TylerCruz.com: An Internet Entrepreneur’s JourneyThe journal of a young web entrepreneur on his journey to wealth.

UPrinting Business Card Winners

Below are the winners of my second UPrinting business card giveaway. As predicted, the number of entries was extremely low, with only 2 people actually bothering to submit anything.

It takes literally 5-minutes to record and start uploading a video to YouTube, so there is really no excuse not to submit anything unless you are too shy or for some reason are stuck in the 1980’s with no video camera (although they still had VHS records back then!).

But that’s okay. I’m sure the two guys who did enter won’t mind that everyone else was too lazy to enter. In fact, since there were 4 prizes of 1,000 business cards and only 2 entries, I will be doubling each of their prizes, awarding them 2,000 business cards each.

That actually works out to a value of $42.94 each, assuming they go with the most expensive card stocks, sizes, etc. Not to mention the free publicity they are getting out of this very post. It’s like a free paid plug or paid review with their very own video (the strongest medium) and links to their sites. All for something that took 5-minutes of their time.

I apologize if this is sounding like a rant, but it just bothers me because I always hear people complain about how they never win anything or how it’s too hard to make money online. Well, maybe it’s because you’re not willing to put in any effort at all, even if it only takes a couple minutes to grab your camera or phone and record a 1-minute video.

Opportunities like this appear constantly, and won’t always be as easy as this one was, so don’t miss them. This was a perfect opportunity to get free exposure and backlinks to your site or blog as well as win business cards that would help you promote your website or blog even more.

Okay, rant over

The Winners

Congratulations to the 2 winners who did decide to enter. Here are their submissions:

Winner #1: Ryan McLean

Ryan actually submitted a video and ended up winning in my first UPrinting contest giveaway, so he knew just how easy it was to win. He won 500 business cards in that contest but never ended up claiming them.

Now that he will be receiving 2,500 business cards, that should last him for the rest of his life, or at least for 6-7 years. Even if Ryan gave out 1 business card a day to somebody (which never happens), this batch would last him 6.85 years!

Here is his video submission:

Winner #2: Paul Piotrowski

You all know Paul, so I won’t introduce him. He actually states a very good reason for why I should pick him as a winner, so even if there were more submissions in this contest there is a good chance I would have selected him as one of the winners as I can sympathize with his reason

Here is his video:

Submission #3: Sasha McLean

In order to double his chances of winning, Ryan McLean even submitted a video under the guise of his 4-month-old daughter! Unfortunately, I wasn’t actually able to actually count this as a submission due to our 18-year-old age prerequisite, but it doesn’t matter as Ryan won anyway.

Here is Sasha’s video:

The Prizes

Both Ryan and Paul will each receive 2,000 business cards (Ryan will actually get 2,500 due to winning 500 in the previous contest which he didn’t claim yet).

UPrinting is also letting them choose their card size, type of paper, and is offering full colour on both sides.

Here are more details:

• 2,000 Business Cards
• Sizes:  2 x 3.5”, 2 x 2” (square card) or 1.5 x 3.5” (slim card)
• Paper: 14 pt gloss cardstock, 14 pt matte cardstock or 13 pt recycled uncoated cardstock
• Specifications: Full Color Both Sides

Paul and Ryan can upload your their own custom business card templates, choose from a large number of pre-made templates, or create their own designs from scratch using UPrinting’s U-Design service which will let them add their own logos and custom imagery.

Thanks again to UPrinting.com for sponsoring this little competition.

About UPrinting

UPrinting is a very established (25 years) company which aside from offering business cards online also provides online printing for various stationery and printed marketing material.

They cover a lot of different types of printed mediums including business cards printing, brochures, calendars, letterheads, and postcards to just name a few.

They’re also in the top 500 fastest growing companies in the US as per Inc. 500.

So if you’re looking to get any type of printing done, you know where to go.

Win 1,000 of Your Own Custom Business Cards

A bit over a year-and-a-half ago I ran a fun Business Card Giveaway which was hosted by UPrinting.com.

Well, they contacted me again a while back and want to run another giveaway with me. Since my blog is bigger now, I asked if I could get an upgrade in prizes, and they were happy to fulfill my request.

So this time, I’m giving away 4 sets of 1,000 high quality business cards (previously I gave away 4 sets of 250). Everybody needs business cards, and even if you already have some, it never hurts to get some more on hand. I personally have a set of business cards for my blog and a set for my corporation.

Any successful businessman will tell you how important it is to network, but what’s worse than getting yourself out there networking, only to have the people you spent telling your company to forget all about you the next day? Business cards are such a reminder and vital for proper networking and branding. If you don’t have any business cards yet, you should strongly consider getting some.

The Prizes

4 winners will each receive 1,000 business cards.

UPrinting is also letting you choose your card size, type of paper, and is offering full colour on both sides.

Here are more details:

• 1,000 Business Cards
• Sizes:  2 x 3.5”, 2 x 2” (square card) or 1.5 x 3.5” (slim card)
• Paper: 14 pt gloss cardstock, 14 pt matte cardstock or 13 pt recycled uncoated cardstock
• Specifications: Full Color Both Sides

Upload your own business card template, choose from a large number of pre-made templates, or create your own from scratch using their U-Design service and add your own logos and custom imagery.

How to Enter

To enter, all you have to do is record a video of yourself explaining why I should pick you as one of the 4 winners and then upload it to the video sharing site of your choice (YouTube, Viddler, Etc.) and then leave a comment on this post linking to the video.

Remember, most people are lazy and probably won’t enter, so your chances are most likely very good if you just submit a video.

I will be awarding my favourite 4 videos and will be looking for creativeness, energy, and humour, so keep that in mind when making your video.

I’ll be posting all of the videos on my blog when I announce the winners on July 15th.

The deadline is 11PM Eastern (8 PM Pacific) Time on July 15th, 2010. Remember to post a comment in this post linking to your video.

Unfortunately, this contest is only open to US residents, and you must be 18 years or older to enter.

(I actually think that if you’re willing to pay shipping that they will send outside of the US, but am not certain on this… so if you’re outside of the US and really want to enter, let me know and I’ll ask the about this)

Don’t Be Lazy!

Submitting an entry for the competition is easy, and your chances of winning are extremely high. Last time, only 3 people bothered making submissions, even though there were 4 prizes to give away… so if the turnout this time around is anything like it was last time, you’re pretty much guaranteed to win if you just submit a video.

Previous Winners

Below are the 3 winners from the last UPrinting Giveaway in case you needed some ideas or wanted to see just how easy it is to win:

1st place: Ryan McLean

2nd place: Ms. Missive 

3rd place: Chris Brandrick

Thanks again to UPrinting.com for sponsoring this little competition.

About UPrinting

UPrinting is a very established (25 years) company which aside from offering business cards online also provides online printing for various stationery and printed marketing material.

They cover a lot of different types of printed mediums including business cards printing, brochures, calendars, letterheads, and postcards to just name a few.

They’re also in the top 500 fastest growing companies in the US as per Inc. 500.

So if you’re looking to get any type of printing done, you know where to go.

RobotWarz Website Completed

A few days ago, RobotWarz.com launched its website with finalized graphics and everything. Be sure to check it out and let me know what you think.

While the website is now done, there is still the small matter for the actual game to be completed… Unfortunately, the original developer I had hired for this project ended up turning out to be a complete waste of my time and money, and so I had to fire him.

I have since hired a new development company who I hope will be able to finish this project for me once and for all. So, while there have certainly been many setbacks during this project, there is progress being made, as can be seen from the website’s screenshots below:

Once the game is done, I plan on having some more changes to the website made, such as having the forum skinned and more pages done (a RobotWarz Wiki would be extremely helpful in detailing the game’s fairly large scope).

I may replace these static images with animated Flash in the future.

All the graphics are complete, and the website is now finished. Now we just need the actual game

I’ll keep you posted as more progress is made.

Video Review of John Chow’s Book “Make Money Online”

I received my copy of John Chow’s book Make Money Online: Roadmap of a Dot Com Mogul which he co-authored with Michael Kwan, around a month ago. I find it hard to sit down and read books these days, but managed to finally finish the book a few hours ago.

“Make Money Online” is really a misnomer and should be titled “Make Money Blogging”, as the book strictly focuses on blogging and monetizing a blog, but this is actually a good thing as a book about making money online in general would be far too generic.

While I did have one criticism of the book, overall I was thoroughly impressed with it, especially with the price.

Below is a video review I just finished recording and should be helpful in helping you decide whether to buy it or not.

Make Money Online: Roadmap of a Dot Com Mogul can be purchased at Amazon.com for only $10.85 plus S&H. I applaud John Chow and Michael Kwan for pricing the book extremely reasonably; there is no reason for people to charge $35-$50 for such things.