I'm Zack Parker

I explore the side of entrepreneurship that entrepreneurs don't like to talk about. Previously: CEO/Founder of Walu International and CEO/Co-Founder of ishBowl. Web: imzackparker.com Twitter: @imzackparker Email: [email protected]

[imzackparker]

EENASWASI: Every Entrepreneur Needs A Spouse With A Steady Income

"This be the realest shit I ever wrote"- Tupac

When starting a company, the least exciting topic that you have to address is "how will we survive while we get this thing off the ground?" By "survive" I mean, make money. There are so many more interesting topics like: What's our name going to be? Should we allow dogs in the office? How many millions will we be worth once Google buys us?  On my first day of grad school, the most influential professor of my life, Alison Gerlach, wrote "EENASWASI" on the board. She asked if anybody knew what it meant. Complete silence. "Every Entrepreneur Needs A Spouse With A Steady Income," she said. At the time I laughed, but looking back I realize that in the first few minutes of class, Professor Gerlach taught me one of the most valuable lessons in entrepreneurship; knowing how you'll stay afloat while you build your company can be just as important as what your company does. 

In our household we refer to the description, EENASWASI, as a noun. It's actually a person. Not just any person, but a person that has had to pull her weight financially while I started a company. My wife, Michelle, is my EENASWASI. An EENASWASI allows money to be coming in the door to pay for monthly expenses while money goes out the door building a company.  Nobody ever talks about one of the most intense psychological battles that every entrepreneur goes through, which is the financial pressure. It's taboo to talk about money in our culture. You have to put up a front that you and your company are "crushing it", even though you are living month to month. After all, you're a business owner and everybody assumes you're rich.

This misconception takes a toll on an entrepreneur. Your peers with stable jobs begin to start making "good money." Your families wonder how long the company will take before you start making "good money." You have countless meals with your significant other discussing whether or not the company is going to "take off." It's like being on a road trip with kids that keep asking, "Are we there yet?" You can say that we (the company) are getting close and are just around the corner, but after awhile that pitch begins to lose it's luster. All the while, you have to "keep up with the Joneses" even though the Joneses have chosen a different path. A more stable path. A path that is trimmed with a weed whacker on the 1st and 15th each month, while you try to blaze a trail through poison oak.

You might be thinking you know how to solve this problem of financial pressure. What if your company raised $500K-$1M of capital? Wouldn't that alleviate all of these financial pressures? Mehhh. Companies in the tech space don't always need money, but they need time. When you focus your time and energy on fundraising, then you are not focusing on building the company.  Raising capital forces you to step on the accelerator and get "further along." This works perfectly if you have early stage validation and know where you're going. However, if you don't have traction and you aren't sure where you're heading, then you could be getting "further along" in the wrong direction. Then, the founders have to explain to their employees and investors about why their original vision was wrong and why they want to change directions. If the investors and employees don't agree with the new vision, then the founders are faced with a decision: continue the original business that you don't believe in or piss everybody else off and go with your instinct. "Ok, so you said that if you don't raise money, then your life can be miserable and burdened with financial pressures from all around you. And if you do raise money to alleviate financial pressures, then you run the risk of raising too early before you know what you're doing, which could ultimately lead to your demise. I'm confused, what should be my main takeaway here?"  The fuck if I know. Go figure it out for yourself. Just make sure you have an EENASWASI.

[imzackparker]

Blog: When the ride is over

I've heard that people view entrepreneurship like they view the movie, The Social Network. People think that the majority of entrepreneurship is the really huge "holy shit idea" moment and then the cash out at the end where everybody is driving a Bentley and printing money. The reality is that the "idea" and the "exit" are about 3% of it. The quick video montage in The Social Network of Zuckerberg's team working on the business is actually 97% of what happens. It's a grind. Recently, I had to make one of the most difficult phone calls of my life. I had to tell the entire ishBowl team that we were winding down the company. Sometimes the hardest decision is the smartest decision. The entire entreprenuerial ride is all about how you manage the perpetual knot in your stomach. The knot before this phone call seemed larger and more complicated to unravel.  Getting to this decision was no easy feat. It felt like a breakup with a significant other. Somebody that you had spent years caring for and spending time with every waking moment of the day. My mind kept racing through a scrapbook of mental images of our journey along the way. It was like a Facebook timeline of the good, the bad, and the ugly: images of our idea phase, receiving our first amount of investment, moving to San Francisco, signing our first deal with Nike, trying and failing over and over again, arguments and celebrations. The highest of highs and the lowest of lows. So high that everything that you had ever done to get the company off of the ground seemed to make sense. So low that you question every ounce of energy that you have put forth. Am I the one to do this? Can I make this happen? Does everybody think I'm out of my fucking mind? Sometimes the company that you fell in love with changes. The market evaporates before your very eyes and it isn't as big of an opportunity as you once thought. We had originally started as an action sports video platform. Traffic was building. Nike was our first paying customer. However, we realized that we didn't solve a big enough problem. In the consumer space you are competing for attention. There is a finite amount of attention you can grab. If you aren't grabbing enough of it, then you don't have a business. We decided to pivot to a business-to-business model where we would provide up-to-date and relevant video content to retailers. They could give us a list of brands and our technology would automatically update their TVs inside of their stores across all of their nationwide locations. We had some early traction that had us convinced we were on to something big. However, this market turned out to be very niche. Only 15% of retailers had TVs in their stores. The larger companies (Target, Nike, Louis Vuitton, etc.) controlled all of their video content in house. Mom and Pop stores didn't have a need for a subscription video service. We were stuck battling for the business of retailers with 10-100 stores. We made a conscious decision that this was not the right business to chase. This was not "the right horse to back". My professor from business school always told me, "Don't be blinded by your passion. You have to know the difference between when everybody is still playing the game or when the field is empty and everybody has left the stands and the field is scorching beneath your feet." Could we have survived? Yes. Was the opportunity exciting enough for us to spend the next 3-7 years of our lives on? No.  I'm confident in our decision to shut things down. It was the right call, but it was also a shitty call to make. As Lebron James recently said, "We play our best and live with the results." We've played our best. When the game is over, the game is over. There is no immediate rematch. You get to think about it during the entire offseason and refine your skills and your focus. Looking back at our ride, I think it is important to delineate between our "goals" and our "desired outcome". Just because we may not have hit our "desired outcome" of a large exit from the company, we still hit so many of our goals along the way: - Recruited a solid team of designers and engineers - Built a product that was being used by over 15,000 people per month - Raised capital to get the business off of the ground - Built a vision that enabled us to have Nike as our first customer - Worked with some of the biggest names and brands in action sports  Building something from scratch is supposed to be hard. You can achieve your goals, but getting to your desired outcome contains more than 50% luck.  I'll jump back in the saddle at some point, but after back-to-back companies... it's time for a breather. So I say to the game of entrepreneurship, "it's not goodbye... it's I'll see ya next season."

[imzackparker]

"Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone."

Naomi Jackson

[imzackparker]

SportTechie: ishBowl’s Big Decision - Switching to a Business to Business Model

This post is an update on a previous interview we did with ishBowl CEO, Zack Parker. Zack and his colleagues have made the tough decision to pivot their startup action sports video platform and take their company in the direction of a B2B model.

Many companies start as one thing and transform into something completely different. ishBowl is no exception. They launched their action sports video platform on web and mobile last February and had quite a bit of success. ishBowl allowed their users to create a customized video feed of high quality video content by following their favorite athletes, brands, filmmakers, and media companies. ishBowl had inked a deal with Nike and had some of the biggest athletes, brands, and agents on board. Traffic was building. On the surface, everything was going great. On the inside, they needed to build their revenue. Beyond advertising, the team had been developing more interesting and powerful forms of monetization. One in particular changed the direction of the business altogether.

Today, ishBowl is helping businesses create customized video playlists inside of their locations based off the brands that are sold in their businesses. These businesses simply give ishBowl a list of the brands that they sell and ishBowl's technology automatically aggregates these brand's video content from the web. Then, ishBowl uploads the video content to the business's TVs each night through a device called a Raspberry Pi. ishBowl is a subscription service that is targeting verticals such as: retail chains, restaurant chains, convenient stores, grocery stores, drug stores, hotels, etc.

ishBowl's CEO and co-founder, Zack Parker, mentioned the void in the digital signage market, "Companies tend focus on the hardware and the software components of a digital signage rollout. However, they forget that creating or scheduling the content on the screens is full time job. It's like saying that all you need for a social media campaign is a computer and Facebook, but you are leaving out the main part of the campaign... the social media manager. Our service acts as the social media manager (providing content), but for a digital signage campaign." ishBowl took their core aggregation technology that they'd used for their consumer platform and applied it to brick and mortar businesses. Similar technology, better use case. Similar technology, bigger market ($15B+). Now, ishBowl has the opportunity to power the televisions in your favorite sports retail chains, restaurants, bars, etc. Seventy-five percent of all purchase decisions are made in store so ishBowl's subscription service allows these businesses to increase sales at the point of purchase, control their brand across the entire chain and provide a service that communicates directly with the consumers.

Gutsy, yes. Smart, they hope so. Exciting, without a doubt.

By: Taylor Bloom

[imzackparker]

Blog: Find out why pooping and mobile websites are related.

After doing a bit of research, ishBowl.com read that 75% of people use their smart phones while on the toilet.  They check their email, scroll their Facebook news feed or their Instagram feed. They make phone calls and send text messages. Do we think it’s weird? Not at all. People are looking to kill time when they’re on the porcelain. 

ishBowl’s mobile site just got released and we’re excited to give people another activity while on the toilet; watch action sports videos. Of course, this won’t be the only place that you can use the ishBowl mobile site. You can use it when you’re standing in line at the store, laying on the couch, or killing time at work/school.

For the 25% of you that don’t use your phone on the toilet, you are patient human beings and deserve a shout out. You are bucking the trend of “always” having your phone on you. Whether or not you use your phone on the toilet, make sure to wash your hands when you’re finished because there isn’t an app for that yet.

[imzackparker]

Blog: This Thanksgiving we are thankful for our first investor

"They gon’ love me for my ambition, easy to dream a dream, though it’s harder to live it." - Meek Mill, Rick Ross, and Wale from "Ambition"

Zack Parker (Co-Founder of ishBowl) was working on his first business in San Diego, Walu International, and he was contacted by an old high school friend. Josh had been working at Facebook and decided that he was going to be a large donor to the hygiene and sanitation projects that Walu International was working on in Papua New Guinea. A few conversations later Josh said to Zack, “If you can make pooping on the beach in Papua New Guinea seem cool, then you should be able to market a website.” 

From there, discussions ensued about starting a website.  Josh had millions of ideas. Not small ideas, but big ones. Game changers. Some of his ideas were a real estate website, a stock trading website, and an action sports website. The action sports site grabbed Zack’s attention and he ran with it. He then recruited Shane Heath as the Creative Director. About a year ago, Josh backed the early stages of the project to enable Shane and Zack to build the business and to find their technical co-founder, Asa Denton.

Now that ishBowl is growing at a rapid rate and we are working on raising another round of investment, one thing is for sure… we wouldn’t be where we are today without Josh. He not only provided the capital in the early stages, but he gave Zack a crash course on startups. Being one of the early employees at Facebook, Josh looked at things through a different lens. You’ve seen the Social Network. “A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A billion dollars." This was the environment that Josh grew up in at Facebook after he attended Harvard with Facebook Co-Founder, Dustin Moskovitz. By no means were we aiming to build the next Facebook, but it didn’t hurt to have somebody push your thinking to always think bigger. Be smarter. 

Josh is an idea guy. Josh is a visionary. Josh is still one of ishBowl’s advisors. Josh’s belief in the team is the reason why ishBowl even exists today. This Thanksgiving, we are thankful for those that believe in us. 

[imzackparker]

Blog: The Lebron James of Coding: How to score an A-grade web developer on a shoestring budget

"Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so that you can live the rest of your life like most people can’t" ~Unknown

  Starting a website has become significantly cheaper over the past decade. Start-up hubs are popping up all over the US. It is a modern day gold rush, kind of. And where there is money, there are people that can talk. Smooth talkers. Salesmen. With all of these salesmen running around, there is no shortage of people selling great ideas, but there is a shortage of people that can help them build amazing websites. It is a simple supply and demand issue. A ton of ideas, not enough developers to build them all. This creates intense competition. How can a startup with limited resources compete against Google, Facebook, Apple, etc.?

One of the co-founders, Zack Parker, had the pleasure of finding “The Lebron James of Coding”. It didn’t happen overnight. He pitched at different university’s computer science classes, attended countless networking events, stalked people down on LinkedIn, and entered business competitions in hopes of finding their technical guru. These guys are being recruited out of high school by big name companies like top-rated quarterbacks get recruited to attend different universities. These companies offered six figure salaries, free lunch, gym memberships, yoga classes, soda, candy, and security.

Literally 40+ interviews later they found “The Lebron James of coding”, Asa Denton. Asa has come on board and built the back end of an entire social video website. Combined with the designs from Shane Heath, the two have been able to accomplish more in 6 months than most teams can do in their entire existence. That is what greatness does to those around you; it elevates your game. Lebron James couldn’t do it on his own. He needed a sidekick. Like Jordan and Pippen. Batman and Robbin. Jimmy MacElroy and Chazz Michael Michaels.

Asa graduated from a top university in the UK with a Masters in Computer Science (with honors). He has 15 years experience in web development. He previously built a social network for the airline industry on his own. 

How did ishBowl pull it off? 

An idea is worthless without the execution. It comes down to having a sick idea and the right people execute it. We had the ambition of entrepreneurs, the combination of skill sets that make a great team, the network of an established company, and the balls to pull the trigger and do it.  Lebron (Asa) saw that. Although he could’ve worked anywhere in the world, he chose to work with us. People often say that going into business with other co-founders is like marriage. In that case, we are stoked that we took our time to make sure we didn’t have a “psycho” or a “stage-5 clinger” on our hands before our marriage. Asa was willing to sacrifice in the short-term to hopefully benefit in the long-term. Asa is an entrepreneur.

In the end, we are just glad that “The Lebron James of coding” decided to bring his talents to ishBowl rather than to South Beach.

[imzackparker]

Blog: This has to be the final round

The funny thing about web design is that with each new round of changes you think that you’ve solved the puzzle. Cracked the code. Put the square peg in a square hole. Every single time you seriously believe that THIS round is it. You hear echos from the startup world about how the changes NEVER stop, but when you have a new round of designs all of that advice and experience is thrown by the wayside. Right now, in the moment, you’ve nailed it… and that’s all that matters. This round of wireframes was no exception. In our eyes, this was our finished product. The rubix cube had been put together.

With our new color scheme and making everything darker (see ishBowl goes emo… minus the skinny jeans) we decided to move forward with our product and try to build what our customers wanted: a website to help them share and discover relevant and quality action sports videos. We had taken a similar approach to Facebook by having the different tabs (explore, home, feed, watch), but the difference was we put them on the left side rather than in the top bar. Why? Because our designer is a grown ass man and he can make his own decisions. And it allowed for more of the “iTunes” style navigation (see iTunes blog post)

Our designer, Shane Heath, was blossoming in front of our very own eyes. Now when we met with people in the tech community people were saying, “This looks legit. Who's your designer?” Getting a compliment about a team member is so much better than getting one about yourself. If you get a compliment about yourself you must be humble… although as a human being, you love it. You can afford to be a little more proud when receiving a compliment about a team member. When people would say, “that guy is is talented”, I would simply reply, “I know. You should see some of the new stuff he has in the works.”

During the time of these wireframes we had to get out there and talk to our core customers. We set up booths at surf contests and sat inside skateparks. Walking into a skatepark with a MacBook Pro and no skateboard was a first for us, but we needed information. We interviewed groups of kids while they did all of the things that teenagers do (drink, smoke, and make fun of each other). This was our demographic. There was no denying it.

One thing was clear after we finished up all of the surveys; we were building something that these kids wanted. They were ready to sign up on the spot. They were psyched. Now it was time to build it, but we should probably make a few changes in the wireframes before we start building everything. I guess it never ends…

[imzackparker]

Blog: Meet the ishHeads

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but in business they need to be the right words. A thousand words don’t really help you out unless the picture conjures up the feelings that you are hoping to evoke. I would actually prefer our pictures to be worth a couple words: memorable, different.

When we were originally designing our various social media pages we were having a really difficult time finding a photo or an image that represented who we were. Would it be an image of a guy skating a half-pipe? A guy revving his engine on a dirt bike? A girl surfing big waves? A group of guys sitting at their computers building a website? A combination of all of these? 

The problem with this approach is that there isn’t ONE photo that could accurately represent our demographic or our business. How do you describe your business through a single photo? 

Our answer: meet the ishHeads. 

Our Creative Director, Shane Heath, made the decision to create our own images. Shane sketched, scanned, and imported all of the ishHeads to his computer. Then, he touched them up and finetuned the colors on his computer and the ishHeads were born.

These guys could show up on any of our pages (facebook.com/ishbowl,twitter.com/ishbowl, and blog.ishbowl.com) and it’d feel new. In a copycat world it’d be a breath of fresh air.

Unlike a photo of a professional athlete for our cover, you can see a little bit of yourself in these guys. You can relate to them. And by relating to them, you relate with ishBowl.

They’re the punks that you all know. You can’t really make fun of them because they always roll with a squad.

They’d drop in on you. They’d heckle you. They are action sports.

[imzackparker]

Blog: ishBowl goes emo (minus the skinny jeans)

With a new name and a new logo (see Extreme home makeover… but for a website), our design took a significant turn. We went black. Dark. Emo. Our intention was to make the video viewing experience comfortable on the eyes. We got the idea from Hulu’s feature “dim the lights”.

Everything got simplified back to what we were originally building this site to do: consolidate action/extreme sports videos from the web and put them together in a way that was easier to discover, share and watch. We stopped trying to add in every feature we could think of (see: Action sports site goes X-Rated, Your friends watch a bunch of lame shit, and Trying to put a marshmallow in a piggy bank) and instead simplified things back to a more basic form. 

In our player’s features you can see “7-second skipback” and “slowmotion”. These ideas were really popular and we want to build them because our customers want them. Asa Denton, ishBowl’s Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder told us, “Assume everything is possible. If I don’t know how to build it right now, I will figure it out very soon.” 

Our Creative Director, Shane Heath (who is also a really talented artist), hears things like this and sees a blank canvas to create whatever he wants. Creating something out of nothing. That’s the funnest part about this. Creating something of value for people to enjoy from absolutely nothing. A rabbit out of a hat. A quarter from behind the ear. Just a blank canvas. 

Asa builds the easel. Shane paints on the canvas that the easel holds. Zack washes the paintbrushes, takes out the trash, and holds up the easel if they need help.

[imzackparker]

Blog: Extreme home makeover... for a company.

"50 told me, go ahead an’ switch the style up, and if they hate then let ‘em hate and watch the money pile up’" -Kanye West

We were coming in hot with a new name, new logo, and new look. We were over the name “Fullclips” (to see how we decided on ishBowl see Playing the name game).  Our first looks and designs were all a learning process (Action sports site goes X-Rated, Your friends watch a bunch of lame shit, and Trying to put a marshmallow in a piggy bank). The tide was turning and it was time to figure out our look and feel as a brand.

You’re really going to do red and black? Echoed all around us. It’s too dark. It’s too bright. It’s too loud. All social sites are blue. We heard these responses and all we thought was… perfect.  If we are entering a saturated market why not come in with a fresh look? An edgy look. The color red screams danger and consequence. Isn’t that what action sports are all about? 

What is that logo supposed to mean? I don’t get it. It’s definitely unique. It’s like a fishbowl with some extreme twist on a smiley face. Why that? The idea of a logo is to be unique. We’re not going to have a cliche wave, mountain, or half-pipe for our logo. We had to come in from the other end of the spectrum. Nobody knows what we do, but once they do they will be proud to support a brand that took a different road. A road that doesn’t feel generic. 

One of our advisors/mentors is Thom McElroy (Co-Founder of Volcom and creator of the Volcom Stone) and he loves where we are going with the branding. Name another clothing brand that has a more memorable/distinct logo in action sports than the Volcom Stone. Go ahead. Try it. You see the Stone and you think Volcom. 

Our goal in creating the ishBowl logo was for people to see the logo and immediately think ishBowl. Most people that haven’t been living under a rock know what a fishbowl looks like. Shape recognition… check. Name another logo that is in the shape of a fishbowl. Unique look… check. We rest our case.

At the end of the day, the only thing that validates a name and a logo is success. There isn’t a specific name or logo that can make a company blow up, but they are necessary compliments to great products or services.  

We’re done worrying about it because now it’s time to get our fitted, New Era ishBowl hats made. Why? Because we have a sick logo. One that’s different. One that stands out. And one that looks good on a black hat with a red logo.

[imzackparker]

Blog: Trying to put a marshmallow in a piggy bank

Around the time that Steve Jobs passed away, we started thinking about how Apple had been so successful with iTunes and why there wasn’t anything like that in the video industry.

We referred to our next round of wireframes as our “iTunes” model. We really thought that we nailed it with this draft. We used Emmanuel Guzman (Professional skater from Santa Cruz) as our example in these wireframes. We don’t personally know him, but he skates really well and he sounds like a legend. 

We figured, why not provide a way to categorize all of your favorite videos like you can with songs in iTunes?  It was Shane’s idea, like most of our good ideas are, and Zack thought it made perfect sense. The only problem was people don’t watch their favorite action sports videos like they listen to their favorite songs. You don’t replay your favorite video when you are going for a run, while you are driving your car, or out at a club.  Imagine being on the dance floor watching your favorite video. We would respect your innovative nature, but we don’t think that trend would stick. We were taking an existing model that was successful in the music industry (iTunes) and trying to transfer it into the video industry.  The result was like trying to put a marshmallow in a piggy bank. It just doesn’t work. 

There are other action sports sites out there that are taking the old model of “selling videos” and turning it into a subscription based service online similar to Netflix. The problem is that all action sports content is available online for free so nobody would pay for the premium subscription. That’s like trying to sell a VCR to a 15 year old. They don’t get it. They have everything at their fingertips. They have Google, Facebook, and Ratemypoo.com.  Sometimes it’s better to come into a market with a new idea AND a new model.

Our users had mentioned to us that their biggest concerns were watching relevant (new) and quality content. The iTunes model unfortunately didn’t solve that problem. 

It is really simple to fall into the trap of including EVERY feature possible because there are a ton of them out there. During this phase we included all of them, but later realized that we needed to strictly include the ones that would support our differentiating factors. Many whiteboard/brainstorm sessions later we moved forward with yet another round of developments.

Cheers to Steve Jobs, VCR’s, and Emmanuel Guzman.

[imzackparker]

Blog: Your friends watch a bunch of lame shit

The journey to figure out our design and build ishBowl continues… 

At the time of this design we thought that finding out exactly what your friends were watching was going to be the key to our success, which is why we have the videos that your friends are watching on the right hand side. Everything has turned social. If your friends have an Otter Pop they can share it.  If they watch Keeping up with the Kardashians they should be proud and share it.  If they wash their hands coming out of a bathroom they should brag about killing 99.9% of the germs on their hands via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  Shouldn’t this be the same for watching action sports videos? The answer is “kind of”.

After more feedback we asked, do you really care about what your friends are watching? You are a grownup. You know what you like. Why don’t we make it customizable for YOUR wants and needs? The truth is that your friends watch a lot of lame shit that you’re not interested in. If you’re interested in seeing everything that your friends are watching check out SocialCam, Viddy, Shelby.tv or VHX.tv. You’d be surprised at what poor taste some of your friends have. We still intend to have a spinoff of some of these features, but they should come secondary. At first it should be about what YOU like and from there we can add in options to follow what your friends are watching.

Also, at the bottom you can see a playlist where a user would be able to create a playlist and make their own “greatest hits” action sports video. Shane got this idea from Grooveshark. At the time Shane was building very respectable playlists of music (anything from Xx to Yelawolf to Jay-Z to some wild dubstep beats that I’d never heard of) and thought that we could have that same functionality for videos. We have since changed this slightly, but the general idea is still there. Although this was a step in the right direction… it was nowhere near where we ended up going with the look of the site.

At this point in time, we knew where we were going, but we just weren’t exactly sure how to get there. Siri wasn’t around yet to give us directions.

[imzackparker]

Blog: Playing the name game

The naming process can be a long and arduous journey. When Zack (Founder/CEO) and Shane (Creative Director) started thinking seriously about an official name for their online action sports video community, they were careful to consider 7 factors:

- The name had to be short (# of letters) - It was spelled exactly how it sounded - The .com domain was available - The Twitter name was available - It had to have minimal competition on Google search - The domain was a reasonable price - The name had to be fresh and brand-able. It couldn’t already conjure up an image in someone’s head before seeing the site. Our first name was Checkit until we found out the domain was going to cost $40K. Then, we moved onto Flowpop. We liked the word “flow” because it is a word used throughout every single action/extreme sport. However, after enough research and thought we decided that it sounded too much like a teeny bopper magazine. Next, we were on the Fullclips name idea. Zack liked the double meaning of Fullclips [Zack is a huge 50 cent fan] - one side of it felt bad ass, like there was a gun with a full clip and the other half was a video website full of different video clips. Shane stressed that he didn’t want to brand something that was too straightforward and argued too many people would have a preconceived notion about the site. They both decided they would give it five days and if they couldn’t think of a new name it would stay Fullclips. Throughout that week we wrote down over a 100 words up on the whiteboard that we liked such as: tank, flow, bowl, etc. Shane was a big fan of the word “ish” because of the multiple meanings that it carries. At the time we were looking to hire a web developer and the first guy to apply for a job was named “Ish”. It was rather serendipitous so we put “ish” up on the board and Shane immediately yelled out, “ishBowl”. It met all of our qualifications listed above and there were a few very good brandable ideas right off the bat. Shane saved the day and continues to come up with great ways for us not fall into the trap of being average.