Hmm... The Innovator hasn't written a blog in a while ay? WRONG. The last blog i wrote was taken off by Viz as it wasn't formal enough, and didn't show us in the right light. I hope you know that however laid back my blogs are, the whole thing is serious.

Let me make one thing clear. There are 2 reasons why i am doing what i am doing.

1. To make a profitable business empire.
2. To have fun doing it. Eventually i want to pluck lots of clever people from their jobs, let them innovate, make money and have fun... we only live once.

I am hoping that Viz can provide the serious business-like blogs. Personally, i like to look back at my own blogs and smile.

So in the spirit of that... Check this out. This is a picture of our first delivered suit. The good news is, it was delivered early, the other good news is that he got good value. £110 a suit... blimey:

I am just hoping that we didn't mistake his centimetre measurements for inches..

We haven't quite covered everything that happened in the past..... but with everything that is going on we have decided to concentrate on the here and now.

Missing out:

• Office taking shape - Summary: Amazing coffee machine, but time has told us that donated computers are sometimes not all good...!

• Staff - Summary: Quite a few staff now, both full and part time...they even know the idea! All work hard, look at the football pages and read the blog. We realise how lucky we are to have so many people backing our ideas and willing to get involved. As with most companies, we have a room full of bunk beds for our unpaid employees to sleep on. Vis will elaborate on this next time.

Latest news: in order to get these poor people paid, we have started a Suiting website.

We offer only the finest quality cashmere wool suits at £110. Those of you who know how much of a connoisseurthe Visionary is will know that the suits have to be good.

Click on the bespoke suit link on the right to "donate" to our cause.... oh and you'll get a fantastic, made-to-measure suit!

The casino is taking shape too. We had our first glimpse at something functional this morning, and you guys are going to love it...

Hello everybody.... Long time no speak (sorry about that). The truth is that we have all been busy trying to sell stuff while waiting for the software company to do their business. Markets every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We'll cut you a good bargain if you mention the blog.

Still on the catch up..

We needed to visit Malta to convince our accountant and regulator that our new type of casino was viable. But first, we had to convince them that we were viable. First problem - Its 5.30pm , we have a flight the next day, a conference in the evening and nothing to show that there is any sort of credibility behind our company - apart from a company number.

Hmmm... Thank heavens for PC World, which sells photo printers and Business card paper.

We now had the peace of mind to go to our conference, have a few glasses of wine and come back to design and print them.

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Conference (The Visionary will talk about)
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It didn't take us long to settle on a question mark for the logo, and a nice red colour background like the one above. Professional looking business cards. 1am finish, 6am taxi to the airport... lovely.

First of all i want to introduce a couple of new recruits. The first is a bloke who has introduced some well needed wit into the office. We have nicknamed him "The Wit". The second has added some well needed diversity to our organisation. We've got Indian, English, Polish and now Japanese.... now all we need are a few females! Our new Oriental recruit is "Hiro". Wit = Head of Trademarks, Admin etc. Hiro = Head of Internet Vending & other cash streams. Welcome Wit and Hiro....

Carrying on...

Viz seems to get wind of lots of stuff... The next was an evening where Richard Segal (At the time, the head of Partygaming - the biggest online Gambling site world wide).

Well, me and Viz, being shy as we are managed to ask the most questions in the whole group. Then at the end personally met Richard, got a photo and asked him:

Innovator: Is it possible that a new entrant could come onto the market and steal a big chunk of your market?
Richard Segal: No......Blah blah blah...
Visionary: Who is your biggest threat?
Richard Segal: No-one...blah blah blah.


Anyway, after bigging myself up to Viz about being good at poker, i came 3rd in the hundred+ entry poker tournement, while getting tipsy.... and won my next day's clothes.

OK everyone….

Am a little bit disappointed that some people are doubting that the blokes in the photo are actually us. Let me just tell you that if you are doubting those photo’s, then there are a couple more with far more influential people in them that we are going to disguise our faces on soon….

Let’s get back to telling you the story:

After convincing the family, finding Malta and meeting playmates we had to get the ball rolling on the software.

Options: Do it ourselves, use established piece of software and become an “affiliate" or get small Software Company to do it.

1. Do it ourselves: I’m pretty good at computers, but don’t trust myself to do something secure or totally reliable. The Visionary has assured me that he is good at many things. Software isn’t one of them. Not an option.
2. Use established piece of software – Our idea is so innovative that another piece of software just wouldn’t be able to cater for it. Also who wants to do all this work - only to give away any cash to big, rich software companies?
3. Get small software company to do it: Keep the rights to the software, start up our own affiliate schemes and give any “software money” to a small company that we get on with.

Funnily enough, we chose option 3.

The Visionary will probably explain how we came to the decision over the software company, and also why he didn't help me collect the bunk beds for the dorm... (ok he did help put them up.)

Viz?

Right guys (& girls)…. just to let you know, we’re in the process of setting up a dorm for everyone who wants to work with us in London… If you know us, call us… free accommodation, and great company! Not too much money though… sorry…look at it as a career break that could lead onto massive things…

Carrying on…

My girlfriend never thinks my ideas are any good… in fact I’d go as far to say as she is purposely negative just to wind me up. So its always good to give her a call, and totally fizzle out any confidence that I had. Called her, told her…it went quiet. She couldn’t complain! Sorry bubs. At that point I knew not to tell anyone else and keep it a secret.

“The Visionary” tried to tell his girlfriend, but he didn’t have one. So I think his parents passed the idea instead.

True?

We're going to tell you how it got to this stage. Starting with the day that I came up with the idea...

Start - 8pm - 10th January 2006..

"The Visionary" (hmmm..) had been trying to meet with me for ages...finally I relented. After a few hours of catching up, we started talking about plans. Back in school he was hard working and steady - certainly not one to break the mould but it soon became apparent that he wasn't looking forward to working in a "steady" job. He had one lined up at the time..

I, on the other hand, have grown up in a family where starting something yourself is the norm, although at that time I was working for a recruitment company as an IT Manager, which to be honest, is the best job.. short of working for myself..

We chatted. He told me a few of his ideas - but none of them stood out as unique or fun. Sorry mate! We were, however, pretty good at bouncing ideas off each other, and after a while I mentioned an idea for a casino. We found this so fun and surreal that it took about 10 seconds before we realised that the idea had true potential....

End - 6am 11th January 2006 - off to work at 8.30am.