Cameron Olthuis

So, the first of the two exciting redesigns and announcements that I’m rolling out today is Factive Media. Factive itself isn’t necessarily new but I don’t think I’ve ever really mentioned it here on the blog or really told you guys what I was up to with it. The official direction of the company has switched today as well so I’ll talk about that.

When I left ACS last summer, I left because I had an idea, or a vision if you will, and it was just the right time to make the move and go for it. Although ACS was becoming a very successful company, my heart was no longer in building out a large consulting firm. I also felt like it was an opportunity cost and there were much bigger things in store for me.

Two things happened when I left. I was suddenly bombarded with tons of consulting opportunities and I started my startup. The good thing about the consulting opportunities is that I could pick & choose and I could now also command the same rates that ACS, a full service firm, was charging. It’s pretty lucrative when you’re a solo dude charging what big firms do. But again, consulting was not what I wanted for myself so I made sure I didn’t overload myself and would still have time to dedicate to this other thing.

So while Factive started out as my own little consulting gig there has always been something much bigger brewing in the pot. Today I am happy to announce that I am officially changing Factive from being my little consulting shell to an action sports media network.

What you see on the page there is a very small taste of what’s to come. Seeing as I’m completely self-funded it’s not exactly going as quickly as I’d like so I’ll slowly be rolling out sites one-by-one.

So what exactly is my vision? Well duh, I’m building myself a nice little media empire in the action sports industry. Right now there is one site, which I’ll be posting about separately, that has officially launched v1.0. There are quite a few more that are in the works and will be rolled out over the next 12 months. These include everything from content sites to an ad network to community sites and other stuff not yet mentionable.

As many of you know, I’m an avid surfer and skier, so this fits the mold perfectly of doing something I love. I’ve been involved in action sports my whole life and I’m very excited to be building a successful company in this vertical. It’s a great opportunity for me to leverage my expertise and build a large online audience that will be worth a lot 5-10 years down the road.

As for consulting, I’m still doing that as well, but have been cutting back a little to put most of my focus on this. With the projections & numbers I’ve come up with I expect to be consulting for at least another year, unless I take on a small investment which is a small possibility at this point.

Not much interesting going on today, perhaps everyone is hungover from all the April Fool’s sillyness.

CEO SEO - Rand Fishkin wrote a really good post about Internet CEOs that ignore SEO. While I didn’t go into nearly the detail that Rand did I also touched on this back in the summer with my SEO is for Idiots post. The basic point here is that you shouldn’t be the CEO of anything if you can’t recognize the value of a good rank. I realize most people who hire CEOs or fund new startups are looking for a certain pedigree, but common sense should probably be the first thing you look for, as in if you don’t have any you shouldn’t be running a company. Read Rand’s post though, it’s very good and goes into detail with some good examples.

Passion - A big part of my little startup is content. As I’ve been hiring contributors to write for me the first and most important quality I look for is passion. If you’re not passionate about what I’m asking you to write about then you have no chance of writing for me. I get all sorts of resumes from people with English degrees, etc, but they don’t have a strong interest in the subject I’m looking for. Immediately these people are disqualified. In my humble little opinion, the one thing you can’t teach someone is passion. On the other hand, I believe grammar/english skills can be taught (I need to be taught myself). I’ve actually hired a couple people that have serious grammar/english problems but they are some of the most passionate individuals I’ve ever met. Their passion comes through in their content and in-turn, that makes for really really good content that others love to read, exactly what I want. I don’t mind taking the extra time to edit and I actually enjoy teaching these individuals how to write good blog posts, etc. I like passion.

I really enjoy writing these posts. I took a break from blogging for awhile because it got to the point where I no longer enjoyed what I was writing about. Things were starting to feel forced and it burned me out. I no longer want to feel like I have to write about SEO or social media or any of that stuff. I just want to have fun and write what’s on my mind - whether that happens to be SEO stuff or just personal stuff. Hope you enjoy this new direction as much as I do.

Up to you to decided if I’m trying to fool you or not.

Submit Worthy - My homie Chris Winfield wrote a good post on Search Engine Land today about making your content submit worthy. Chris is a social media genius so when he says something just shut up and listen. The one-liner that stood out in his post was… “In order to be successful on social media news and bookmarking sites, you have to think like a typical power user”. This is so true and it’s so common sense it’s not even funny. It never ceases to amaze me the content people pass me for social media advice - the stuff that would never in a million years appeal to the 20 y/o geek who spends his lifeless life on Digg. Come on people, it’s not rocket science. If you want to be successful on social media sites you need to think like a 20 y/o nerd and what appeals to them.

SMX Social - I know I’ve already mentioned this but SMX Social is approaching quickly. You should come, it will be fun and you might even learn something too, and it will be fun. I can’t wait to show all my lush friends how we party SoCal style. Seriously guys, leave your panties at home cause we’re doing it proper. I’m especially calling you out party boy.

Hawaii - I’m going in a just a few short weeks. Can’t wait to surf, not that I don’t already do that everyday, but this is Hawaii, come on. I’m also going to the Kokua Festival… Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds, Mason Jennings…. wow, can’t wait. This also serves as my warning to Kala, watch out pretty boy, I’m coming for you.

I’m seriously turning off all news feeds right now. I’ve started to post like 5 different news stories here only to realize they’re all stupid April 1st jokes. I don’t want to be that idiot sucker who falls for them. PS, am I the only one who likes this song? No, that’s not a joke.