Mike Johns is Jamaican. He is the Founder and President of Digital Mind State formerly known as UrbanWorld Wireless, the Los Angeles based company that bridged wireless technology and hip-hop culture will be the guest speaker via Skype Video at the next Kingston BETA, Thursday April 26th, 2012 6:30pm at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel.

Who is Mike Johns?
Mike Johns is the driving force behind the Digital Mind State brand, responsible for planning, business development, marketing and the company expansion. A true liaison between urban youth culture and the mobile industry, Johns has been successful at building and maintaining profitable business relationship with some of the biggest company names in mobile industry including T-Mobile, Zed, Fun Mobility, Nokia, Microsoft, amongst others. Motivated byleveling the playing field of the “Digital Divide,” he’s been dubbed “ambassador” of the urban/hip-hop lifestyle segment as well he’s achieved numerous “first” in the mobile entertainment space.

UrbanWorld was a vision Johns had early in his career while working as Marketing Director for Larry Flynt’s Rap Page Magazine. In 2001, he turned his dream into reality, brokering the company’s mobile content provider deal with T-Mobile; partnerships with Infospace, Jamster, and AT&T (UrbanWorld’s voicetones have been featured in the top ten voicetone category on AT&T for three consecutive years). Capitol Records become the first record label to conduct mobile marketing with the “urban” audience, utilizing UrbanWorld’s mobile platform followed by such industry players as Def Jam, Vibe Magazine, Adidas and Fox Network. UrbanWorld Wireless has become a worldwide leader in the distribution of urban content, while earning praise from executives at ABC Radio, BBC Radio, XXL Magazine, and an endless list of partners, vendors and clients.

With more than ten years in the industry and an unrivaled understanding of the global wireless ecosystem, Johns is creating a unique, digital entertainment experience for the youth and young adult market with the international distribution of top urban brands in music, video & film across new media platforms including Xbox Live, Playstation, mobile and digital television.

Prior to founding UrbanWorld Wireless and fresh out of college, Johns was Marketing Director for Larry Flynt owned Rap Page Magazine and was key in the marketing the Rap Page brand which quickly emerged as one of the world’s premier urban music magazine and website. By fostering relationship with artists & record label in addition to building strategic partnership with various consumer brands including Dolce & Gabbana, Johns was able to increase circulation and readership by 12%.

Prior to Rap Page Magazine, Johns worked for Fortune 500 Company, W.W Grainger moving from customer service representative to becoming account manager for Grainger’s largest client in Northern California- Pacific Gas & Electric. As manager of the $1.7 million account, Johns effectively trained more than 50 employees, lead focus groups on new product development and served as liaison between the needs of PG&E and the Grainger’s company mission. Mr. Johns began his career as Entertainment Director for University of Las Vegas responsible for booking talents; negotiate contracts, marketing and promotion of campus & city wide events including Jay-Z Hardknock Life Tour, UNLV’s annual Rebelpaloza Concert, celebrity basketball tournaments & college tailgate concert series.

Johns holds a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Sociology from Western Illinois University. Johns is a frequent speaker at industry events including CTIA, Mobile Marketing Forum, iHollywood Forum, Billboard, Multi-Cultural Media Expo, Showbiz Expo and a slew of music industry panels covering a wide range of topics such as on-deck and off-deck strategies, examining business models for mobile music, and how to market, promote & monetize with social network.

Mr. Johns began his career as Entertainment Director for University of Las Vegas responsible for booking talents; negotiate contracts, marketing and promotion of campus & city wide events.

Beyond education and professional experience, Johns’ passion and personality gives him a natural ability to reach young people on the streets of Crenshaw as well as the power brokers on Wall Street. It is a skill that has made his company a recognizable force in the wireless industry and the hip-hop world.

ABout Kingston BETA
Kingston Beta, our bimonthly Event staged in Jamaica, connected to the Caribbean and Diaspora – is a platform for startups, entrepreneurs, developers, designers and tech professionals – to learn, be inspired and network.

It’s become the hub for the movers and shakers in the Jamaican and Caribbean Tech Community. Over 40 events have been held, that over 2500 people attended and have seen over 80 Jamaican and Caribbean technology startups pitch their new businesses ideas. We’ve kicked off a tech entrepreneurship movement in Jamaica and growing across the Caribbean.

The next one is Thursday March 26th, 2012 at our home The Jamaica Pegasus Hotel starting with networking at 6:30pm. It’s $500 for regular peeps. $200 for college students with ID. This is the second of our 5 bi-monthly events that will end the year with Caribbean BETA- The annual Tech Entrepreneurship Conference in November. Our year long theme is “Startup Local, Think Global” . Each Kingston BETA event will have a guest speaker (local,regional and global)/panel, a BETA Pitch Contest and networking with the smartest minds in the industry.

Kingston BETA is part of a network of initiatives that includes SiliconCaribe.com, Caribbean BETA, the annual tech conference coming in November, StartupWeekendJamaica, and are all working on the same mission – to drive tech entrepreneurship in the Caribbean. We believe tech entrepreneurship can and will become a major driver of startup businesses, job creation and innovation.

Kingston BETA is staged by ConnectiMass.

Do you remember Flash and Dreamweaver? The keynote speaker will be Marc Canter, the founder of Macromedia, the graphics and web development software company that, relatively recently, was acquired by Adobe.  Although the purchase of Macromedia should have left Marc set for life, and able to sit on the beach all day drinking mai tais, he has a new passion: building digital cities. This 30 year software development guru and tech entrepreneur, is now the CEO of Digital City Mechanics.

Michelle Messina Silicon Valley comes to Jamaica

Also featured on the agenda will be Michelle Messina, Vice-President of International Business Development of the Silicon Valley-based Guidewire Group, which… provides startups, their supporters, and those who do business with them with the tools, data, networks and programs they need to discover, monitor, benchmark, compare, and promote early-stage companies…

These international guests will complement a powerful crop of young tech entrepreneurs from across the region who are making their mark at home and further afield.  For the most part, they will be sharing their experience, for example, how they became successful, along with discussing the various funding options that are available.

What is Caribbean BETA ?
It’s the first of its kind, one day  Tech Entrepreneurship conference that’s about driving startup businesses, jobs and innovation in Jamaica and across the Caribbean. It will be on Friday, November 25th 2011 at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica. See Conference Agenda for details.

It’s about the business of spawning successful Caribbean Tech Startups.

It’s the event where the smartest Caribbean minds in technology around the world, come to show and tell what they’re doing to change the world, to learn from experts, be inspired and get connected to talent, funding and opportunities.

It brings together the industry pioneers and fresh faces, thought leaders and technology giants from Caribbean and around the world. The event will include inspiring keynotes and workshops, refreshing panels and a BETA PitchFest contest with focus on hot sectors like mobile/web apps, social networking, multimedia content and gaming.

Last week Thursday, Kingston BETA kicked off the first in its series of bimonthly events in Kingston, at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel with “SHOW ME THE MONEY” will be an interactive panel-led discussion  on How Jamaican and Caribbean technology/internet entrepreneurs can develop profitable business models for their ideas and startups. Our 3 guest panelists were O’Neal Campbell- Discountsja.com ( Jamaica’s Groupon.com), Alex Morrissey Songwrita/Jamaicansmusic.com and Marc Gayle- Compversions.com.

Marc Gayle kicked off the discussions with his presentation called “Ideas are Cheap:

by Marc Gayle

You hardly ever hear of a startup that just goes *poof* one day and suddenly implodes. The more common occurrence are a series of bad decisions by management and/or the founders. This also applies to larger companies too. One of the things I have encountered while building Comp Versions is that it is easy to become overwhelmed by the amount of work ahead of you. Especially when it is now common mantra to get something out as quickly as possible.

Even more especially when you have to be learning programming as you go along, are doing it by yourself and bootstrapping – talk about bad odds. Although I have completed a major milestone (the majority of the Rails back-end is done), I have now started the front-end. More

by Marc Gayle

I hereby suggest that we, as the web development community, from herein going forward ban all references to uniques, pageviews and hits. The only metric that really matters to the creation of a viable web company is revenues – but more specifically profits. Not just revenues & profits, but revenues & profits per month. It’s not about making $1M in one month and nothing for the next 20 years (although, if that’s your MO, kudos to you). It’s about building a sustainable business that generates steady monthly revenues and profits. More

Is your great idea good enough? Can it grow in this slow economy? Can it become profitable, and return on any investments it requires?

Well, there’s no way to know until you try, right? Hardly. There are some ways to prepare yourself, test your idea, and improve it before you actually found a company around it. We’ve compiled the best examples from recent Inc. articles and Inc.com guides of tips for the very early steps of building a start-up.

1. Scope out your industry.

Or, if you’re just starting to think about entrepreneurship in general, find the best industry to fit your style and talents. For example, this year’s burgeoning industries include interactive technology (from mobile app design to tech-savvy translation), wellness (healthy beverages), and little luxuries, such as baked goods. When you start honing in on a specialty area, seek out counselors and talk to industry veterans. You can go to SCORE, the SBA, the Women’s Economic Development Agency, or scores more. The Internet, your local library, the U.S. Census Bureau, business schools, industry associations, can be invaluable sources of information and contacts. For instance, you might approach business schools in your area to see if one of their marketing classes will take on your business as a test project. You could potentially get some valuable market research results at no cost.

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by Jason L Baptiste

I move forward the only direction
Cant be scared to fail in Search of perfection

-Jay-Z, On To The Next One

I’m going to go and replace 3 years with a “short time frame”. Some things to focus on:

Market opportunity- A million dollars is not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly is a lot if the market opportunity is not large enough. Even if you put Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as founders in a new venture with a total market size of 10 million, there is no way they could become too wealthy without completely changing the business (ie- failing).

Inequality of information- Find a place where you know something that many undervalue. Having this inequality of information can give you, your first piece of leverage.

Leverage skills you know- You can go into new fields such as say Finance, but make sure you’re leveraging something you already know such as technology and/or product. Someone wanted to start a documentary with me. I said that would be fun, but it would be my first documentary regardless of what happened. There was a glass ceiling due to that. If I do something leveraging a skill I know, I’m already ahead of the game.

Look in obscure places- We’re often fascinated with the shiny things in the internet industry. Many overlook the obscure and unsexy. Don’t make that mistake. If your goal has primarily monetary motivations, look at the unsexy.  One example would be email newsletters, which I’ve profiled before.

Surround yourself with smart people- Smart people whom are successful usually got there by doing the same and have an innate desire to help those do the same. It’s the ecosystem that’s currently happening with the paypal mafia and can be traced all the way back to fairchild semiconductor.

Charge for something- Building a consumer property dependent upon advertising has easily made many millionaires, but it isn’t the surest path. It takes a lot of time and scale, which due to cashflow issues will require large outside investment probably before you are a millionaire. Build something that you can charge for.  That’s how business has worked for thousands of years prior to the 1990s.  Make something, charge for it, repeat it.  DHH explains this really well at Startup School 08.

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1. Ideas don’t come from watching television
2. Ideas sometimes come from listening to a lecture
3. Ideas often come while reading a book
4. Good ideas come from bad ideas, but only if there are enough of them
5. Ideas hate conference rooms, particularly conference rooms where there is a history of criticism, personal attacks or boredom
6. Ideas occur when dissimilar universes collide
7. Ideas often strive to meet expectations. If people expect them to appear, they do
8. Ideas fear experts, but they adore beginner’s mind. A little awareness is a good thing
9. Ideas come in spurts, until you get frightened. Willie Nelson wrote three of his biggest hits in one week
10. Ideas come from trouble

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There’s always talk about the end game in the form of an acquisition, funding announcement, or eventual flame out. Hollywood has even made a movie about the founding of Facebook that glamorizes startup life instead of showing what it really is: a day in day out marathon of work with very little glamor. We rarely hear about the harsh realities that entrepreneurs face and the journey that this entails. This isn’t meant to be a downbeat and negative article, but actually quite the opposite. By knowing the harsh realities that lie ahead, you can be prepared when they come about so you can solider on. Here are some of the harsh realities that come with the territory of being an entrepreneur.

Your First Iteration of an Idea Will Be Wrong

The first iteration or implementation of your idea will often be wrong. That’s not because you’re not smart, not doing the right things, or some other reason to come down hard on yourself. As it turns out, this is actually a good sign. No idea survives its first interactions with its customers and requires you to synthesize feedback to adapt to the customer. You could be prideful, not listen to what your customers are telling you, and keep things the way they were. In the end, that just leaves you with no customers and a product you may not even use yourself. It’s okay if things change up a bit when it comes to your idea and its implementation.

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