Dream and Hustle

Setbacks in March but Resuming in April

A lot of things came up in March regarding Dream and Hustle and our mission and that is all of the grinding work that has to be done that cats don’t like to hear about. Truth of the matter, most cats just want to hear about the dream and the reward and not the actual hustle part of going for yours and doing for self. This article is going to discuss basically how March went down and what’s in store for April.

First thing and this is the most important thing I need cats reading Dream and Hustle to understand is that I’m going through a divorce. Some would say it’s a nasty divorce but I disagree because it’s pretty silly and petty when you do the real numbers on it and it’s really beneath me. In addition, in Georgia, most divorce take around a few weeks while mine will probably go 1.5 years to 2 years. The reason why I’m telling you this because I will not be launching or announcing any new ventures until the divorce is finalized. Do not sit there and think the reason why I haven’t launched any businesses is because I’m not hustling – now you know the real story and I’m telling you that you have zero excuse trying to look at me and think what I talk about can’t be done.

Now with that said, there are moves I obviously can make. The first thing I can do is basically tell you cats how to make moves and explain the hustle. The second thing I can do is launch initiatives that are not for profit and have social benefits.

So the first thing is telling you cats and that will be through the wikis. The wikis are being written by me every day and I have not published updates to the web yet because I’m writing a lot of content. I really thought cats were going to self-published and it would be user content generated but I guess not so I’m writing up the initial material.

I do not mind writing up the initial stuff for the wikis because it will give the base for others to build upon. When you launch ventures, cats are not going to come out and support until they see you make an initial investment in what you do. They need to see you put in the work before they join in and put in work and I understand that’s the rules of the game with the wikis and I’m going to play along.

Now for the second thing, I’m going to looking at creating events for entrepreneurs that is more socially aligned. I want events where we all in the same room talking about launching businesses, operating business and even talking about teachable moments to each other. I really don’t like the whole “status social” crap that goes on in the Black American social scene. We brothas and sistas all realize we need to become self-empowered and start businesses and do for self and that need to be the conversation of the decade, real talk.

The weather is now warm enough in Atlanta to start hosting some casual social events so I’m definitely looking at what I can setup. My interests is going to be using technology such as Arduino, creating business database and workflows with open source software and retailing strategies and business models. I’m more interested in the type of work where we can sit on our butts at the bar and just watch the money pile up on our mobile phone screen. So that is being worked on in April.

So let me break down the projects I’ve been working on in March.

Augmented Reality Project. We are still strong for August to launch this and next month in May, I will be pushing out more information about this effort to get merchants signed up. We are going to target almost all of the hoods in the United States using geo-location to get people to come out and shop. The interesting part is we can use a JavaScript function in HTML5 to accomplish this and bypass the app development but I haven’t decided yet. But we got the specs for the web services, the merchants and the products. This is under wraps in the technical prototyping phase and will be talking about it more. This month, I may do a trial test here in Atlanta and may need yall as volunteers. I have other people in addition to the 30 Rotten Dissidents working with me on this project.

Micro-Grant Development. I explained that as an African-American who feel indebted to the sacrifice Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. done out of love for me, I should share that same kind of love for others out here in this world. We African-Americans are truly capable of helping others in this world have better lives and in a way, we should be counting the blessing we have as brothas and sistas here in America. In addition, in my travels, I met some of the most good-natured beautiful people who don’t have much and their people don’t have much and probably just need a $500USD boost to help them launch a business and do for self. But micro-finance initiatives, particularly in India have been oppressive and I’m still disturbed that a man in India took his own life over a $300USD micro-loan he could not repay he was being harassed over. So I decided that in lieu of providing a new micro-loan program, I want to set it up where we brothas and sistas buy out these micro-loans from these sharks and give these people a real chance at doing for self in these countries where $200USD can go a long way. MLK did it for us, it’s only right we brothas and sistas start doing for others.

Arduino Projects. I’m currently working on a project where I’m going to use Arduino to read a cash acceptor for a vending machine and I will publish the hustle once I get it working. If I can get this working, then that means brothas and sistas can start creating custom vending machines that take cash. I don’t know if you guys know this but most of those cash accepters take more than US dollars because they are sold worldwide and just need a switch flipped to accept Japanese Yen or the British Pound and other notes worldwide. That means brothas and sistas can sell this ish worldwide if we get this right. This is one of those things that once you learn how to accept cash, then you in straight business where you actually see the money you earning.

Dream and Hustle Magazine. Slated for this fall, we are going to launch a magazine version of the web site and I’m working it. This is pretty much not a commercial rack effort but more of a coffee table and barbershop/salon piece for brothas and sistas to read during their leisurely pastime. I’m looking at the software and layouts and got a cat helping me design the magazine and hopefully I can get the word about doing for self to a larger audience out there who don’t read blogs like this.

The Dream and Hustle E-Book. This project will not be finished until the divorce proceeding is finalized and is currently in conceptual stage. However, I have one big problem and that is with the War and Hustle story. The problem is the guy in the book is also from Fort Lewis and he did some foul ish up in Iraq. Now we got this Sgt. Bales guy who allegedly shot up all these Afghan villagers from Fort Lewis and I’m wondering should I rewrite the story or release as it originally intended. I don’t know yet. By the way, expect to see a lot more short stories on the blog because I have been writing a lot of good ones that is relevant.

So basically as you see, I got way too much going on to be worried about some of the petty things other want me to be distracted with. But this March and April, I have been expecting to be this busy and be on it like this. So expect to see more talk about all of this stuff coming into fruition and in addition, I will have a special section on how to run conferences because I will be running some myself next month. I know I’m writing a lot but there is a lot going on. So let me get back to wrapping up this ESB-based retail POS project I did not have time to mention and get back in the groove.