I'm Kyky

Anonymous asked: Hey! I'm from Venezuela too! Barquisimetana :D Most of us venezuelan girls have that pear-shaped body type so I was wondering what you do to stay fit? Since summer if coming up and all (:

naguara, de barquisimeto hahaha… en verdad me siento un poco mal por decirte esto, pero yo no hago nada de ejercicios… solo como sano

Quite a while ago, I was asked what would I ask the leader of my country if I had the change. The answer I gave was as simple as it follows:

Hugo Chávez is the current President of my country –Venezuela. Even though he was elected by a democratic voting procedure and with strong support of the population, his government has characterized by being authoritarian and by an increased military power. It is also the longest ruling period for one president in the democratic history of my country and the one with the highest income due to the international prices of oil. However, poverty and insecurity have increased exponentially during this time.

If I had the chance, I would ask Chavez many difficult questions about his policies. First, why does he stress importance of sustainable growth but he started a crusade against the private sector, weakening the nation’s economy? If we take a look on Singapore it has taken a turn of 180 degrees in the past 30 years. It went from a nothing-country, with no natural resources and bad politics to an international powerhouse. In the words of Lee Kuan Yew, leader of the political party PAP that turned Singapore into the fantastic place we know today, it went “from third world to first”. I wonder why, if we are privileged not only with oil but others natural resources too, we do not follow Singapore’s lead to make Venezuela compete with developed nations. And why is he following the example of countries that have sunk in the past decades such as Cuba, instead. Even communist China recognizes the importance of the private industry and Capitalism as the best economic model to assure a nation’s growth. But while Chavez claims himself to be a socialist, it is quite impossible to understand why his family and allies radically changed their lifestyles to such one of ludicrous expenses.

I would ask why is he giving money and electricity away to other countries, building medical facilities for them, whereas in Venezuela we are suffering from often electric shortens and our public hospitals lack resources to give medical aid to our citizens. Or why is he bringing foreign doctors when we have qualified professionals in our country, who are also familiar with newer technologies.

Additionally, I would ask Chavez to deeply analyze the Scandinavian case, where there is genuine Socialism to an extent that social stratus is rather flat: there is a huge middle class and too little (or non-existent) low class; where population benefits from paying taxes to receive “free” health care, education and heat for the winter; and where every sector, including minorities, is represented in parliaments that discuss policies aiming for an overall benefit of society. Hopefully, he will reckon his “21st Century´s Socialism” differs from Karl Marx, Webber and other socialist philosophers’ ideas.

Ultimately, I would ask him why is he destroying our country if he claims to be patriotic and to absolutely love Venezuela. I would encourage Venezuela’s president to carefully reflect on his policies for his actions to be consistent with his speech. As a good leader, he might find this a wake-up call and change for both the nation’s welfare and political stability.

Sorry it was a long read.

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In the future I want people, and specially leaders, will actually care about protecting our environment for the generations to come

The Future I Want is such where we all will have voices and they’ll be listened, where we’ll be treated upon our human condition instead of our economic status. The Future I Want is filled with Justice and Fairness; but also with environmental concern. I have not entered this contest but I ask you to take a look on several videos and vote for the ones that reach closest to your heart (hopefully those from kids suffering the consequences of climate change already). I want to see the youth of the poorest regions of the world addressing our leaders at the Rio+20. 

The future of our planet is in our hands, lets take responsibility for once. 

Enter here to watch the videos 

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Build your following, reputation, and customer’s trust with these simple practices:

1. Share. Share photos and behind the scenes info about your business. Even better, give a glimpse of developing projects and events. Users come to Twitter to get and share the latest, so give it to them!
2. Listen. Regularly monitor the comments about your company, brand, and products.
3. Ask. Ask questions of your followers to glean valuable insights and show that you are listening.
4. Respond. Respond to compliments and feedback in real time
5. Reward. Tweet updates about special offers, discounts and time-sensitive deals.
6. Demonstrate wider leadership and know-how. Reference articles and links about the bigger picture as it relates to your business.
7. Champion your stakeholders. Retweet and reply publicly to great tweets posted by your followers and customers.
8. Establish the right voice. Twitter users tend to prefer a direct, genuine, and of course, a likable tone from your business, but think about your voice as you Tweet. How do you want your business to appear to the Twitter community?

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(Source: business.twitter.com)

Last November I entered a number of contests to win a ticket for LeWeb- Europe’s #1 internet conference, held in Paris in December. 

My video was selected. Thanks to Lepe Partners and their Program “Adopt an Entrepreneur”, I attended what i call “The Technology Lover’s Hotspot”.

Thousands of people from all over the world packed 3 buildings of Les Docks for an event that had conferences, workshops, demo stands and start-ups competitions, organized by Geraldine and Loic Le Meur. Needless to say, everything was made with the best technology: from personal ID badges to companies’ stands. The only thing that didnt live up to the expectations was, ironically, the Wi-fi connection: Apple devices had a hard time getting hooked to it.

I spent most of the time at the Main Plenary Room. I thought of writting articles to comment on the talks I heard. I encourage you to check them out on LeWeb’s youtube channel, instead  (click here). And I will post the phrases I found most interesting in terms of lessons, later on (so keep coming back). The opening talk was given by Karl Lagerfeld, Fashion icon and Tech freak. The audience was quite shocked a designer was first speaker at a technology event. Besides my love for Fashion Industry, I found it delightful to see a man -whose look is quite the oposite to geeky- carry on 5 iPhones and talk about how much he enjoys sketching on his iPad. I simply love diversity.

My early dreams of diving into the Silicon Valley for 3 days did not came true the way I planned: I didnt get the job I was looking for. I didnt meet Sean Parker or Kevin Rose. In fact, there was so many people that finding bloggers and other participants from Social Media I wanted to meet was impossible. I passed by Eric Schmidt, thou. I met wonderful, inspiring and motivated people from the companies that make my life easier with their products. I actually had an interesting talk with Dennis Crowley, CEO and co-founder of Foursquare, on some of their Marketing Strategies.

Dennis seems a fantastic person: very well grounded. He hanged around the lobby with another Foursquare executive and a laptop with a Foursquare sticker (of course) and people could approach to him easily. He was also kind enough to give an interview for the guys of They Dont Teach You This In School, which I recorded in a short video. I still remember when he checked-in from Paris Underground during peak hours and made jokes about the vast quantity of people trying to get transported. He is the best example of what Shervin Pishevar was explaining real entrepreneurs do “You have made it? great, Move on, put it back and keep going to the next thing”. Great job Dens!

This year two editions of LeWeb have been anounced, so the community can gather together more than once a year:

• June 19, 20: LeWeb is on for a new Olympic challenge in London
• December 4, 5, 6: annual meeting in Paris
  

I hope I will find a way to attend. Meanwhile, I leave you the link to get your tickets: here.

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Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course?

Each of us has such a bank. Its name is time.

Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to a good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no over draft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours. There is no drawing against “tomorrow.” You must live in the present on today’s deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success. The clock is running. Make the most of today.

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(Source: 86400.pen.io)

I think Kickstarter is one of the best things from the last decade. Recently, many projects had been funded completely in less than 24 hours, meaning the website has provided people with incredible ideas of an easy way to get the economic means they need to put them out for the world to enjoy. In few words, Kickstarter is perhaps the best crowd funding platform out there.

However, I have seen just now a bunch of projects featuring great products with too few, even none, backers. Why is that? They lack some -if not all- of the factors I have highlighted as key to funding success:

1. Identify an obvious need for your product (whether its a film, a device, a mobile app, etc.)
2. Clear specifications
   Make sure your potential backers know what your project is about in details. When manufacturing a physical good is the case, answer the following questions:
   Is it the first one of its kind on the market? If not, what are the advantages in front of competitors?
3. Benefits for backers/early adopters
   When defining your different funding levels, think deeply about the rewards you will offer.  Specially if the project is intended to first launch a product, chances are you will raise more funding if you offer your good at a competitive price that doesn’t leave much of a gain range but at least covers the cost of production. Moreover, if you can post the estimated cost it will have once on the market, it can work as an incentive for backers to support you if they get a good discount. Why should you do this? Because you simply need to get the product out on the market and by the time it actually happens, chances are your backers will have already told others about it. Then, you can sell the product at a higher price. That’s actually an easy way to thank the truth your early adopters gave to you. 
   In other hand, be guided by the principle of equity: the more money someone pledges, the better benefit they should receive
4. Leave room for small donors
   Some people just love to help others and they would probably give you a tiny bit to help you start with even if they wont benefit from your product. Remember a dollar is made penny after penny. Its good to have a small pledge option (about 5$ or less)
5. Show it works
   This would give you bonus points with the audience, because they can get a better idea of what your project is actually about and how it will look in reality.
   
   

(UPDATE) Our friends from Olloclip shared one more key-factor of success: having everything ready to start producing if your project involves manufacturing a new product. 

Some Kickstarter projects that lack of any of the characteristics mentioned above are:

• The 17 Inch Windows Tablet. A powerful tablet that could leave all the competitors behind not only because its thinner, lighter and a better performer than any netbook; but also because it allows you to easily change any component to upgrade it. Although they do great in #2 and #4, their price is too high (2x an iPad 2) 
• NautiCloud is an option for yacht owners that “offers you onboard LAN connectivity for any number of wifi-enabled devices”. However, they don’t tell you the range it covers and whether you need an available wi-fi network around your boat or not to use it. I think Kickstarter is not the best way to reach their target audience.

I have been tempted to write personal messages to many project founders to advice them on some of these issues. They might need some marketing input. Then again, who am I to tell them how to present their ideas? But if you -yes, you- who are reading this blog are thinking about getting your project on Kickstarter or know someone who might, please share these humble lines and make sure you cover the main 4 characteristics of a successful Kickstarter Project.

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