and Threadless Kids.
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I was fortunate enough to steal a few minutes from Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer behind Wordpress, the blogging software that runs YGG and thousands of other sites around the world, and its founding company Automattic.
Joey: First of all Matt, I would like to thank you for taking the time to do this interview for YoungGoGetter.com. We know you’re a “Young Go Getter”, but so our readers know, how old are you?
Matt: I’m 24 years young.
Joey: Most people who are reading this know who you are because of
WordPress, but I am sure there is more to you than that. What are some
other things you have done?
Matt: I have arranged and scored the Mario Brothers music for a saxophone quartet and written Akismet, the anti-spam web service.
Joey: Can you tell us the quick history on WordPress and how it came from
an idea to product?
Matt: WordPress was based on a previous open source project called b2, so out of that existing codebase we began to transform it into WordPress by tearing out the configuration system, adding the initial links manager, and more. There wasn’t really any website or users at the time, so it was just a function of work and code.
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Last November I received an e-mail from a nice lady named Ann, asking that I add her site to an aggregator I had created. I gladly obliged after the exchange of a few e-mails, not realizing the networking and journalistic aficionado I was conversing with. After being interviewed by her, I promised to return the favour, possibly on another site I helped run (YGG) and would get right back to her.
Much like a healthy baby, this interview finally came to life, nine months later. (Entirely my fault.)
So, without further ado, a long overdue interview with a brilliant individual from MarketingProfs, Ann Handley.
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