My Life: Tapiture

I don't know how you put up with me, readers.  How I neglect you so.  Yet, know that you are never far from my mind.  I had to scroll down to see the last time I posted.  I am realizing as I type that this is pretty much the exact way I started my last post.  ANYWAY.  What have I been up to?  Working.  A lot.  Now, that may sound awful, but I assure you it is not.  Well, I mean, sure. Free time is great.  But so is building (sorta. I don't know how to code or design or do anything that can actually be termed "building") the newest, hottest, most bestest site in all the internets.  Another great thing is truly enjoying the people you work with (working on the beach isn't that bad either.)

If you still don't know what Tapiture is, I guess you don't care that much about me.  Kidding.  It really is cool, and obviously I'm biased, but I feel like it is about to blow up.  So, get ready to say you knew me when.  I'll give you a quick elevator speech as to what it is so you can tell all your friends about it.

Tapiture is a social sharing site with a constant waterfall of content "tapped" into users' (tappers) collections.  In addition to having amazing pictures, gifs, and videos- there is an e-commerce store built directly into the site.  The store is curated by our amazing to bring you the best stuff, without having to leave the site and miss that viral video everyone is talking about.

Hopefully that gives you some idea of what we are.  If you are still unclear, you can just visit the site: www.tapiture.com - you can even buy yourself some gear in the store.

That's what happened today.  We launched the store.  The last few weeks were a bit of a whirlwind since a month ago we didn't have a store design, any merchants, or products working with us.  In that short amount of time, which is unheard of, I assure you, we were able to come together and meet the deadline and get people in and start making a little bit of money.  As I write this, we have sold over $20,000 worth of merchandise, and that number will continue to grow as our users oversees (yeah, we're worldwide) start getting in the store and buying all sorts of goodness.

Next on tap (I actually say this a lot without intention of a pun, but then I always think of it right after, so I guess pun intended), is the release of our app.  This process has been one of the most frustrating issues to date for everyone involved.  Even though we are past our deadline, the excitement of what it will do for our business trumps the aggravation that it hasn't hit the market yet.

As for me within the company, I feel like I am getting more responsibilities and have a voice in most of the decisions that get made.  Obviously the boss man (awesome dude by the way) makes the final call on everything, but it seldom is an "executive decision."  There is no real hierarchy except for John is the CEO, and our boss, but I feel like I have an opportunity to grow and move up.  I find it interesting that after taking a long break from having any sort of leadership position, I am remembering how much I enjoy things being on my shoulders, and the pressure of making decisions that effect other people.  I hope that I will continue to be able to have a large roll in the way things get done as we get bigger and reach a much larger audience.

I hope this has at least given you some idea of what has been going on in my life.  OH.  I moved. Again. I moved from an awesome apartment in Hollywood, with a commute of 1.5 hrs each way to an awesome apartment in Santa Monica a whopping mile from my office and a commute of 7 minutes on my beach cruiser.  I am 5 blocks from the beach and 3 blocks from Main Street (lots of restaurants, bars, shops, etc).

I think that about sums up everything.  I put our Tapiture widget on the site here to test it, but I think I'll leave it up so you all can have some idea of how the site works without going to it, should you decide it's not for you.  Here are some pictures of the Tapiture Team and stuff.  Please enjoy.