Startup: Idea to Business in 100 Days

The Dinner Party that Started it All

Published in

CoalMont

10 min readDec 23, 2019

Members of the On A Beat Media Company in the Summer of 2019

[1] In January 2018, after kicking around the idea of setting up a media company that publishes only happy news, Agostino (Gus) Minter, who played music since his school-age years, and his friend Xan Pemsler moved to a cheap and warm city in Arizona to dodge the Boston winter. They thought of themselves as writers but, once there, Gus busked for a living and Xan, as it turned out, used the camera for YouTube more than he did the pen when not working for an Italian restaurant.

[2] When the summer arrived, their mutual friend Sky Segal-Wright also moved there. That was after he wrapped up his English degree. Long story short, they eventually decided to move back to New England the following year.

Day Minus 44

[3] On day minus 44, the second Sunday of August, I wandered around Burnside Park with my camera gear in search of more content creation for my YouTube channel Rhode Island Foresight Television (Ri4CTV). The “4C” in Ri4CTV, by the way, stands for foreseeing and it thus means foresight.

[4] Twelve months earlier, I had no idea how to professionally operate a video camera and even less experience with film editing. Still, I knew I needed to tell the world about Thumoslang, the greatest creation of my life. So I turned to YouTube. While I hadn’t yet gotten my creation to be compelling by the time I met the group On A Beat, my work with Youtube had brought about Tear it up. Up until this point most Ri4CTV videos were performances without much editing. Most of my interviewees expected me to be amateur. However, that changed once my film editing skills were able to deliver such a movie like experience. As soon as people were able to see the quality of my work, the stories recorded became more intimate. What a big sign of success for Ri4CTV. That was only four months after I started publishing a fresh video on my channel everyday. One week later, I met On A Beat.

[5] As I walked across Burnside Park, I caught Gus and Sky doing music with Desirée (Desi) De Melo, a relatively new friend of theirs. They called themselves On A Beat and that was the first time I had ever met them, a few weeks before their group made the final move back to New England. They were all friendly and agreed to play music on camera for Ri4CTV. Sky used Gus’ guitar to perform a song with support from his friends. I was excited and nervous because that was one of the first few times I had ever tried to record a performance using 3 mics. That attempt is captured by the video On A Beat, which is Episode 5 in Season 1 of the YouTube series Burnside Park. While I liked the video, I was disappointed by the overall quality because one of my mics failed to record anything. During this first recording, we discussed meeting for further sessions. However, I needed to improve if I was going to be able to do them justice. Thankfully, there was time to prepare, as only 3 of the 5 members of On A Beat had arrived in New England by this point.

[6] My need to prepare led me to produce the video First Song, which is Episode 1 in Season 1 of the YouTube series Unlikely Strummers. The video captures a performance that was conducted by a large group of musicians on the all new pedestrian bridge that spans across the Providence River. As done for most of the videos I produced in 2019, this was an impromptu recording. I had no idea that they were playing before my bicycle brought me and my camera gear across the bridge. Working together with them, we produced the first ever Ri4CTV video able to pick up the sound from 4 different instruments at once. The most remarkable thing in the video is the old man, the father of a musician in the group, who was, at the age of 93, standing strong and dancing well only days after a major surgery. Once again, my professional skills were allowing the people I recorded to feel comfortable enough to speak very intimately about their lives on and off camera. I no longer felt any insecurity about my ability to record complex stories using my equipment.

[7] A few weeks before I met On A Beat, I unexpectedly ran into Ifeanyi Onyekaba, a 25-year-old boxer who was shadowboxing at the northern tip of the Narragansett Bay. To my surprise, in our first encounter, he agreed to be filmed by Ri4CTV. He was 15 year old when he migrated to the United States from 10,000 miles away. This encounter is captured by the video Ifeanyi the Boxer, which is Episode 2 in Season 2 of the YouTube series NDBaker93. In the video, Ifeanyi begins to tell the story of his life.

Day Minus 34

[8] On day minus 34, which happens to be ten days after I met On A Beat, Ifeanyi came to me for advice as his life was at a fork in the road. Our second meeting lasts three hours. Our conversation was carried out on camera. This was the first time I ever used two mics to record someone because of mic failure in my past experience. The conversation is captured by the sequence of six videos in the YouTube series Thumoslang101, which successfully tells the world about Thumoslang, the greatest creation of my life. Using Thumoslang, which will be explained further below, I was able to sharpen the blade of Ifeanyi’s mind in a few hours and make him as the individual far more powerful than he has been led to believe.

Day Minus 19

[9] Two weeks after the filming of Thumoslang101 was done, 20-year-old Jairson Ascencao was discovered by Ri4CTV while flirting with a girl in a tree, as captured by the video First Encounter. Several years before he developed his climbing and social skills, he buried his youth in books, mostly fiction at first. Without a father, and moving a lot, Jairson didn’t have a stable circle of friends. His mother spent this time period working 3 jobs constantly, so he was alone during most of his childhood. He had to figure out how best to spend his time, and that led him to books. All that time reading however, prevented him from developing social skills. As Jairson reached high school, he noticed that no one wanted to be near him. He was desperate for a role model. He was even more desperate for a friend.

[10] The school day had just ended during Jairson’s freshman year, and he and schoolmate Scott were walking down the street towards Scott’s house. Scott was excited to be home, but he wasn’t supposed to have friends over his house without his parents permission. Jairson however, just really wanted to spend time with Scott. So, when they reached Scott’s house, Scott opened his door and said Jairson couldn’t go in. Jairson laughed, took off his jacket, threw it inside and said, “but look, my jacket is already inside.” Then he took off his shoes and threw them in and said “And now my shoes are already inside.” And finally, moved Scott slightly to the side and went in before saying, “And now I’m inside.” Scott continued being stern while Jairson was running around making jokes. Then, Jairson figured out which room was Scott’s room, and went inside quickly, hiding under Scott’s covers. Scott came over to the room and said “Jairson, what are you doing, you need to leave.” To which Jairson put on a high voice and a confused tone and said, “Who is this Jairson you speak of? I am a bed!” This made them laugh so much Scott stopped trying so hard to kick Jairson out, and they began talking about other things. This was the first time Jairson ever made a friend. After this great success, he began to adopt this brute force style as his approach to social life. He brought this approach with him to Colorado State University.

[11] His high school years had made Jairson realize that he didn’t have to know how to achieve a goal in order to make the attempt. In fact, it was far better to throw himself into situations with an identified goal and just learn from his mistakes than to do nothing. He did that often and thus refined his brute-force skill throughout the next two years. However, this is a means, not the end.

[12] What Jairson wants in the end is a world where people don’t squash each others dreams, thanks to his parents’ attitude towards him throughout his life. As he continued to see many others with the same issues, his desire to help build such a world grew stronger. As the result, he attempted to build and join various communities where the members could develop themselves. One of these communities was a meditation club that he started alongside a college friend. The club quickly grew to house 25 members, and the members often stated how necessary the event was for their state of mind. From these experiences, Jairson saw how necessary social skills were if he was going to widen his impact and inspire a big following. He approached this problem the the way he loved, by brute force.

[13] Even though brute force didn’t get him too far beyond the here and now, his only other apparent choice was to follow his mother’s wishes and become some type of worker. That is, until he first heard of Thumoslang.

Day Minus 16

[14] During our second meeting, three days after our first encounter, I told Jairson of my creation. At the time, he had no idea what a nomenclature was. I explained that a nomenclature is a naming system. Then it was time to tell the story of my creation.

[15] Good things in life are often derived from relationships. That’s why we all should become experts in human relationships. To become an expert in any field, you must first learn of its nomenclature. Based on the 2017 book, Thumos: Adulthood, Love & Collaboration, Thumoslang is the nomenclature for use in social life to achieve more consequential relationships with much less effort.

[16] “When I met you, and I heard you had made a nomenclature for social life, I didn’t care at all what the terms were,” Jairson explained to me later on. “What I saw was the genius of bringing the social world into definition, because I had spent the last 7 years studying it by brute force.”

[17] Those 7 years led Jairson to be the first person, on Day Minus 16, to watch all six episodes in the YouTube series Thumoslang101, over the span of two weeks. How he reacts to them is captured by the 21 episodes in Season 1 of the YouTube series Thumoslang102. Watching Thumoslang101 in full led Jairson to state at the end of his viewing that:

I was surprised by how quickly [Nick was] able to sharpen the blade of [Ifeanyi’s] mind. What I meant by that is, [Ifeanyi] was able to hone in very quickly and realize some really important things about himself in the span of three hours. I’ve spent so much time in school and never seen someone be able to grow that much that quickly. What surprised me the most was how much I was able to see him grow.

[18] In the end, the YouTube series Thumoslang101 used brute force to get the brute force method out of Jairson’s social life. The blade of his mind was also sharpened just as quickly as he watched the series. To Jairson’s surprise, he became far more powerful in days.

Day Minus 4

[19] Two days before Jairson finished watching Thumoslang101, I took my camera gear out in Providence to the so-called Trinity Skatepark, formally known as, Adrian Hall Skate Park. While I was filming, Norman D. Baker and his cousin appeared out of nowhere as they were riding into the park with their BMX bikes. I perked up immediately. When I see people doing something different, my cameras come out. It did not take long for the two new characters to agree to appear on my channel Ri4CTV. This encounter is captured by the first scene from the video BMX for Life, which is Episode 1 in Season 1 of the YouTube series NDBaker93.

[20] At the time, neither Norman nor I realized that we had Jairson as our mutual friend. Norman did not know that I first met Jairson two weeks earlier. I did not know that Norman and Jairson first met one another three months earlier.

Day Zero

[21] On the last Tuesday of September, three weeks after they settled in their new town, members of On A Beat were ready to stop by for a dinner party at my place. To my surprise, only four of the five members arrived. Regardless, I was glad to meet the original three again: Gus, Sky, and Desi. That was when I first met Xan Pemsler. My roommate Ed and I got things started for our dinner right after everyone arrived.

[22] Once we got settled, we continued to get to know one another. Soon, my new friends asked me to speak more about my YouTube activities. I could not resist the temptation of showing them something fun to watch on my channel: how Jairson was discovered by Ri4CTV while flirting with a girl in a tree. As soon as the video viewing finished, to everyone’s surprise, Jairson opened the door and crashed our dinner party. When he opened the door, the following picture was taken.

[23] What happens next plays out in the video Jairson Ascencao & Ifeanyi Onyekaba, which is Episode 13 in Season 1 of the YouTube series NDBaker93. It was in this dinner party that Jairson first proposed to Gus Minter a vague idea that turned into a real business in 100 days. This proposal marks the start of this startup story: Day Zero!