Dec 2007 Mission Update

Greetings! I just got back from a nice long trip to Australia. It is such a pretty place.  Awesome! We have 45 people so far who have shown interest in this project. I plan to do some marketing on this initiative early next year. Hopefully we can drive more interest towards this effort.  Any effort like this needs to have literally thousands of people interested in participating. This way potential sponsors take us seriously. To drive up the numbers, I plan to do some marketing early next year. I am also open to any of your ideas to get the word out.  I have 2 more months to prove that this concept is viable. Wish me luck. More to follow…. Till next time, I wish you Seasons Greetings and a very fabulous New Year 2008.
Cheers for 2007,Sameer

Wow.. Giving away a sponsored space flight without the actual sponsor name is harder than I thought.

No worries, I do have a few tricks up my sleeves to generate the group. I am also working the sponsor to let me go public with their sponsorship. Nothing beats a few well crafted press releases to get some attention. I am told that they may consider the press release announcement early next year. Till then, it will be just do the grassroots approach.. I will make sure you early birds who sign up before that get some preferential consideration of course. Will keep you posted.

First Blog Update

Just started this blog to track my progress.
Here is the update. 15 people signed up so far in 2 days. Thousands to go…

Looks like many people don’t think this deal is real. I need to think of ways to let people know this thing is very real, and i have a sponsor who is willing to finance the trip. Let me start by clarifying three questions i got:

1) If this deal is real, why does the sponsor not reveal the company name?

The sponsor spends lots of money marketing online to reach thousands of people every month. I have convinced the sponsor to reallocate the marketing dollars to funding this space trip if i can drive thousands of people to look at the sponsor’s product. (Don’t worry, no purchase necessary.) Because this idea is so radical, the sponsor wants me to show interest from thousands of people for this trip before revealing their name. This way their corporate identity is not ridiculed if the effort fails in driving much interest. As a result, I had to risk my name as a marketer and put it on the blocks if this effort fails.

2) Why would a sponsor take such a big corporate risk? Liability insurance for this will be so expensive.

The sponsor is taking only financial risk of the ticket price. The liability will be covered by the waiver with the sponsor, and will be taken by the space travel company.

3) What will i be getting in return?

I plan to be space traveler #5, if i can send 4 people up to space before me. Also, if this effort works, being the first marketer to send someone to space won’t hurt my career.