What a great day today.   A day or two like today can make you want to do it all over again, despite all things.

So, what was so great?  Momentum!   So, exciting to see so years of hard work, coming to fruition.

The main trigger was that G… started today – his first day.    First, amazing feeling to be able to work together.   I missed the guy – there is just no way to about it.   The engineer in me loves the technology, systems, etc. and G… lives and breathes it.   Very, very energizing to be doing ‘cool’ things – and to get deep into tech talk.  Nerd talk is the cool talk of 2010.

So, in my traditional style, I basically did a 2 hour hand over.    We had coffee, I laid out the new structure, who will report to him, what the goals are – and handed over CTO and Marketing department to G….   G… will have full freedom to do as he wishes with the departments – he knows the goals – (open up lots and lots of sites as fast as possible) – how he does it is 100% his business now.   The beauty is that I have 110% confidence in G…, so, very, very comfortable to hand things over.   I know for sure that not only will he do a better job than I would, but also that he will take good care of this ‘baby’ that I have treasured for so long.  Yes, IT, Marketing – have been my baby – something I really love – and I’m just delighted that its going into such good hands.

Going over all the things we have was a great reminder in how much we have done – how much infrastructure has been laid down – how prepared we are.   G…. met with his new team – and basically started to go through the Learn, Think, Act process.   Very proud of what J…, S… and their teams have done – when G… mapped it all out on a board – it was pretty cool to see just WHAT we had build.

So, on a personal level, one of my stressors has been that I have not been able to push the sites, PearlsOnly, etc. growth.   Everyday, I knew that I was giving up quite significant revenue by not being able to focus on marketing and growth.   BUT, as it stood and stands, the financial systems really need my attention – so I had clear solutions on how to make this happen.   And here, I stood today, I witnessed it happening.

2nd huge up was the handing over of financial systems over to C….   C…. is moving with lighting speed – solving things at lighting speed.   C together with G, will be able to completely get all the financial issues out of the way in no time.  No time.   So, I handed over account access over to C today – I will still be managing financial movements for next couple weeks (perhaps less) but C is now nearly ready to take that on.

This leaves me now with only one challenge – and that is funding.    So, instead of having 3 rocks – financial systems, growth and funding – I now can fully concentrate on just one – funding.  If the past has any indicator – when I focus on an issue – it goes away – away very quickly.  So, lets see… 🙂

The cherry on top was spending hour with Ji… and looking at the development of our new platform.   Wow!  I haven’t see what these guys have done in last 5 months (I think).   So, what did they do?

Well, they got the platform ready – they got BlingOnly ready – they are ready to go.    And, what is more amazing.   This was done with truly no supervision or oversight from me – I become unnecessary in executing this.    What does this tell you about the ‘quality’ of team. Right – A level.

And there is more – we started to follow a new format for the weekly team lead meeting – starting with EO style one word open – then Rockefeller/Lepa style 3 top rocks – then a one word close.    First, the meeting was very fun, and in my opinion quite nice – as it really helped us to see what we are all working on.   I know from my point of view – I no longer am able to see all the things that are going on – and hearing what everyone is working on is so nice – especially since we are working on all the RIGHT things.

So, here is technical things (I can’t help getting a bit tech):

1. Our new platform is sitting in Amazon Cloud.   Its using a whole new codebase – optimized and designed for ultra-rapid site roll outs.   Our first site – BlingOnly.com is already ready – and just waiting for merchandising.   Its here: http://devcart.redstores.com/cart/home.php

And it looks like this:

Yes, it looks like like silver devotion BUT this is running on the codebase that has been ported from our old technology and moved to a scalable, new code.   Basically – with a few clicks – we can launch a whole new site – with its own streamed product lines.   Anyways – I can’t really get into all of our tech here behind this because its quite unique with what we have done.   But, the point is this – from the time a new site is wanted – time to launch can be less than 1 month.   In some cases, if we go ultra-focused and new product is not required – we can be up in days!    Days!    The value of this? Well – when I talked with J… (whom I met in HK) – this capability is worth 7 figures.

Imagine the power – a new market segment emerges and we identify it.   We see where the customers are.  In a week we can have a presence RIGHT where the customers are!

And there is more. Because M… is away, I had a chance to spend some quality time with Je… – I haven’t actually really got a chance to talk with here – so it was really nice to connect.   I’m surrounded by so many nice people.

So, a day like this, is like a huge rush – as it probably is evident through this post.   Days like this are rare – so I really take the time to really enjoy them – and bask in their moment.     Rare in that it is not so often that EVERYTHING just seems to click.   Today it all clicked.  Rare.  Fun. Rewarding. Very motivating.