Diary of a Gen-Y Entrepreneur by David Mullings
July 29, 2008
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We finally got the approval from YouTube's PR and Legal departments yesterday evening for the wording of our release pertaining to our new agreement with them.
The press release hits the wires tomorrow, I sent it to blogs today and I posted it on Facebook last night at 11pm, and changed my status to announce the deal.
We are now the first official Caribbean media partner for YouTube and that gives us the biggest potential audience of any Caribbean-oriented media company. The deal was relatively easy to negotiate and very quick to execute as YouTube clearly has some smart people working with them to find content partners.
I will post next week about the various ways we coordinated press about the deal and link to the various articles. In the meantime, I have copied the press release below so you can check it out. Stay tuned for more posts about our adventures :-)
Realvibez.tv Signs Agreement With YouTube
Realvibez Media and YouTube have entered a relationship to create the first official Caribbean media channel
PEMBROKE PINES, FL (PRWEB), July 29, 2008
Realvibez Media, an integrated media and entertainment company and operators of Realvibez.tv, a leading online provider of media for consumers of Caribbean music culture, has signed an agreement with YouTube, the leading online video community that allows people to discover, watch and share originally created videos.
The Realvibez channel launched on July 26th at youtube.com/realvibeztv and is the first official Caribbean channel on the most popular video website in the World. Video from Reggae Sumfest 2008, of which Realvibez is the official web partner, is now live on the channel.
David Mullings, Chief Executive Officer of Realvibez Media stated “Last year Realvibez was referred to as the closest thing to a Caribbean MTV on the web by two media outlets after we were invited to present at Boston College’s Entrepreneurship Society. This relationship with YouTube finally allows us to truly live up to that title and expose Caribbean music and culture on the largest stage in history.” He added, “We are truly humbled by this relationship and appreciate the opportunity to work with YouTube officially. This is undoubtedly our biggest achievement to date and we do not intend to disappoint them or our fellow Caribbean people. Bob Marley has had a global impact and we intend to show the immense amount of talent in the Caribbean today.”
The Realvibez channel will feature a range of content, including studio sessions, live performance clips, original web shows by musicians and a video blog by the Realvibez team. A number of artists have already agreed to participate in producing content for the channel, including T.O.K., Cezar and To-Isis.
“Realvibez, and especially David and Robert, have continued to impress us with their business acumen, knowledge of the web and an unbelievable drive to promote Caribbean content in ways that increase the amount of revenue flowing back to Caribbean islands,” said Craig T of T.O.K.
Cezar, recently picked for Coca-Cola’s We8 Beijing Olympics promotion added, “I am not surprised that YouTube would sign an agreement with them because their entrepreneurial drive is unlike anything I have ever seen and I believe in supporting our own Jamaicans doing big things on the World stage.”
Realvibez was the official web partner of Reggae Sumfest 2008, the largest multi-day Reggae festival in the Caribbean and content from the festival is now live on the channel, including interviews with performers.
Robert Mullings, Chief Operating Officer of Realvibez Media added “We have been working with artists since 2002 and we are happy to finally be able to say that our content will now be available on the leading video destination in the World. Most people would have told two young Jamaicans that this day would never come and we are glad to prove them wrong and be an inspiration to others.”
About Realvibez Media
Realvibez is a multinational brand that unites music, technology and everyday island life. Realvibez chronicles the best in Caribbean music, events and pop culture in a fully integrated scheme that includes a dynamic website, partner channels, events and merchandise that reaches forward to represent a generation savvy to global brands and an increasingly wired lifestyle.
It was founded by two Jamaican brothers, David and Robert Mullings, at the age of 21 and 20 respectively. Realvibez began during their MBA program at the University of Miami and has merchandise deals with artists such as T.O.K. while also running a leading online Caribbean video portal, Realvibez.tv. David was recently asked to endorse an upcoming book on entrepreneurship by Mike Michalowicz called The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. Mike is a recurring guest on CNBC’S The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch and David’s testimonial will be one of only four on the back cover.
Press Contacts
Carlette DeLeon (Headline Entertainment)
tel: 876.960.0382
fax: 876.906.3634
e: carlette@headlinejamaica.com
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July 28, 2008
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Since relaunching Realvibez last year, we have been working diligently to secure great strategic partnerships that increased the value of the enterprise and would help to prove that the idea had real potential.
Earlier this year we finally got around to trying to raise some capital, this time avoiding the mistakes of years past - focusing too much on raising outside capital and letting the venture languish.
It has paid off finally, over the weekend we sealed a deal to raise some money at a US$500k valuation from an angel who also happens to be one of our chief advisors. He felt that we had proven our management skills, shown the dedication and were ready to blast off.
Our YouTube deal that will be announced tomorrow also played a significant part in convincing him that we were ready and the window of opportunity had finally arrived.
This money will hopefully be the first of more to come, ideally at a higher valuation, and most importantly, helps to boost our confidence.
When no one believes in you or your business and so won't give you money, it is a little hard and you have to convince yourself that you are doing the right thing and they just don't understand. Everytime we have been turned down in the past, we asked the potential investor the following question:
"What would it take to get money from you?"
The answers were always used to refine our business model, executive summary, financial projections, presentation and the running of the venture itself. That has finally culminated in raising some money from an angel investor and should make it easier to raise more capital as needed.
The capital won't change much though because we are going to deploy it slowly and strategically. Most entrepreneurs don't realize that there is such a thing as "too much money" and it can lead to immense waste or spending too quickly.
We will continue to bootstrap and deploy our new capital slowly and deliberately, focusing primarily on cash flow. Rushing to spend the money is not the best thing to do and our years of struggling have taught us how to execute with little capital.
The really nice thing about the new money is that we have 6 months of operating cash which takes a little pressure off the team. None of us will be relaxing though as we want to grow the revenues quickly and responsibly.
Without the right EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amoritization), we will never hit the valuation we want for our next round - US$2.5 million (we do care about cash earnings as well and some investors will ask about that).
One final note: A few people have asked what it feels like to know that my ownership stake is now worth US$200k on paper and I simply say that what is on paper is of no relevance to me because the value of the company is only what someone else will pay for it, not the valuation we managed to raise capital at.
I can't spend paper and it can't pay the bills.
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July 27, 2008
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A few weeks ago I signed up for this interesting free service I came across called <a href="http://www.helpareporter.com/">Help A Reporter</a>. It is supposed to allow journalists to submit queries for stories and the subscribers can then email a pitch when appropriate.
I figured what the hell, it's worth a shot.
You get 3 emails per day with queries and I have been sending relevant pitches for a few queries but had no luck in being a source for any stories.
Then on Friday, July 25th, I saw a query asking for articles on using social media for business.
The journalist was interested in guest posts for the blog <a href="http://www.buzznetworker.com">BuzzNetworker</a> and so I immediately got work, knowing that my guide on Work.com about using facebook for business had done so well in the past.
I wrote an updated version of that guide and sent an email with the following introduction:
<blockquote><i>Good morning, Colleen,
I came across your query on HARO and have included this case study. I did not send an attachment since people rarely trust attachments from strangers. I can forward a WORD doc if you like. My article relates to how I set out to build my own leadership brand in an effort to benefit my business.
Here is my article, feel free to change the title and reduce the word count to suit your needs. I also included the full urls for links in case your email is set to text instead of html.</i></blockquote>
The result? My article is posted yesterday!
The article benefits so many other people as well because it talks about endorsing Mike Michalowicz's book <i>The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur</i> and the connection with Scott Bradley and the Boston College speaking trip last year, being invited to Next:Miami and meeting a VC then being introduced to an angel investor. It also talks about being quoted in that magazine article by Karel Mc Intosh about social media in the Caribbean, being interviewed for a book on Gen Y entrepreneurship (no guarantee I will make it in there), being interviewed by Mari Smith about using Facebook for business and getting Realvibez featured on CollegeMogul.com thanks to Boston College and Alex Lindahl.
My best friend Ray and his clothing 8+9 benefits as well because when people click <i>Realvibez Media</i> to learn about my venture, he has an advertising campaign running on the site.
Most of all, the article starts off by promoting my wife's venture, StartupToons.com, of which I am a Co-founder and promoting the Realvibez brand and site to a new audience.
Thought leadership is something I continuously focus on and HARO has given me the opportunity to reach a different audience without hiring a PR firm to pitch for me.
You should sign up today at <a href="http://www.helpareporter.com">helpareporter.com</a>
I have to say a special thanks to Kathryn, Scott Bradley and Jason Baptiste because they each played major roles in everything that is mentioned in that article.
I only joined Facebook because of Kathryn, Scott had the faith in us to fly us up to BC where I met Alex and then he introduced me to Mike, whose book I am now endorsing and getting to be on the back cover with Donny Deutsch, and Jason invited me to Next:Miami where I met the VC who then introduced us to an angel investor who has been a great advisor.
Please leave comments at BuzzNetworker if you like the case study. I am just glad that I was able to get so many other people some publicity as well, especially Mike and his amazing book.
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July 25, 2008
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This morning I read AdAge's article about Taco Bell's stupidity - 50 Cent Sues Taco Bell Over Value-Menu Stunt - and could not believe a company would risk such damage to their brand by offending an entire race of people in an effort to market to them.
Instead of approaching 50 Cent for a promotion, Taco Bell went around him by sending a letter to the press asking 50 Cent to change his name to "79 cent" and other prices in the new value menu and offering $10,000 to a charity of his choice if he could rap his order at a Taco Bell.
50 Cent makes tens of millions per year and could donate far more money than that to a charity (and probably has), but the real issues are that it proves that America has not come that far, just like CNN's recent Black In America series showed.
These executives, who are probably White, thought that it would be smart to encourage a Black man to demean himself for their benefit. This is not the days of minstrels and black face.
To add insult to injury, Black women in America make up the largest percentage of obese women of all races and heart disease and diabetes are among the top killers of Black people in America.
Using a famous Black man that many women gravitate to in order to promote unhealthy fast food is not exactly socially responsible or smart. The CNN special also quite rightly pointed out that in most inner cities, a popular location for fast food restaurants, it is easier to find a gun than a fresh tomato.
This stupidity is no surprise because the article points out how KFC, also owned by Yum Brands, had made an offer for a player or entertainer to flap "his or her wings" in the endzone during the Super Bowl.
Are these people serious? This is what happens when you have too much money, you think that you can pay people to embarass themselves for their benefit.
Smart companies protect their brand and do due diligence. If Taco Bell had done any focus group testing with their target market, they would have quickly found out that Black people would not take kindly to this promotion. They are targeting Black people with the whole rap promotion and yet seek to embarass a Black multimillionaire without even first asking him.
I hope 50 Cent wins and teaches Corporate America that they are out of touch and condescending to people.
I look at America as an outsider, a Jamaican who grew up not seeing race, and this just makes me sad because we are approaching 45 years since Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream speech' yet so many powerful people are so backward.
Just watch for the boycott calls.
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July 24, 2008
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Facebook is still hunting for a business model and reading Om Malik's Why Facebook Connect Matters & Why It Will Win post got me thinking:
If Facebook is going to make it even easier for people to create
content, searching that content within Facebook is going to become even
more important.
I have a very simple solution:
Adapt the Google AdWords model to work inside the Facebook ecosystem - ads show up beside search results based on relevance and advertisers bid for position.
Facebook is not yet a big search space to my knowledge but I would much prefer to search for cool stories about cellphones as chosen and shared/posted by real people than some algorithm any day and so it would grow quickly.
People-powered search is getting attention today but the lack of results is killing them. Facebook has a gigantic database of results chosen by real people, the most critical piece of the puzzle.
Microsoft owns a stake in Facebook, hey have a search platform (that needs some fixing of course) and they already serve banner advertising in Facebook.
Hello out there - are you already working on search integration to compete with Yahoo and Google?
People care most about what their friends recommend but if you can place relevant ads beside such great results, you could actually make some money.
It's at least worth a shot and the relationships are already in place.
Over to you Zuckerberg and Ballmer.
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July 23, 2008
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Today has not started off well at all.
We completed editing our first 2 videos to upload to our new YouTube channel, the first official Caribbean media channel on YouTube, but then it turned out that the audio was thrown off and the video slowed down at parts because of some titling we did in iMovie.
Delete and start over.
It takes almost 1 hour to export an 8 minute video file at the quality we want.
Times like these are when I wish we had the money for a faster computer and a video editor.
But things got worse.
I got an email from Brightcove, the company we use to manage the backend for our videos. This is the 6th time that we have received some copyright-related notice but this was different.
Brightcove started using some fingerprinting technology to determine if copyrighted material might be in their system some months ago. They first sent us an email when we tried to upload a Sean Paul music video that HIS record label gave us to put on Realvibez.
Imagine our surprise when Brightcove wouldn't allow us to do that.
We contacted them and they said we needed to get VP Records, Sean Paul's label, to contact Brightcove and give permission.
We got in touch with VP Records and got the strangest answer.
Brightcove was even giving VP Records trouble and they OWNED the copyrights!
We decided to begin looking at other companies to use for our video needs since Brightcove was obviously going about this the wrong way.
The email today was the last straw: They have disabled 108 music videos on our site, all provided by the record labels or the PR firm of the artists specifically to help promote their music to a wider audience.
We have 5 days to get the copyright owners to send a letter indicating permission for us to use the videos and indemnifying Brightcove from any royalites, etc.
Otherwise the videos will be deleted.
We already know how this will go with Brightcove since their service is obviously so backward that the copyright owner has been having problems.
We are switching over to Ooyala for all our music videos - which also offers HD video support.
We will still use Brightcove for our own content and partner channels we create with content owners who own their content and can give us the letter beforehand - but only because Brightcove places advertising in the videos. As soon as we can handle advertising ourselves or find a better solution - adios.
I understand the issues around copyrights and online video, but when the record label can't even get the problem sorted out to have their videos show up on a music site dedicated to their genre because they have issues with the technology company, it has gone too far.
Everything happens for a reason though. We had already converted our front page video to Ooyala because we loved the player so much and just bought our first HD camera since we finally had an HD flash player.
Lesson of the day
Outsourcing is good but don't forget to always have a back-up vendor in case your primary vendor screws you and threatens your entire venture.
Now we have to spend the next 5 days uploading 108 videos to Ooyala, changing the code on the respective video pages and then uploading the rest of the music videos in case Brightcove decides to flag them.
Good thing we were in the middle of implementing the new video page layout and only completed 10 pages so far. Now we can kill two birds with one stone.
"Defensive business tactics" is the way I describe mirgrating other videos to Ooyala even though we have received no notice as yet.
It's just like defensive driving - avoiding the problem is always smarter.
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July 22, 2008
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I just came arcross Choose Your Domain Name Wisely here in FC and wanted to add my story to that as a mistake others should learn from.
I have a marketing background so I preferred to choose a name that had some meaning but would allow us to create more meaning while still representing what the brand stood for.
Interestingly enough, my dad, an Ob/Gyn, picked the name Realvibes in December 2001. It was perfect for our focus on Caribbean music, especially Reggae. The problem though was that the ".com" domain was not available.
We decided to go ahead and grab the ".net" domain and launched. The first time we realized the mistake was when we were being interviewed by a newspaper and even though we constantly repeated ".net" and emailed here the link to the site, it still ended up in the paper as ".com", meaning we missed all the associated traffic with such a great story.
People here "website" and think ".com" so don't fool yourself. It has changed quite a bit, but people still expect ".com" unless you have something that is becoming more recognized like ".org" and so forth.
We decided to solve the problem by switching to Realvibez.com - but we had a long debate. Would people spell it with an "s" still? We figured that the site wasn't big yet so the future publicity would make it clear that it was with a "z", not an "s". We also found out that our generation leaned toward spelling with a "z" while the older ones, the reporters, spelt with an "s".
Another mistake.
We had always owned multiple spellings and domain extensions but the vibes.com continued to elude us. When we relaunched the site ast year, it was Realvibez.com and we considered relaunching as Realvibez.tv but held off.
This year we were the official web partner for the largest multi-day Reggae festival in the Caribbean, Reggae Sumfest, and the radio ads they ran for us were amazing, except for one problem:
When people hear "Realvibez.com" they think "Realvibes.com"
That was the last straw, we immediately relaunched as Realvibez.tv - which makes complete sense since it is online video site - and began promoting that heavily.
We own both Realvibez.tv and Realvibes.tv (and some other spellings) so people can finally type whatever they think they here and we want lose out.
I now have 3 rules for picking a domain name are simple:
- Get the .com if possible, otherwise get something that is popular/recognized and/or relates to your venture - e.g.) .tv makes sense for online video sites
- Say the domain name to people and let them write it down for you. If you find that most people spell it differently from what you were going to buy, either change the name to that one or get a new name - e.g.) Realvibes vs. Realvibez
- Don't get caught up picking a name that explains everything you do, pick a name that you can create meaning around or put two words together - e.g.) Google, Apple, Dell, Virgin, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter - and on and on.
As a marketing person, I much prefer creating brands and subcribe to the Virgin philosophy of creating meaning for a word rather than letting the word define your brand. It's easier than you think.
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July 22, 2008
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This is our first major content distribution deal for someone else's content. We have done deals with Imeem and Vuze involving our own content but this deal is more akin to Hulu signing a network like MTV, with Realvibez being Hulu. Read the press release on the Realvibez Blog at Realvibez Signs Partnership Agreement With Reggae Entertainment Television (RE TV).
RE TV is owned by the largest media group in Jamaica and has content going back to 2003. We actually sponsored their very first high school tour to promote safe sex and HIV/AIDS awareness so we have history.
One of the things that we had decided early on was that our core competency was never television and we would not seek to launch a linear television channel, but we always expected to partner with a channel.
We identified a number of potential television partners who we felt would want a wider reach for their content if they could make more money without having to do too much extra work. This deal with RE TV is the culmination of months of negotiating and began with my presentation at the Caribbean Media Conference in October 2007 in Jamaica.
At the conference I spoke about new push nature of the web - pushing content to where people already are instead of spending money to pull people to a central site. I knew that the audience was made up of senior managers and executives from Caribbean television stations and so I then outlined how our company was willing to partner with established stations to distribute their content online and monetize it. The International Business Development Manager for Reggae Entertainment Television (RE TV) approached me right after the panel discussion and asked me how soon we could meet.
I said the next morning.
That meeting laid the foundation for our agreement. The agreement could have taken much longer if the CEO of RE TV had not made this a top priority. Too often we initiate discussions with a company for a potential strategic partnership but the other company relegates the talks to low priority.
The priority level is obvious because of the length of time it takes to return emails, phone calls or send documents. It has been the worst for us when dealing with our own Jamaicans. They seem not to believe young Jamaicans could actually be doing something significant. RE TV was the opposite, thy treated us like a valued potential partner and made sure to give this deal high priority.
In comparison to some of our other stalled deals, it took us 48 hours to start and close the Imeem partnership deal and 24 hours to start and close the YouTube deal!
These companies obviously placed a much higher priority on reaching an agreement with us. I am sure more Caribbean companies will take us more seriously going forward and especially once we announce the YouTube agreement next week.
All online video ventures are concerned about content acquisition - more content = more pageviews = more advertising revenue.
The cost of developing unique content vs. licensing content from professional sources with experience matters and partnering with an established brand is doubly beneficial.
Lastly, it is our dream to allow more of the over US$1.2 billion generated by Reggae music per year to make it back to Jamaica. The UN released a report in May that calculated that only US$300 million of that money made it back to Jamaica.
This deal will be a a role in increasing that share and contributing to the development of Jamaica, something we have always had as our #1 priority.
About Realvibez
Realvibez is a multinational brand that unites music, technology and everyday island life. Realvibez chronicles the best in Caribbean music, events and pop culture in a fully integrated scheme that includes a dynamic website, partner channels, events and merchandise that reaches forward to represent a generation savvy to global brands and an increasingly wired lifestyle. It was founded by two Jamaican brothers, David and Robert Mullings, during their MBA program at the University of Miami at the ages of 20 and 21. Realvibez has merchandise deals with artists such as T.O.K. and manages a leading online Caribbean video portal, Realvibez.tv. Realvibez recently released the first Caribbean video Facebook application.
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July 21, 2008
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Found|Read on GigaOM published a great post on Sunday titled How to Avoid the Curse of Vision Overload. The core of the post is that your venture suffers "when you put your vision ahead of your users".
I agree with the writer, Andrew Mason, that simplicity is almost always the best philosophy to follow but many of us entrepreneurs get too caught up in our vision and forget about our users and what they actually want.
We have gone through a few iterations of Realvibez's front page and the most complex one was in the first 2 years of launch - we eventually tossed it and focused on what had proven to be popular for our users.
I always talk about wanting to keep my life simple (it even determined my marriage plans) and Robert and I evaluate all strategic partnerships and internal projects based on how simple it will be to execute properly and profitably.
We take the Nike approach - Focus on the needs of the athlete and build the right shoe for the sport.
Andrew provides 4 simple rules for deciding what to keep and what to toss at launch:
- If you don’t mention it in your 2-minute product demo, you don’t need it.
- Don’t build a race car for foot runners.
- Let users problem-solve with the basics first. Then offer the glitz.
- Proselytize your vision in your blog, not your product set.
Read Andrew's explanation of each of the rules here.
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July 18, 2008
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I was raised to be down-to-earth and always be willing to lend a helping hand without regard for what I was going to get out of it - the 'Good Samaritan' type of person.
I have never liked successful people who were standoffish or snooty so I made sure to look up to people like Warren Buffett.
Today I received an email from a young lady who I had a long conversation with last night about starting a business.
She had filled out the contact form on one of my company websites asking to speak with me about consulting on a project. I replied with my email and a time to talk that same night.
I ended up sharing the booklist that has been handed down to me by my advisors as well as talking about the kind of business person she should ideally be. It was especially interesting because on Monday I had a meeting with my parents and explained to my Mom that my goal is to become one of the most accessible millionaires and entrepreneurs in the World (I am not even close to being a millionaire yet btw).
I assumed she had found me through Facebook and some mutual friends or contacts.
I was way off.
I decided to share the email and her post on my Facebook wall:
Email -
I will personally share with my peers and immediate family about how I found you and advise to always strive for what they want. I was never the type to wait for an opportunity to fall in my lap, I always went towards my goals the best way I knew how and somehow achieved them.
I am honored to have conversed with someone so brilliant and kind. The fact that you are so down to earth was an extremely pleasant surprise. Please continue to stay positive and uplifting while being an excellent role model and educator for our youth. Like I said per our conversation, you are as admirable as Oprah in my eyes and I wish you continuous success and many blessings.
Facebook Wall Post
Thanks for adding me! Who would of thought that all I had to do was google a phrase about small business start-ups and one of your links would appear? I was impressed with your wealth of knowledge about small business mistakes to avoid and on suggestions for obtaining funds for start-up cost. Your words of wisdom helped to enlighten me and challenge me to do and be a better decision maker in any business endeavor I decide to pursue. Keep up the good work!
She found me through such a mainstream Google search?
I still can't figure exactly what her search term was and she can't remember.
That is one of the best emails I have ever received and it really motivates me to continue working hard at being a positive role model for young people everywhere, something I set out to do since I graduated from high school at 15.
I don't know about being "brilliant" or being "as admirable as Oprah" but I won't complain about those kinds of statements :-)
I hope that I have inspired others to help solely for the reward of knowing you helped.
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