The Chris Struttmann Report

Despite my age breakdown I had on my 20th birthday, I’m still trying my hardest to be as awesome as I can be.

I haven’t told too many people this, but effective September 1st, 2010, I will be a partner in PhysicalAddictions.com, a very large bodybuilding and vitamin supplements online store. I will have a fairly size-able stake in the website and I’ll be working hard to make the website even bigger than it already is. This is in conjunction to all of my other clients, APRSBB, TwiceText.com and our new Brilliant Innovations Group project which will be launched soon.

Let’s not forget about school! I know that for most of you I have been completely evading the subject of school for a while; so it’s time to clear some air…. with some bullet points!

• I have completed all of my degree requirements at BCC, I WILL be graduating at the end of this semester with an A.S. in Computer Programming and Analysis.
• With any sort of luck I will be entering FIT in the Spring, UCF is the backup plan.
• The goal right now is to dual major with degrees in Computer Science and Business Finance
• Yes, I will be working a lot while going to school a lot, but guess what, nobody said being awesome was easy.
• If any of the above changes, I will let you know

So that clears that up and gets you updated to everything that’s been going on with life. Now it’s time to switch gears a little bit.

Without being too arrogant, I wanted to make a list of things that I like to do to keep myself awesome… Just a few tips and pointers, you can take them or leave them, but I’m just putting them out there… So here they are.

1. Work your ASS off!

   As you can see above, I’m doing A LOT of work right now, A TON, actually. I’m not really tied down or completely committed to anyone or anything (aka wife or kids), so I can pretty much go crazy and work hard so that one day, maybe, I can fulfill my ultimate dream of having the house on dragon point (more on that on a different day).

   I feel like if I work hard now, not only will I be rewarded later, but I’ll also also feel better about everything I’ve done. As potentially tacky as it is, one of my best friends’ dad once told me “Chris, you’re going to look in the mirror one day and realize you built it all from the ground up.” It’s so true, I have complete faith that I will have something worth pointing to one day and saying “Chris Struttmann,” and I’ll take pride in the fact that I DID IT.

   Bottom line: work hard while you can! Eventually you’ll be tied down and working hard becomes harder to do.

2. Don’t be afraid to be absolutely ecstatic about what you’re doing

   The thing is, the fact that you’re actually doing something is in itself something worth talking about! If you’re not excited about what you’re doing, how is anybody else going to be excited about it? Yes, the chances are, you might look dumb, but who cares? Because the people that cast you as being dumb, are far inferior to your awesomeness; chances are, they’re not doing too much with their lives. The people that can relate to your excitement are really your target audience, they’re the people that will help you build connections and eventually achieve your goals.

3. Don’t go changin’

   People change themselves naturally over the years, especially at my age (myself definitely included). This is a given. However, the minute you start changing yourself to conform to someone or something, you have lost the game and you need to go back to square one. Further down the road, you will look back and you’ll hate yourself for it. This ties into the next one perfectly.

4. Live life without regrets…

   … instead have learning experiences. I’ve done some dumb things in my life, but guess what, they’re all things that I’ve learned from and I’m a better person because of it. It’s that simple.

5. Do NOT forget to spend time with the ones who made you who you are

   If you’ve read this article all the way to this point and haven’t given up, then this is one is just as important as #1. This is true for everyone but especially true for me: your friends, family and all the other people that you Love are the ones that made you who you are. These people are the ones that are going to give you the best feedback you could ever get. They’ll tell you when you really are over-doing it, when you’re being a downright ass, and when your head isn’t on straight. On the balance sheet of life, these people are your highest valued assets.

   Besides, if you create something massive but you’ve blown your friends off while doing it, who’s going to come to all of your parties?

So these are just some of the rules that I like to live by, I thought I’d share.

Again, this post is VERY chopped up and not well organized, but that’s the way it is these days. The grammar is also TERRIBLE, but again, this is how it goes right now.

The Celebration!
A lot of people know that I’m the co-founder of a very small company called Brilliant Innovations Group, L.L.C. (BIG for short); if you don’t know this, I’m now telling you this, “I’m the co-founder of a company that goes by ‘Big.’” Starting a company was an amazing process to go through: filing papers with the state, opening bank accounts, reading and writing operating agreements, taxes, it’s all part of the experience.

Brilliant Innovations Group owns a website called TwiceText.com, TwiceText is a free, localized listing service for college textbooks that we launched in July of 2009. Think of your favorite online classifieds website, limit it to textbooks and instead of dividing it up by area, divide it up by school. Voila, you have TwiceText.com, which is our first ever public product; since two of the three company partners are college students, we’re pretty excited about it.

Today, we’re especially excited about our product: we made our first-ever generated revenue. What does this mean? It means that people saw some ads on our site, found them interesting, and clicked on them! Granted, we didn’t make much money at all, but it’s the proof of concept that we needed to say to ourselves, “this is actually working!” That confirmation compliments our confidence and is the kind of thing that keeps us motivated to continue doing what we do.

BIG and myself
When I tell people that I own a small company they say “well, what does your company do?” This question actually throws me for a loop; because we’re not a typical company, we can’t be categorized by one or two words. Yes, we own a product called TwiceText, but TwiceText is a piece of a bigger picture. So first we’ll start with what we are NOT, and then we’ll go in to what we ARE.

At Brilliant Innovations Group, L.L.C. we’re not engineers that design things to solve complex mathematical problems. BIG isn’t a company founded on the basis of exploiting millions in order to get rich; we’re not a company that’s exclusive mission is to revolutionize the way you act or interact. The Brilliant Innovations Group is a team of people that want to develop things that solve everyday problems for everyday people. We are innovators; we love developing things that will make millions of peoples’ lives easier, and we love executing our mission. I think that’s all I need to say.

Please excuse any lack of plot in this post, it’s purely a stream-of-consciousness brain dump.

Many of you know, I live near the Kennedy Space Center in Melbourne, FL; I get to see the shuttle launch from my driveway or typically, I’ll go to the beach for the big show.

Every time I watch the rocket launch I get chills down my spine at how purely awesome it is that hundreds if not thousands of people are working to launch four people into space. But I also take time to recognize the historical events that lead up to this event.

In the 1950s, America decided that they were going in to space; at the time this was purely a defensive measure against the USSR. Both of my grandfathers were involved in the space program, indirectly. One of my grandfathers was a computer specialist for the Mercury and Gemini missions, and the other worked on data encoding boxes for the Apollo missions. I’m not fully briefed on the history of the space program but for all intents and purposes we’ll assume that the space program was defined around 1955. As most know, the space program wasn’t very successful in the early days, there were lots of successes, but also lots of failures. America continued to develop and refine their technologies though, and in the short short time between 1955 and 1969, we were able to rocket humans to the moon. If you think about it, that’s a major accomplishment for fourteen years. It was an exciting time to be an American!

This is where my post splits into two defined segments. And they’re slightly contradictory, but again, it’s a brain-dump.

Segment One: The Current(ish).
Had we not gone to space in the 50s, 60s and 70s, America would be nowhere near where it is today. But assume for a minute that we didn’t go. If America, today, was tasked with going to the moon, there’s no way that we could accomplish everything that happened in the mid 20th century within the same time frame. Why? The process has become way too bureaucratic, America has become too judgmental, too skeptical. We would go through phases where money would come from congress, but then eventually people would start questioning the program, and long story short, WE’D NEVER GO.

America has become a series of bureaucratic processes in which the government has effectively limited our growth potential because we’re too safe, we don’t want to take any risks. I’ve got news. America is all about taking risk. It’s very hard for me to express my thoughts in the form of words, but I hope that you can understand my point. Democrats want “change.” That’s all they want as a matter of fact; change that will cause government to get bigger, more bureaucratic, and spend more money. Change that will choke programs like the space program. Yes, there are some issues in America that need to be ironed out, but by-and-large, America works! And as long as the average American remains somewhat competent, they’ll vote out whatever they don’t like, over time. That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way it will continue to be as long as America continues to exist.

Segment two: America’s Mark on the World
The French claim they invented democracy, the Romans could be credited with creating modern day cities and civilization, the Myans can be credited with creating the concept of dates, times and calendars, there’s lots of credit being given in the history books; the question is “what’s America going to get credited with?” A lot of European countries mock America because their history is far longer than ours and the only thing we’ve ever contributed to the world is the concept of the burger and fast-food. The next paragraph is for those countries.

America has created so many technologies, it’s ridiculous. We’ve pioneered the computer chip, information technology, electricity, air travel, efficient train travel, the automobile, all of these things happened on American turf; however, these innovations are not what we’ll be put in the history books for. America was the FIRST country to create an environment where innovation is celebrated. Previously, innovation was driven out of need, American innovation is driven out of desire; that’s what America will be put in the history books for.

Thanks,
Chris Struttmann

Well, I got to Best Buy at about 3:30AM and waited in line for an hour and 1/2; Had I been 3 people in front of me I could proudly say that I am the owner of a 22 inch Wide screen LCD monitor, however that’s not the case.

I was actually surprised at Best Buy’s management, they were very organized and prepared. They even handed out store maps with all the hot deals while people were waiting in line!

Anyways, after discovering that they were freshly sold out of the 22 inch wide screen I decided to head to Staples because some of my friends were waiting in line there and I knew they had some good deals on screens. I got there right as they were opening the doors, grabbed a 19 inch wide screen Samsung and to the registers I went.

I now have my wide screen setup dual heading with my other LCD monitor and am quite pleased with it’s performance for the price (about $120) There’s just enough space to be more productive, yet not so much that you have to move your head while you use the computer. I am really excited to get my TV Tuner card for Christmas and get it working with Windows XP Media Center.

Cheers,
Chris