We finally created our Facebook group!

The purpose of the group is to keep everyone updated on the launch and other important news concerning neighborbee.

You can view it (and hopefully join!) by clicking on the link below:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5798704098

Cheers,

Anthony

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So I had this idea back in late 2003 to create an internet delivery company. If you remember Kozmo.com (now Max Delivery), they would deliver just about anything you can think of (dvds, books, junk food, etc) right to your doorstep in under an hour via a bike messenger. You would basically point, click and it was there. Well that business model didn’t work out for a number of reasons and I was pretty bummed out when they went under because the service was fantastic - the lazy-man’s (or woman’s) dream! So instead of managing the actual inventory like Kozmo did, I thought it would be cool to leverage the existing small business infrastructure in metropolitan cities (for inventory and means of delivery) while our site would essentially be the middle man. What I loved most about it was that communities would benefit economically from the increase in business our site would effectively bring them.

I spent all of 2004 flushing out the business model at Fordham University’s Business School. Then I realized I didn’t know the first thing about starting a business of this magnitude and entrepreneurship in general, so I started the Fordham Entrepreneur Society (FES) in early 2005. I met a lot of great people & entrepreneurs through FES, including a small boutique branding company called In The Round Design. IT Round consisted of two partners, Wendy (who happened to be a Fordham GBA Alum) and Carl (who used to work with Wendy at S&P). We used to have these magical brain storming sessions at Wendy’s apartment on Sunday mornings and our ideas came right from the heart. The meetings were a blast. Wendy’s strengths were branding and strategy while Carl’s was creative design. Together, we worked on the business model, came up with a brand platform and then realized that an internet delivery company left us all unfulfilled. So we kept pushing the envelope until we came up with the neighborbee concept.

(we purposely do not capitalize ‘neighborbee’ because we don’t think too much of ourselves)

We’re settled on neighborbee, right? Well, not quite. I also met a boutique consulting company called Venture Archetypes through FES a couple of months after the meeting with Wendy and Carl. At the time, I was a bit unsure about neighborbee, so I hired them to analyze my plan and give it some candid feedback. Nathan and Brita were really smart and honest about their analysis. You don’t always want people to agree with you - you appreciate feedback as long as its constructive. They liked the concept but thought it was on a collision course with Yahoo! and Google and recommended I come up with something else.

So I came up with creating an online marketplace that focused on “cool and unique” products indigenous to metropolitan cities. That seemed to be a more focused and “safe” plan. After I rewrote the plan to reflect the new model and pitched it to friends, I always got a skeptical response. The consensus was that I wasn’t passionate about it and that came out in the pitch. Then I pitched it to Wendy and Carl over drinks at Rosa Mexicana and they flat out rejected it. They believed in neighborbee more. It forced us to rethink the orginal concept and we consequently outlined it on the back of a bar napkin. I know that sounds corny but it’s true (however, I don’t have the bar napkin anymore!).

At the end of the day, VA’s advice was sound, but we believed in this more, regardless of the risks. This process taught me to do my due diligence but also have the confidence to believe that you can make anything work. There are 100 reasons not to do something but also 100 reasons why you should. VA’s advice was applied into rewriting neighborbee’s final plan.

Back to Business School…. I pitched neighborbee to anyone that would listen (including professors, students, alumni, etc) and took classes that had some relevance to it. While it certainly made school more tolerable, it was also exposed to an audience that was conditioned to be skeptical. I thank everyone who provided feedback (positive and negative) during that time because it taught me how to listen and deal with all sorts of advice. In addition, the collaborative approach helped shape it into what it is today.

I guess by now, you’re wondering what the business does (or plans to do!)… Good question…. Well, neighborbee is an online community based on real neighborhoods that gives members (residents, businesses, residential buildings etc.) access to everything in their neighborhood all in one place at their fingertips. And when we make money, we’re going to give back to “real neighborhoods” by donating part of our proceeds to them through our non-profit arm, “aroundthebee.org.”

I finished B-School last December (2006) and left my day job on September 28th (2007) to pursue this dream of mine fulltime. Remember Wendy and Carl? Well Carlis now my business partner and Wendy sits on our board of advisors (however, IT Round still exists). In addition, I somehow attracted my undergraduate marketing professor/mentor, 17 Fordham interns both from the undergraduate and graduate schools and some other great people including our legal team, finance teamand a board of advisors. Today we have over 25 worker bees involved that are putting a lot of sweat equity into making sure neighborbee is an online and offline success, which I am certain it will be. Funny how things work out.

Our launch is planned for early 2008 and we look forward to documenting our progress.Thanks for reading and Happy Thanksgiving!

Ciao,
Anthony

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