The Who, What and Why.... About Acoustic Sea
These pages call for biographical information but you won't really know ME unless this is penned in the first person from me to you. When you invest in someone's work you deserve to know where it came from.
First: These NFTs, graphical art pieces, printed art treasures, DAOs and communities are extremely fast-evolving. Roadmaps are intentions as if all remains constant. There will be detours and construction along the way. CREATORS THAT UNDERSTAND BUSINESS (or those who are partnered with people that do) ARE THOSE WHO ARE POISED TO SUCCEED. This, in spite of a five-year future that I promise you nobody can fully comprehend today.
These projects are the building blocks of what we will have tomorrow. My businesses have all melted into a new form as the world changes. This will too, and I'm looking forward to it!
At best, some struggle but most fail altogether in a world of fast-paced evolution. Me? This is where I play ball and say "Hold my beer".
I started a business over twenty years ago that is still operating. Does it look like the business plan from 1999? Nope. It's not even close.
Along the way however, my business has served well over 200 Million people. My writing work has been copied word-for-word by 10s of millions of people. Either you or someone you know has visited and/or used one of the career, business or reference websites that we published. You don't survive the 2002 internet scene without evolving. To the credit of continual innovation and an amazing business partner we're still in business right now.
Twelve years ago we turned down a $1.5M offer for one of our website properties that we built from scratch and operated nearly on autopilot. We had some short-term regret but it still earns money today.
I've consulted to literal "kitchen table" businesses over the years that collectively are valued at more than $20M today. I was hired by Fast Company's "Most influential person on the internet" for business development. I've worked with and collaborated with many of the top minds in online marketing and business development. I was in the room as part of a mastermind group where the modern definition of "sales funnel" was conceived. The resulting evolution of that collaboration has influenced a very high percentage of program marketing that you're exposed to every single day.
I was called in to assist with the turnaround and sale of a business that was buried in debt and bleeding money for ten years. I took it over instead. I sacrificed my salary to make payroll. I put my personal reputation on the line with customers and vendors because I knew that I would eventually succeed. The company was was profitable in twelve months and nearly tripled in sales before I successfully marketed and sold the business four years later to a national conglomerate.
Acoustic Sea is a combination of something I discovered several years ago that blends perfectly with my artistic/design side and my burning desire to be a part of the Web 3.0 world. Three years ago the concept of "printed sound" was a novelty that came from weeks of curiosity and months of hard core trial and error. It even surprised me But it Worked!
I could save and print out the sound from voicemail messages saved on my phone from my Dad that passed away several years ago. The question was whether someone in the future would really go to the trouble of scanning and playing it back.
My dad was a legendary dude, but how about people like Neil Armstrong, Thomas Edison, Will Rogers, Alexander Graham Bell, Harry Houdini, Florence Nightingale? I thought Okay.. I Really Like This Idea!
About me and where I'm coming from:
Why go to all of the trouble of doing this?
Everyone views themselves as something. This is a foundational belief used to build everything else on top of. I grew up being the "little guy". The kid on the ball field half the size of everyone else who elicited the "Awww.." response from empathetic mothers in the lawnchairs beyond the dugout. I wanted to be a wrestler like my brother but was too small as a freshman in high school to wrestle the 98lb weight class. Oh well. I did hit my growth spurt, only finally about four years behind everyone else. Haha.
Underdog became my self-definition of choice. Proving people to be wrong about me, or "showing them" who underestimated me was a source of ambition unlike any other. I will warn the young that this isn't the healthiest source of ambition because it relies on the feedback of others, which you can't control.
Nobody told me that half of my "Rudy" moments would go UN-noticed or honored. I actually met Rudy Ruettiger who said in passing during his speech something like that success is its own reward and the rest is only icing on the cake. Success is the gift to yourself FIRST.
This wisdom would have saved me 25 years of self-checking and a bit of grief but oh well.
Why am I doing this?
Now is as good of a time as any to be honest. I've done well in business but our agency (the other part of our business) took a near-fatal hit when Covid swept through. It won't be the same yet for some time, and I have some serious ground to make up. I love new business models and if I can deliver exceptional value it is a win-win!
I'm a fourth-generation descendant of really poor immigrant families. Generation after generation have been wonderful, really hard working people. Hard working people that fight all of their lives and die broke. The next generation has to start over.
My father sought to be the end of that era and ALMOST succeeded. The present-day value of assets he acquired and held in his life are in the millions of dollars.
To quote John Dutton from Yellowstone:
"It’s the one constant in life. You build something worth having, someone’s gonna try to take it." And they did.
Now, I've tested at an IQ of between 133 and 142 several times. Dad ran into these demons and I was certain that I could beat them. In fact I did beat them. Three times to be exact. 6-figures worth of legal costs out of my pocket to preserve 7-figure assets made sense. Everything calculated out to be the BEST possible decisions at the time, assuming that the law and the players involved had to abide by the rules. Events transpired that haunt my soul still today. These people broke the law, spied on meetings and bought themselves some time and came back for round four when I wasn't prepared for it.
Shortly after my father was taken by a fatal stroke. My kids and my family is out that 6-figure cost plus the tremendous investment value it would have produced since then. The legacy of my father's lifetime of ambition is gone. I've battled severe stress-related illness and plus I'm starting back from scratch at a time I should be counting the days until my retirement.
I have an amazing wife, four daughters and my mother who is elderly and disabled. I have a lot of people counting on me, and I don't want my own children out in the world fending for themselves from scratch. This is a body of work that will be a part of that legacy and it is already beginning to happen.
I anticipate continuing this work and look forward to witnessing the evolution of both technology and economy for years to come. With some added hustle in doing work that I enjoy, I hope to restore plus add to your legacy and my own.