The Official noo Blog

Part 1

So 2008 definitely didn’t end as planned. After raising some seed capital, we scaled up to 4 people and by year’s end it was back down to just me, Mahdad Taheri. Three months of planning at the beginning of the year all went down the toilet because of typical startup challenges topped with the massive impact of the greedy financial sector (which I regretfully was once in and so happily left for these reasons). With Noo in 2008 we didn’t make the money we were supposed to, the team lost morale because of development setbacks, and at the end I couldn’t afford to keep anyone on board anymore. It was devastating end to the year. Good thing I can take a hit and always have a few cards up my sleeve…

So it was back to the Noo drawing board. My favorite place to be funny enough. It’s that special creative place deep inside us where ideas are sketched on paper and then passionately put in motion.

For 2009 I decided to just enjoy this place again, focus on TVI Designs to make sure that company which gave birth to Noo doesn’t croak and die, and just get through the year. No more business plans that waste time. Considering the company right now has no money because I haven’t had the time to find it nor do I have a committed team to find it for anymore, things with Noo have sadly been very slow to move forward on the web development front. I’m real embarassed by the two products right now of nooEvents and nooExperiences. They really aren’t what I set out to build. But I’m stuck and don’t have a developer who wants to see things through.

So what do entrepreneurs like me (or I guess just me) do to survive and get through 2009? I throw creative full moon parties. They keep spirits alive, creative energies flowing, and have allowed Noo to start producing events rather than simply marketing them. You should come to them. They’re called Moonlight Nights. They’re different and they’re magical!

And this New Year’s Eve we’ll be experiencing something even more spectacular. Not only will it be a full moon on Dec 31 but it will be a blue moon, which means two full moons in a month. The first lighting up your sky around Dec 2. The odds of this happening have got to be 1 in 1000+ years. Need to find an astronomer who can tell us exactly when the next New Year’s Eve blue moon will be but for sure it’s a once in a lifetime occurence. (leaving aside technical arguments of when a blue moon actually is, the third full moon in a season or the fourth)

Great presentation on the creative mind

At the Wharton expo this past weekend several people asked whether Noo stands for anything. Noo is not an acronym for anything nor is it an actual word. While its pronunciation has meaning in many different languages that we like to have fun with in our marketing, and our logo design can be interpreted as mathematical notation, ultimately Noo stands for its brand values.

Creativity

• In marketing and use of technology;
• In innovating and creating superior products, services, experiences and opportunities

Simplicity

• Reducing complexity in today’s information economy
• Simplifying by design

Culture

• Awareness of the increasing integration of cultures
• Incorporating the arts into business

Commitment

• To customers
• To leaps into new markets

Change

• Embracing markets challenges and possibilities
• Accepting internal change to grow

Entrepreneurship

• Embodying a deep spirit of entrepreneurship
• Having vision, tolerance for risk, energy and perseverance

Fun

• Creating fun and new experiences for employees and customers
• Always incorporating “the noo way of doing business”

We just received news yesterday that Noo has been selected to exhibit at the Wharton Entrepreneurship Conference in Philadelphia on February 13. How exciting!!!!! This will be a great networking event and our first real show and tell. Also of course a time to be grilled by some other entrepreneurs and investors with questions and comments. I’ll be at a booth exhibiting our latest progress from 2008 and giving a bit more insight into the brand and the ups and downs of the entrepreneurship.

If there are any Wharton engineers who have some time to get involved I’d love to meet you. Any one interested in design, branding and marketing would be great to meet too. And of course, if you have a few hundred thousand dollars in loose change lying around email me and I’ll send you our bank account info

MT

For those visitors to our website who didn’t find much going on in Dubai and complained to us “that our site was useless” here’s the explanation of why our exploration of new years celebrations in Dubai this year left us a little empty handed.

In the final days of the year the Sheikh of Dubai decided to cancel all New Years celebrations and commanded every hotel in the city to not have outdoor music and fireworks or they would be fined. Sorry for you folks who were planning on celebrating in Dubai. Unfortunately the big man felt no reason to celebrate the end of 2008 as yet another Israeli - Palestinian war was being ignited.

More details…

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/542364-dubai-ruler-cancels-all-new-year-celebrations

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5423839.ece

You can bet that there are going to be lots of celebrations for New Year’s Eve in Chicago this year in the hometown of the new president elect (who hasn’t gotten shoes thrown at him as of yet). This is our first year exploring New Year’s in Chicago. From a New Year’s cruise on Mystic Blue to New Years at Navy Pier you can find the big parties at our Chicago New Years Eve page.

New Year’s cruises have always been one of the best offerings to travelers who are looking for an all inclusive package, New Year’s party and the experience of seeing a city’s landscape and fireworks. With the sinking economy, cruises are trying not to sink by slashing their prices. We’re seeing some real great value out there with these experiences and so we’ve launched a new blog to cover New Year’s cruises in more detail. Visit www.new-years-cruises.com for the round up of new years 2009 cruises.

New York, NY (PRWEB) October 29, 2008 – Noo.com plans to launch its new websites and fourth season of New Year’s in New York with a themed, Halloween launch party which takes guests back to the changing era of the roaring 20s and 1929 Wall Street stock market crash. Official invitation for media representatives can be found at http://www.noo.com/invites/2008/oct29/invite.html

The branded event experience organized by The Noo Group Ltd. intends to introduce several new product releases by the company as it celebrates its own changes on October 29th, 2008 at Ella lounge in New York. The event is sponsored by POM Wonderful pomegranate juice, Fusion Model Management, and Versinthe Absinthe.

New releases in 2008 include the company’s redesigned New Year’s event website and its extension, Noo Events; along with Noo Experiences, the company’s directory of fun things to do in destination cities.
Noo Events approaches the event marketing and ticketing industry with a niche customer base. Noo’s events are not one-off events of any kind, but rather annual events organized by venues and event producers. Noo’s objective with Noo Events stems from its objectives with New Year’s events. The mission of the Noo Events site is the “awareness and continuous improvement of annual celebrations and cultural event experiences”. The company approaches venues and organizers who are in the business of putting together annual events for their guests and helps them market and improve their experiences by allowing guests to browse event details, post reviews and rate events. Event ticketing and promotion are also offered to event organizers as part of Noo’s services.

Noo Experiences is another new brand extension being announced at the company’s Halloween launch party. The new website, still in early stages, has been receiving very positive feedback from businesses and individuals looking to market the activities they offer. New community feedback and promotion features are expected to be rolled out in the first quarter of 2009.

About Noo.com
noo.com is an online portal for the travel, hospitality and entertainment industry, made up of Noo Events and Noo Experiences. Noo Events allows event planners, promoters and venues to list their New Year’s or annual events and sell tickets through the company’s ticketing system. Noo Experiences allows businesses and individuals to list activities and fun things to do.

Noo ® is a registered trademark of TVI Designs LLC.

We’re a few weeks away still from the official announcment of our new New Year’s Eve website (amongst other projects) and as we get closer we’re releasing new sections piece by piece. We simply could’t wait as we put together our giant New Year’s puzzle.

Part of the mission of nooYears is to simplify New Year’s holiday planning and we’d like to think we’re doing so this by making it easier for out of towners to book their accommodations, travel and event experiences - all in one spot. We’re very excited to be unveiling the New Year’s Hotels and Travel section of our site which we anticipate helping those of you traveling during the New Year’s period. If you’re looking for a hotel, vacation rental, car rental or discount flight you can simply search and book on our site for any major U.S. and international city.

Tadaaa!! That’s all for today.

Apparently somebody was spreading some rumor that Noo was going out of business this year. I don’t know who that was but s/he was right.

Earlier this year we changed our corporate structure and closed down Noo Year Hospitality LLC to allow us to become The Noo Group, Ltd. There were several reasons for the change. Fortunately the primary one is that we are expanding, NOT going out of business. Bigger team, a little money, a new idea, a revamped website and still a big dream. We’re not going anywhere anytime soon. We’re only getting started.

We recently launched the first stage of our new New Year’s website as we gear up for our 4^th season. Our new site will be listing many more events this year along with other useful travel information and resources to help plan new year’s, whether you decide to stay at home or venture out. We’ll also be expanding our listings outside of New Year’s for other annual or cultural events.

Our latest idea, Noo Experiences is moving along as well. We’re receiving great feedback from businesses we are contacting and people who are visiting the site. We’ve still got a lot of work to do though. Look out for major improvements in usability to that site in January.

On both fronts however we haven’t officially announced our new sites. This is a bit of an unofficial announcement. Expect to hear the official announcement in a few weeks if you’re on our New Year’s mailing list. We’re aiming to also put together a fun Halloween party. Stay tuned for further detail.