I want to thank you all for your amazing feedback and bug finding. We are actively fixing every single bug we find as they come in. We are also in the process of developing a HUGE feature list that we have yet to make public. These are all the most requested features suggested by our users. I think that they will take our interface to an entirely new level.

Note to pending users: We are letting people in as we feel would be most beneficial to the userbase. I’ve been trying to respond to each individual email, however this weekend I received 172 emails requesting account approval, so I figured I’d throw up a quick note on the blog just in case I couldn’t get back to you all.  I will be enabling a few hundred more accounts early this week.

To create an account and take part in the Bevo Media Beta check out http://beta.bevomedia.com. We are looking to have the interface in an open beta stage within the very immediate future!

Click here to find out more information regarding Bevo Media.

As many of you know, Bevo Media has taken me 2 entire years to develop, without a cent of outside funding to finance the project (also referred to as “bootstrapped”). As you could imagine, with 4 full time, inhouse American programmers, the cost of this is substantial. A ton of people have asked me why I have done such a thing. Well I am here today to fully explain my logic and reasoning behind this, and although some people think it is crazy that a person would take on this type of investment at my age, I think bootstrapping can be the key factor of achieving my ultimate vision of Bevo Media. My goal to this project was to create an extremely efficient and time saving tool that would be widely used by the industry, for free, and become established in the market.

To date, Bevo Media has cost me a substantial amount of money to build. The entire project has been funded entirely from my affiliate marketing earnings. I had several opportunities to accept venture capitalist funding even before development has started, but after much advice from several successful entrepreneurs, I would never have been able to provide a high quality product for free with someone else in charge. I know the industry inside and out, I am fully aware of the concerns and desires of affiliate marketers, as well as the potential competitors to our idea. I do not want someone forcing me to do something that inhibits the chances of the Bevo interface from being the most popular tool in the industry.

However, my main reason for bootstrapping is not for control of the product. Simply put – you cannot hit it big if you take major funding. Mark Cuban says it perfectly, when he said the best thing that happened to him was the sale of his first company that allowed him to self-fund Broadcast.com, which he then sold for $5.2billion. I have adapted a similar mindset for this project. After Affiliate Summit West, I have been getting phone calls from investors almost every day, and although these offers do sound enticing at times, I know that these 18 hour days can make all the difference in the long run.

With this project, I am going for the absolute homerun. This project is just the first of several major projects that are going to stem from the initial success of Bevo Media. Bevo Media, is in a sense, a mere way of getting into the market. I could care less about the actual revenue earned from Bevo. I am pleased to say that we have a much, much, much bigger project in the making that will benefit from the success of Bevo Media. Although the size of the market may only allow Bevo Media’s max potential to cap out at a few million valuation, these other projects apply to a much broader range of publishers, and all of the Bevo projects together can be that 8,9, or even 10 figure company that I envision. If I achieve my goal of bootstrapping this entire project, then the reward would be substantial.

With all being said, I have nothing holding me back. I am going to be extremely aggressive to achieve my goals. With 6 figures allocated to marketing , and really no reason to charge users for the service, I am determined to make the most beneficial advertising platform in the industry.

To all people who have emailed me or called: I will be sorting through my emails and replying this weekend/Monday. I have over 400 new emails, and my voice-mail is full, but promise I will respond personally to each.

To pending beta testers: I will have someone get in touch with you sometime this upcoming week.

I will be posting much more information, along with tons of pictures, and stories about the weekend. Tons of info upcoming!

-RB