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On August 31, 2010
WINTER PARK, FL -- Jared Mendelewicz, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of AKT Enterprises, was invited to become a guest blogger for YoungEntrepreneur.com, one of the largest online forum communities for entrepreneurs worldwide. YoungEntrepreneur.com members are comprised of established and aspiring entrepreneurs who are passionate about economic development and promoting the success of innovative and growth-oriented companies. Mendelewicz will share his unique perspective on many of the trials and tribulations facing young entrepreneurs today. His first post, which highlights the advantages and disadvantages of hiring friends as employees, is featured on the home page: http://bit.ly/cb9DtU
On August 24, 2010
Inc.Magazine Unveils Its Fourth Annual Exclusive List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies—the Inc. 5000
AKT Enterprises Ranks No. 511 on the 2010 Inc. 5000 with Three-Year Sales Growth of 592%
NEW YORK, August 24, 2010 -- Inc. magazine today ranked AKT Enterprises No. 511 on its fourth annual Inc. 5000, an exclusive ranking of the nation's fastest-growing private companies. The list represents the most comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy—America’s independent-minded entrepreneurs. Music website Pandora, convenience store chain 7-Eleven, Brooklyn Brewery, and Radio Flyer, maker of the iconic children’s red wagon, are among the prominent brands featured on this year’s list.
“The leaders of the companies on this year’s Inc. 5000 have figured out how to grow their businesses during the longest recession since the Great Depression,” said Inc. president Bob LaPointe. “The 2010 Inc. 5000 showcases a particularly hardy group of entrepreneurs.”
AKT boasts a finely tuned network of design, merchandising and marketing companies optimized to solve the marketing needs of clients both large and small. Specializing in new business development, AKT Enterprises lives up to its reputation as a one-stop-shop for industry professionals.
With a diverse and ever-growing clientele, AKT caters directly to over 500,000 customers, vendors and consumers. AKT's awareness of current trends and solid grasp of technology combined with their forward-thinking team work to create solutions, products and services that benefit organizations of all shapes and sizes.
Click here to view AKT Enterprises's 2010 Inc. 500|5000 Profile
On August 09, 2010
AKT Management’s Dan Brown is featured on the home page of FastCompany.com. Fast Company magazine reports on various topics including innovation, digital media, technology, design, leadership, and more. The article spotlights Dan’s groundbreaking Internet TV show, Dan 3.0.
Via FastCompany.com
Dan Brown’s life is out of control, and he’s nervous. He’s telling the Internet about it, over-enunciating his Ps and Ts while he describes his project, Dan 3.0, his Web TV show that will put his day-to-day life in the cyber hands of his fans. But this is all part of the plan, and it’s all very under control.
The notion behind Dan 3.0 is that “groups make better decisions,” he says. (About what? That’s up to the group.) Using an online “decision engine,” Dan is outsourcing his “decisions” by letting participants suggest and vote on daily tasks. Each day, he says, he’ll do the most popular task. So far this has taken him to the streets of Lincoln, Nebraska to high-five strangers. And it’s taken him on a walk to the nearest city, Walton.
But don’t worry, Dan says, the big tasks are coming; he and Internet-television network Revision3 just need more time to plan. Then they can focus, for instance, on one of Dan’s favorite topics: his girlfriend. She might get a birthday visit from Dan--if his viewers want it. And since “my viewers care about me,” Dan says, chances are they’ll give him the task he wants. Now who’s controlling whom?
There are still 361 days left to see. As of Friday afternoon, there are four episodes of the show, which debuted August 1. After the pre-show ad and the logos for Revision3 and sponsor SquareSpace, a bed-haired Dan, wearing what seems to be his only T-shirt, starts talking. He’s in his studio (decorated with art sent in by fans), and he’s chatting away with his practiced self-assured but self-conscious delivery.
This self-referentiality seems to be constant, even when the task of the day begins. Dan spends the task talking about doing it while doing it, talking about talking about doing it while doing it, and so on. But, as he notes, “It’s not about getting a whole lot of footage--it’s more about capturing the moment.” So, following his own advice, he captures the show’s meta-moment--existing as a show--as he reflects on the project.
Perhaps Dan has reason for his ego, however cloaked in young-adult angst it may be. He began building a strong Internet fan base in 2007, when he posted an instructional YouTube video on how to solve the Rubik’s cube. Three years later, the video has almost 16 million views. In the meantime, Dan has posted videos on everything from gay marriage (which he supports) to, in the following video, Crocs (which he says “might just be the most important issue I ever talk about”).
Dan is one lucky vlogger, and he knows it: “I make videos talking about what I want to talk about when I want to talk about it, and it provides for me.”
Dan gains from vlogging, and his viewers are supposed to gain from watching and suggesting tasks. But besides a chance to influence the quotidian, yet artificial, life of a 20-year-old, what else do they stand to gain? “I want everyone who participates to be happy about the whole experience,” he says. “I want to push the envelope as to what it means to have a new media relationship with an audience.”
Indeed, it’s quite the transitional period for visual entertainment, as television and Internet share and influence each other’s content more than ever. As Dan says, “There’s so many new tools being invented everyday that increase the capacity for interaction.” His decision engine--the simple yet incomplete structure for a year of his life--is supposed to be one of those tools.
Dan 3.0 is still nascent, so it’s hard to tell if viewers will continue to interact with it the way Dan wants. According to Revision3, the website’s traffic doubled on the day the show launched. And there are more than 5,700 tasks posted on the site.
Hype, of course, is at least one of the reasons driving the show’s initial popularity. But Dan’s simple vlogs have been doing well for years, and there’s somehow never a shortage of time to spend watching strangers on screens. Seventeen years ago, in his E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction, David Foster Wallace offered some prescient explanation:
If we want to know what American normality is--what Americans want to regard as normal--we can trust television. For television's whole raison is reflecting what people want to see. It's a mirror.
Or, as Dan says, “I think that a lot of the appeal of watching people’s day-to-day lives is just people are curious as to how other people live their day-to-day lives.”
But pretty soon we start to turn inward, Wallace warned: “We spend enough time watching, pretty soon we start watching ourselves watching.”
On August 02, 2010
Full Sail University's Music Business department asks Jared Mendelewicz, Kevin Khandjian and Jeff Vaughan to speak on the Music Business Bachelor Degree students' final project panel. The purpose of the panel was to review, analyze and critique the music business-oriented ideas of each group in the graduating class.
On July 21, 2010
Via Winter Park Observer
By Tina Russell
Observer Staff
It was two weeks before her friend's bachelorette party. Rena Tchekmeian had scoured the Internet in hopes of finding a place that could print 10 shirts before the trip.
The design was specific: three men holding up wedding rings with the man in the middle holding up the largest ring, saying "Megan picked the right one."
Every screen-printing company she contacted was through e-mail. There was no face-to-face communication or telephone communication.
"I would e-mail them, and then I would get an e-mail back, and it wasn't exactly what we wanted," Rena said. "They couldn't do a certain color, or they couldn't do the exact sizes we needed."
Three days before the bachelorette trip to downtown Orlando, Rena called her brother, Alex Tchekmeian, and he was able to make the shirts.
Five years later, Alex, president of Winter Park-based AKT Enterprises, a branding and marketing company, is materializing the need for hassle free, face-to-face communication into something tangible with the August opening of Big Top, located at 7612 University Gardens Dr., just outside Winter Park.
This brick and mortar store offers all the same web and print media services AKT offers — identity development, web-based applications, web hosting and maintenance, online stores and fulfillment — but it also provides screen-printing services for garments to the regular consumer in a face-to-face environment.
"My sister always talks about how her and her friends who are going on these trips and how they want 10 shirts for the girls to wear," Alex said. "My vision is to have my sister and her friends walk into the store, design their own shirt, and within an hour, walk out with the printed shirts ."
Alex said while the Internet sales option still exists, AKT wants to move away from the online experience with this retail store and become a business partner with the consumer.
"The new side of Big Top is making AKT more accessible to regular consumers, but we're still offering the same services to businesses, companies, organizations, musicians — all the same stuff that's gotten us to where we are now," said Jared Mendelewicz, vice president of AKT Enterprises.
The target consumer for Big Top isn't only small retailers. It also includes businesses, clubs and organizations that need help with promotional services.
"We are targeting the pizza shop opening up next door who wants business cards, logos, and designs; we are targeting the individuals; we are targeting the parents and we are targeting the moms who want monogrammed initials on all their towels," Alex said.
Mendelewicz said other companies provide the same amenities they provide, but a person would have to go to four or five different stores to get what they can do under one roof.
The logo for Big Top consists of a circus tent with the words "Big Top" laced in ribbon.
Mendelewicz said the name for Big Top came up randomly in conversation, and from a marketing standpoint, Mendelewicz and Alex wanted it to be over the top but still professional, which is where the circus theme came into play.
"The closest thing I can approximate Big Top to is an Apple store," said Will Chung, general manager for AKT Enterprises.
The retail space of Big Top consists of modern décor where form follows function. The store oozes red, white and black with plush red swivel chairs, circular white and silver corner tables, black tables, and flat screen televisions.
Big Top is the flagship store for AKT Enterprises, and Mendelewicz and Alex already have plans to open up additional locations in the future. Alex said he would like to have one additional Big Top developed or in the works by the end of 2010 with five or six additional stores either opened or in the works by the end of 2011.
Twenty-four-year-old Tchekmekian, who started the business when he was 17, wants to expand with locations closer to the University of Central Florida or Sanford.
On July 13, 2010
AKT Enterprises is proud to announce the sponsorship of Orlando’s first annual TEDx conference. The event will take place on November 13, 2010 at a to-be-determined location. The first TED conference, a four-day conference held over 25 years ago in California, brought individuals together from three worlds: technology, entertainment and design. Since then, the TED conference has become a worldwide phenomenon and a platform for new and engaging ideas, sparking deep discussions and connections in groups both small and large. Previous TED speakers include Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Al Gore and Sir Richard Branson.
For more information, visit http://www.tedxorlando.org.
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