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Why getting coverage won't fix your crappy start-up

Warning! This doesn’t apply to everyone who has tried to pitch me a story, but enough for me to write this blog post. Please don’t jump all over my head thinking that I am referring to you.

When I started off as a part-time rogue blogger, I found it easy to write on things I found interesting. As the regularity and velocity of my blogging picked up, I found an interesting trend emerge. I now get a regular steady beat of requests to write about their start-up or a weird obscure thing going on in their company.

Now don’t get me wrong,I come across a few real gems and legitimately interesting things going on. However, I drill down a bit further on why many of these companies are so actively seeking coverage (especially the ones that I find a bit dubious) and have found an alarming, but not surprising trend. Many of these companies are using coverage to mask the fact that their company has significant holes in it.

It could be that their business is a “me too” company or that they are not nearly as far along as they claim to be, or even that the number of active users they have on their system just isn’t really interesting.

Let me set the record straight: as a marketer, going after coverage is a perfectly acceptable and smart way to help advance the goals of your start-up. I am in the process of launching my own start-up right now (Printchomp – shameless plug alert) and PR will be a corner stone of driving user sign-ups and interest in the company. That said, if you are no where close to achieving product-market fit, your User Experience absolutely sucks or you’re a shameless knockoff of another site, maybe you don’t want to be pushing so hard for coverage.

Even if all those items are fixed, you also have to make sure you have a compelling reason to actively pursue coverage. A veiled excuse to get backlinks from a major tech blog isn’t enough in my opinion. So before you send out an article request to piss off yet another tech journalist, ask yourself a key question. If you receive coverage, will it materially fix any of the day to day problems your start-up faces? It is like using wallpaper for structural support in a building. It looks nice, but it won’t keep your house from falling over.

Top 5 tips for Recruiting a Technical Co-founder

For the last 2 months, I have had my head down building the first start-up in which I was one of the founders. While I spent time coming up with the idea, figuring out how to make money with it, and deciding what it would do, I knew that I needed technical expertise. I started to spend time searching for a technical co-founder, because it is one of the most crucial hires that a new start-up needs. Here are some tips that I have compiled after spending time in search.

1. Run your search in parallel with all other activities – The search for a good technical co-founder can take weeks or months. Don’t try to get a bunch of other tasks done first before you begin your search. The best recommendation I can give is to run the processes in parallel. It will not only save you time, but you might get some fantastic advice along the way to help you further refine your idea. Also if the first person you find isn’t the right person, you might get some leads from them to send you in the right direction.

2. Know what skills you possess and vice versa – Mapping skills and deficiencies of you and your potential co-founder is essential. There is nothing worse than not admitting where your strong and weak traits lie. Do yourself a favor – be upfront with them and encourage them to be upfront with you. What this will do is foster trust and remove any ugly surprises later on in the process. There is nothing worse than assuming on either side you are good at everything. Once you have an idea what you both do well and what you suck at, you can begin to start mapping out additional hires or contractors to fill those potential holes. If you map everything out and find there are some pretty glaring holes, you have to take a long look in the mirror and figure out whether both sides are bringing enough to the table.

3. Skills don’t always equal a good technical co-founder – The person might have the skills that pay the bills, but does that mean they are a good technical co-founder? I would say definitely not. Beyond having the technical acumen to get you to MVP, does that person have the temperament to grow and scale a business? How would they react to a massive changes? When you hit a bump in the road, are they going to rise to the challenge or run for the hills? As much as they need the ability to write lines of code, their ability to handle different situations is also crucial. With that in mind, you need to make sure that person can grow. If they are technically strong but business weak, they should be willing to learn that side of the business.

4. Build a good external vetting system for this individual – You may be an excellent business professional, but the reality is that you probably don’t have the skills or ability to properly vet any individual you want to be your technical co-founder. If you did, you probably wouldn’t need a technical co-founder. This vetting system is invaluable. Developer communities know who has the goods and which people are pretenders. A person with some technical acumen can help sniff these things out pretty quick. In my case, I brought on a high calibre, well regarded technologist and former CTO as my ace in the hole for my board of directors. Having this vetting system is also helpful to find and build talent required to get to the next level.

5. Once they have signed on don’t suddenly turn into a prick – You probably spent weeks or months looking for this person, don’t turn around and become a prick. As one of the founders of the company you set the tone for how your company will operate. If you pattern a good relationship with your technical co-founder it will translate positively as you grow your company. Employees see how you interact with your co-founder – it can be either a source of re-assurance or it can frankly scare the crap out of them. It is also important to establish a style for working together and a relationship. Understand boundaries and how you want things to flow and it will only pay dividends as the company grows.

This isn’t a definitive list, but 5 tips that I have found handy through my process of trying to find a technical co-founder. I hope this is helpful not only for business founders but for technical talent as well. Sometimes I have seen a misalignment in expectations entering into a relationship. I think both the tech and business talents need to have a better respect for their abilities and what they bring to the equation. Without quality tech talent, there is no product, but conversely without a good business plan or marketing talent the chances of it catching on are much lower. You need both flour and sugar to bake a cake.

I am happy to report that after a long search I have brought on a technical co-founder. I will be sharing a lot more information in the coming weeks and months, but I wanted to pass on some wisdom from my search.

WWE Pushes The Social TV Envelope At Wrestlemania 28

WrestleMania has transformed itself from a small wrestling event to an international media spectacle. In its 28th incarnation, held at the beginning of this month, there were no signs of it stopping.

The WWE did something unique last year – it announced the main event for Wrestlemania over a year in advance. The big match featured Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a huge cross-over star, and John Cena, the current flag bearer for the company. Recognizing the challenges of trying to keep interest for the match a year in advance, the WWE turned to social media. I wanted to some of the people driving this initiative, both on- and off-screen. Jason Hoch, SVP of Digital Operations for the WWE, discussed his social media strategies for fan engagement and social TV.

Since joining the WWE, Hoch undertook a huge project to re-launch WWE.com with a totally new UX with social media at its core. Rather than just putting as Jason says “plug-ins” or social areas, they have tried to build the entire site to be socially enabled. This included deep integration so users could follow their favorite stars on multiple social networks and interact with them seamlessly. Throughout the event, WrestleMania and related hashtags dominated Twitter. As they push hard into social, Jason specifically recognizes that social media fatigue is a key element that needs to be closely monitored to determine what level of interaction is appropriate and doesn’t turn off fans in its broadcasts and other media.

I also interviewed Zack Ryder, who talked about how he has elevated his career due to social media. Zack has been one of the key individuals who helped push social onto the WWE radar and elevate its corporate importance. While he isn’t the biggest star in the WWE, his usage of social has elevated his position in the company and allowed him to better engage his fans. He points to this and says if he didn’t embrace social media and make some waves he would have likely been fired. This is a good example of how employees are using social media to elevate their status within a company and make themselves more valuable employees in the eyes of their employers.

So far, their engagement strategy appears to be working. The WWE feels like they are more up-to-date and engaged. In many cases, WWE wrestlers were actively retweeted, followed and engaged by fans. One stat that is very telling was the number of followers and likes they have on Facebook and Twitter.

The numbers behind this are impressive. Between all of the stars’ accounts, they have over 60 million Twitter followers and 20 million Facebook likes. In 2011, they received over 1 billion views on their YouTube channel (those are Justin Bieber-like numbers, folks). Aside from social statistics, the actual event WrestleMania broke both attendance and gate records at the Sun Life Stadium with over 78,000 fans. However, the real telling statistic will be PPV buy-rates and how many the WWE is able to generate. Like all live PPV events, the WWE fights piracy from multiple live streaming sites online. The expectations and pressure are high, especially bringing back The Rock in such a marquee match to help raise buy-rates.

Last night at Wrestlemania, over 110 individual terms trended during the night. The #Wrestlemania hashtag was mentioned over 600k times delivering nearly a billion potential impressions with a reach of over 130 million people.

Echo is one of WWE’s technical partners. They provide technology that translates the thousands of tweets/likes they receive per second into actionable information that they can integrate into their live broadcasts. Khris Loux, CEO of Echo, says that whenever someone tweets or likes something in the “WWE Universe” it is like a synapse firing and they are able to track and analyze it. Since the WWE is so vertically integrated (between talent, production and content), they were able to execute an integrated social media strategy that ties into web, broadcasts and live events. Khris said that WWE definitely has an advantage over other mediums. Khris cited other examples that have multiple legal entities that need to be coordinated and get approval from for rights and access.

People who quickly dismiss the social WWE’s success due to it being “wrestling” are missing the boat. The reality is that it is a well-oiled media machine integrating multiple moving parts seamlessly with social at its core.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson On Social Media And His Favorite Tech

It’s the eve of WrestleMania 28, and I got a chance to meet with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. What does that have to do with tech? Well, in the video interview, Johnson shares his thoughts on how social media has changed the game, what is his favorite tech and how he uses it to engage his fans.

Johnson says he launched his Twitter account a little more than a year ago, and that it’s “one of the greatest things” he’s ever done, because it gives him a way to connect directly to fans.

“A lot of people would have had a team coming in … these great business minds, but I wanted to strip away the business of it all,” he says.

You can see more, including a peek at Johnson’s iPhone, in the video above. (The background noise is a little loud at first, but Johnson comes through loud and clear.)

Ten Days on the High Seas with Oceania

Ten Days on the High Seas with Oceania

Well, the sad truth is that after spending over 10 days on an amazing cruise ship the journey is over. These past days have been fantastic on a number of fronts. When you are constantly moving, you rarely have time to stop and reflect on life. This trip was truly the opportunity I needed to stop and take stock of where I have been and where I need to be going.   I enjoyed the time away, and here, in a nutshell, are some of the highs and lows of the trip:


Top 5 things about the cruise

  1. Spending some undivided time with my best friend and wife- After our first year of parenthood, spending time as a couple is often more luxury than reality.  For 10 days, we got to spend time together as a couple. Even just having the chance to speak together for more than 5 minutes uninterrupted was amazing. It was hard to leave our daughter at home, but I think it was a much-needed break.
  2. Our Cruise ship – This was our second cruise on the Oceania cruise line. This time, we were on their brand new flagship boat, the Marina. This ship didn’t disappoint. While it is smaller than some of the floating cities offered by other lines, it was large enough to provide amazing amenities while still feeling intimate. The staff was great and the whole cruise was very inviting. We will definitely cruise on this line again.
  3. Fantastic meals – One of Oceania’s claims to fame is its food. Laura and I are foodies and we didn’t want to go on any old cruise with a crappy buffet every night. Oceania provided some amazing dining options.  The first was Red Ginger, a Pan-Asian Restaurant that gave us tons of options and kept us coming back for more. Jacques, the new signature French restaurant had many well-prepared options. Finally, La Reserve was a restaurant with a 7-course tasting menu, each course paired with amazing wine from around the world.
  4. Wonderful excursions – We had three lovely excursions on our trip. The first was a snorkeling adventure, where we went via chartered boat to a reef. We adventured at two sites, seeing fish of all colors. The second was a zip lining adventure where we zipped over tree tops from platform to platform. The third was easily Laura’s favorite. We went horseback riding on a beach and had the horses take us for a ride in the ocean.
  5. Warm Caribbean Air – It was nice to walk around in a t-shirt. While we haven’t had a bad winter in Canada, it was still nice to escape to the warm air. There is something about putting your feet in the ocean or taking a dip in a warm pool in February that is amazing.


Top 5 pet peeves

  1. People who complain incessantly – Our cruise line wasn’t just a regular cruise line. The service and food and all the elements on the cruise are well considered. Despite all of this, there was a long line of whiners on the cruise who would look for any excuse to complain. The staff of this cruise line is international, and unfortunately we witnessed fellow passengers treating the staff poorly. There were a number of times I felt like yelling at these people. I probably would have if I thought it would help and not draw the staff member into a further issue.
  2. Lack of High-Speed Internet – Ah Internet, my old friend, how I missed you! It was probably a good thing for me to disconnect, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t miss the Internet. I found a way to mooch Internet from just about every Caribbean island that I stopped on, just to satiate my junkie-like habits. I do however wish they had high-speed for free on the ship.
  3. The Age of the fellow cruisers – One of the problems when you go on a nicer cruise line it attracts an old demographic. While I don’t mind older folks (many of whom were very nice to speak to), this cruise could have been a casting call for a Cocoon movie. While I wasn’t looking for a drunken Kegger every day, it would have been nice to have a more lively nightlife.
  4. Fox News – Fox News was the defacto news channel on our cruise ship. I found myself watching Bill O’Reilly and just going nuts. I sat with a pen and paper to keep track of instances in which he would purposefully twist the truth or out and out misstate things. After watching that, and listening to talk radio in the states in January, I can see why so many US citizens are pissed off. People like Bill O’Reilly can whip you into such frenzy that “pissed-off” is the only emotion left! On the sea of serenity, this was the only maelstrom. That said, it was amusing watching the “expert commentators” dissect the current train wreck that is the Republican Presidential candidate nomination and spin it accordingly.
  5. My newfound self – No I am not talking about introspection. I am talking about the part of the cruise I am taking home with me – all the food I ate. The next few weeks will be spent in the gym and on the running track to help me leave this part of the cruise behind.


While it was an amazing trip, we definitely thought about our little angel every day. We missed our Anna so much while we were away, although we were fortunate to have our family send us countless pictures of her smiling via Facebook. We are eternally grateful to our parents for letting us take a bit of time for us.

So now on to the future, this cruise will definitely mark the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next. I have so much exciting news to share with everyone in the coming days and weeks. That news, however, is for another blog post. Please stay tuned, as I can’t wait to share the news with everyone.

Joseph Puopolo Leaving StickerYou

After nearly 18 months of sticker awesomeness, I have mutually decided with StickerYou to part from the company. Over the past year we have accomplished so many things, whether it is getting picked up by Groupon or Living Social and having our retail product featured in Toys R’ Us and other major retailers.

Over the past year we have accomplished some amazing things:

  • 500% Increase in Traffic and Sales
  • 1000% Increase in organic traffic
  • 10’s of thousands of happy customers who keep coming back for more

This is not the end for me and StickerYou. I will be staying on in and advisory capacity. Whenever you spend so much time taking something to the next level, you want to make sure it continues to succeed. This is a testament to the relationship I have made with so many people. They make StickerYou what it is and are its heart and soul.

To the StickerYou staff, I can say your dedication is only outstripped by your talent. While our team has changed over the year, I am more convinced than ever this is the best team to handle the upcoming challenge for the next year to continue to evolve this company.

To the StickerYou board, I have always had an excellent relationship with you. You have provided thoughtful advice both to succeed and grow personally and professionally. I look forward to both the continued personal and professional relationship that we have built over the years.

To Andrew, this is your baby. Please continue to nurture it and help it grow into the company you envisioned, when you started this journey. You are truly passionate and committed to its success.

While today is my last day I can look back and be proud of what I accomplished and the impact I have made.

Now to the Future

What does the future hold for me ?!?! Well a number of people have been already asking me whether I would come work for them, whether I would consult, whether I would start my own start-up or even whether I would escape into the Himalayas and regrown my Movember beard. The honest truth is I haven’t decided where I want to throw my time and energy just yet. If you have any ideas as to what or where I should spend my time I am open to ideas.

I leave for a much needed cruise and vacation this week, where I can contemplate these life changing decisions on a beach.

I am always available via Twitter @Jpuopolo or email [email protected]. I would put my ICQ number here, but that might date me .

No Longer An Awkward Teenager? Gamification Grows Up

Over the last year, you may have noticed that a once-niche trend not only crept into the mainstream, but is starting to really make a big splash. Gamification has become one of the hottest buzz words in the industry and is probably in the process of taking over a website or user experience near you.

For the uninitiated, gamification, said simply, is the use of game design techniques and mechanics to solve problems and engage audiences. Over the last year, even large companies and enterprises are starting to get in on the game, with Gartner saying that all CIOs should have gamification on their radar, and M2 research predicting that the gamification market will reach 2.8 billion in direct spending by 2016.

Okay, so it’s on the rise, we get that, but let’s take a look at some of the players that are helping to take this trend to the next level. Three companies in particular are currently creating some buzz in the space: BadgevilleBigdoor and Bunchball.

Badgeville started by making a big splash center stage at Disrupt in the fall of 2009. The company took home the Audience Choice Award at Disrupt, has since gone on a tear and is poised to have a great 2012. (Check out Rip’s original post on Badgeville’s prospects here.)

Badgeville Co-founder and CEO Kris Duggan pulls no punches when it comes to one of the most visible and early adopters of gamification, the check-in king: Foursquare. The CEO says that Foursquare was early in its attempts at gamification, but that its incentivization models remain fundamentally flawed.

Duggan points to the “Mayorship” system within Foursquare: “You have literally hundreds of people and only one mutually-exclusive point of recognition, the Mayor. What happens to the other hundreds of people? Not only are they not engaged, but you don’t take into consideration different types of users.” Duggan believes you need to engage not only the heavy user, but medium and light users as well. Rather than a one-size-fits-all methodology, you can appeal to each user type and incent them accordingly.

From a marketer’s perspective this is a huge hole in the way Foursquare approaches gamification for
brands. The ability for brands to own their engagement strategy is key for them to grow their model. A vanilla badge strategy will only allow them to go so far and without real control of the experience and rewards it won’t be a rich experience.

Keith Smith, CEO of Big Door, has seen large adoption of their gamification platform. And, in particular, the CEO recognizes a big opportunity selling to marketers: “Marketers today spend more money on acquiring users than working to retain those users and providing them with a reason to come back to a site”. By focusing on retention, marketers could get more value from their marketing dollars.

Big Door has been able to secure marquee customers including Dell. Dell took gamification beyond their website and used it for a live event to create multiple ways to engage attendees through Journeys, which were part of the conference tracks during the event. Each Journey was customized to a specific conference track. QR codes were located throughout the event and attendees were encouraged to scan codes and were rewarded with achievements for every scanned QR code and every journey they completed.

Big Door has even produced a very simple and easy to use widget that I implemented on my blog.
After the implementation I started seeing increased interaction on my site. For those looking to try out gamification out on their site, it is a great bet.

Molly Kittle, VP of Digital Strategy for Bunchball, notes that until recently, one of the biggest challenges for gamifiers has been in educating potential clients about the difference between gamification and social games. Molly sees a shift from education to adoption of gamification strategy in the future.

“I agree that some gamification does come off badly, and slapping some badges on a site isn’t professional or powerful, and we don’t want our customers to do that” she says. The quick-fix isn’t sustainable for most brands. Molly thinks there will be a huge change of perception across industries, catalyzed by a growing number of enterprises embracing gamification to solve real business challenges. Hey, there’s even gamify.com, with one of the best domain acquisitions for the market.

Travel companies, too, are getting in on gamification, with Trippy, Gogobot, and more offering gaming elements to their user experience. But, again, for startups and companies to be successful in this approach, gamification has to go beyond badges.

There are some common threads to the trends that Badgeville, Bigdoor and Bunchball see in the
gamification space:

  1. The space has quickly evolved from place where they are educating the customer about gamification to earlier customer understanding in their offering
  2. Frictionless installs are a necessity. They all recognize that if it is difficult to implement, then clients will not want to implement it.
  3. A world beyond badges: Badges will increasingly become less and less important, and the rise of true virtual currencies will become more prominent to offer users more than vanity accomplishments in the form of badges.

So what does the future hold for Gamification?

It is clear that it is unveiling a far larger market opportunity — the concept of what Duggan calls “behavior lifecycle management.” Some of the elements of gamification will further permeate into other applications. In the interest of driving increased user interaction, expect to see some form of game dynamics coming to a business application near you. Over this past year, gamification has shed its acne and awkward voice to come of age.

The Emergence Of The Content Creation Class

The content creation class shall inherit the Internet. Richard Florida coined the expression the “Creative Class”, his belief being that these some 30 to 40 million would be the driving force for economic development in a postindustrial world. Instead of driving the macro economy the Content Creation Class refers to the group of people who drive content on the internet those that write blogs, those that upload video to YouTube, and those that upload pictures to share with the world.

The Internet is a key segment within this postindustrial world identified by Florida. Since the emergence of Webernets, two distinct classes that have emerged — those that create content and those who consume it. For every content creator there are far more individuals that consume content. Like other class systems, there are inherent advantages or disadvantages with each class. While content creators have had their share of benefits, the concept of mass content creation also comes with its own risks.

The rise of the content creation class

Content creators have enjoyed advantages over content consumers since the dawn of the internet. They enjoy higher amounts of influence; they have the potential to earn more money and fame. The only prerequisite to be part of this class is to create content; you do not need to be creative, correct or even factual. Bloggers are a great example of this — some blog just for blogging’s sake, while others have made it into a career or in some cases a successful business.

Whether it is through paid promotion, advertisement or Google Adwords, people make thousands or tens of thousands of dollars monthly creating content on their blog. This system is has been used and abused by paid bloggers and those looking to bend the Google algorithm to their will to bend a torrent of traffic to their respective site. Thin content is a common problem, and parasitic to the Internet as a whole. It is still however, a part of content on the web, good or bad.

Filling the content vacuum

The content vacuum requires new content and it doesn’t seem to matter what it is. People will consume it. This isn’t to say that the better content won’t command more eyes, but even bad content will find viewers. This is another key differentiation between the creative class, you don’t need to necessarily be creative or factually correct to create information on the Internet.

The reality is those that create either good or bad content will still see a benefit from it. A prime example is YouTube, there is tons of questionable videos that garner hundreds of thousands of views. As eyes continue to shift from traditional channels and to the Internet, there is tons of potential to fill the web with content good and bad, which in reality mirrors society on the whole.

Social media has changed the content creation paradigm

Social media has added a new dimension to content creation and changed the paradigm. While it has allowed many more people to become creators, it has also magnified existing content creators to previously unheard of levels. Whenever a key creator puts out a new piece of content, hoards of followers are ready and waiting to magnify that content even further.

There is also a question of equivalency, what is more important or relevant, 10,000 microblogs (140 character tweets) or 10 to 20 2,000 word blogs? While the barrier to become a content creator is now lowered, it also increased the ability to adept content creators to be even more effective using new tools. These tools have been used to push people from the background to center stage.

From obscurity to fame or infamy

People can literally create their own 15 minutes of fame (or infamy) through content creation on the Internet. There have been countless pieces of content that have come from obscure blogs to become national news. Bloggers without an established network to distribute their content have had various distribution mechanisms tip influence to their favor. Teens have been able to distinguish themselves from the crowd and gain further notoriety by building a blog presence — heck, Justin Bieber was discovered via his videos on YouTube.

Internet content creation has almost become a feeder system to more traditional media outlets. The content creation class is driven by a sense of meritocracy and the thrill of letting the mob decide whether you get a thumbs up or down. While cute kittens are driving eyes, it isn’t just the cute and cuddly that is catching attention on the web. A content creator has emerged to serve each niche and some are finding big business around it, especially mom bloggers.

As new trends emerge, new laws follow

This rise of the content creator class has led to the rise of some new issues, though. For example, those who record videos have been opened up to prosecution. In the last two years there have been incidences of people being arrested for filming activities of policemen on duty.

The reality is, in today’s world you have to assume if there is something going on, there is likely a person with a camera or a video camera in their phone to capture it. Courts have now become involved in determining what content is legal. Recently, the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a ruling that would make it illegal to film on-duty cops. Content creation has become an important check and balance for democracy or internationally, those trying to achieve democracy.

Content creators internationally

Internationally, content creators were simultaneously exalted and persecuted this year in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East. One could make the argument that without social media and content created by individuals, people vying for freedom would not have been able to maintain momentum in their cause. Yet at the same time, anyone posting content in these situations has cause to fear for their lives.

This article speaks to that some of the issues surrounding this. When journalists are not able to expose what is going on during uprisings, citizen journalists take on a lot of risks to ensure the world knows about their plight. They have adeptly help cut through the fog of war. That ability to shed light on dire circumstance provides those individuals with power and influence over many both locally and internationally. This is especially true when this information becomes the fuel for governmental policy or even military action.

In Summary

While handheld devices has made it easier for all to become content creators there will continue to be an inherent divide in who chooses to participate in content creation shared to the masses. A new class system has quietly emerged. The content creation class will continue to enjoy greater advantages, but like anyone sticking out their neck they will also face challenges. Anyone who creates content has the potential of being judged, either by a snarky comment or a legal court and that fear is what segments the Internet into two groups, the content creators and the content consumers.

Credit for the Crown image goes to – http://www.dragonsearchmarketing.com/online-content-creation-still-rules/

Social Media Influencer Superbowl Party

So I usually have a pretty lively Superbowl party and this year I decided to evolve it further. One of the highlight of my party 2 years ago was that Mill Street Brewery and a few other companies sponsored their product for the party. I thought this year I would take this to the next level and see how I could expand this, hence my Social Media Influencer Superbowl Party. This year I am actively soliciting sponsors for the party, to put their product in the hands of Toronto social media influencers while watching the game.

It is the hope that people at the party, will Tweet, Facebook and share products they like during the party while watching the big game. We have our first sponsor Hollywood Gelato, that will be providing Gelato for the event.

Looking for Sponsors

We are looking for a variety of sponsors, whether it be food, drink or swag. If you want to share your product with social media savvy people this is your chance. Contact me at [email protected]

Sponsors 

 

Hollywood Gelato is a favorite of mine. We have been going to them for years to get amazing Gelato.At Hollywood Gelato we are proud of creating innovative, fun, delicious and authentic gelato. Developing new flavours is a science that takes time, dedication and persistence. We have over 200 recipes in our repertoire and are continuously adding more. Of these recipes you will see 22 of the top selling flavours in our display case.


St. Louis Bar and Grill is a Mainstay for wings and BBQ in the city.St. Louis Bar and Grill 528 Yonge St, 595 Bay St and Fairview Mall locations are the best places in the city for Wings, Ribs and Raptors Games.  If you are a NBA fan, this is on the only in the city that shows more love for NBA.


I just learned of Black Oak and their great craft beer.Black Oak has been brewing award winning beer since the last millennium! We make slow brewed, all malt, authentic hand crafted beer that’s true to style. Focusing on quality, character and consistency, our Pale Ale and Nut Brown are gold medal winners at the Great Canadian Brewing Awards. We also make seasonal beers in limited quantities, each suited to the season they represent.


Dufflet has been providing me with cakes for years for all my family events.Eat More Cake! Dufflet Pastries’ 3 locations are renown as Toronto’s source for fresh baked desserts that are hand-crafted from scratch using no artificial flavours, colours or preservatives. Along with signature cakes, chocolate confections, and sublime wedding & celebration cakes, Dufflet cafés also offer light lunches and specialty coffees for eat-in or take-out.


Pizza Pizza is a staple for anyone who wants a
pizza 24/7.

Ontario’s largest chain of pizzerias with locations extending from Thunder Bay to Windsor to Ottawa. Pizza Pizza has just launched the NEW Buffalo Chicken Pizza is made with our Buffalo and Blue Cheese sauce, Buffalo Grilled Chicken, Red Onions, Roasted Red Peppers &
Mozzarella Cheese.



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Giants vs. 49ers – NFC Championship Game

After our crazy adventure to New England, me and my dad decided to keep the insanity going by flying to San Francisco. So after a crazy trip we got to watch the game. Now it was definitely a wet one, but an adventure we will never forget. There was an incident at the game, but it we were still able to have a great time.

Thanks to Tom Petty, a California original lending some music to the video. This music is not owned or created by myself.