This project did not come to life without extensive preparation, a chain of serendipitous events, and the people who were involved at various milestones.

I would like to thank Mrs. Loral Logemeier. Without her guidance and teaching, I would not have been able to open up and communicate effectively with others.

This project also would not have happened without Mr. Bill Walsh. As an alumnus of his Flagship Rainmaker Program, I benefited greatly from the lessons that helped me organize and prioritize my work. It was Mr. Walsh who invited me to the Pick Potential event in March 2016, where I met a young lady, Ms. Maite Ballesteros.

At the time, Ms. Ballesteros was a freelance writer and journalist with experience in TV, seeking new opportunities. We brainstormed about potential customers for her skills. While it wasn’t practical to start immediately, we realized she could visit startups, conduct interviews, and post them on Facebook and YouTube. (If only I knew then that, in a few months, it would be called a podcast!)

Following Mr. Walsh’s advice, I took Ms. Ballesteros on as my mentoring student. We began working together, and as a result, the “Startup Video Sale Press Release Builder” project was born.

The project received a significant boost after I attended the National Hardware Show in Las Vegas the following month. Using the best-selling technique ATA (Ask-Tell-Ask), which I learned from Mrs. Logemeier, I engaged with over 100 inventor families in the room, asking about their businesses and advertising needs. While I didn’t make any sales, I discovered that the demand for this type of advertising among small businesses could be as high as 90%.

After three months, Ms. Ballesteros decided to pursue other opportunities, but I was not ready to stop. Although I could not personally visit potential clients and conduct interviews, Mr. Zeke Rich advised me to create a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution to automate video creation. He built a working demo, and my son Daniel Aretskin contributed the Intro and Exit bells for the video.

By December 2017, the software was ready to demonstrate but not yet prepared for sale. I carefully prepared for a launch on March 18, 2018 — the second anniversary of the project. Unfortunately, my server crashed, and the application stopped functioning.

I was recommended to seek help on Upwork.com, where I found Mr. Igor Korolev, an exceptional programmer from Russia. With his assistance, my amateur application became a real product.

In December 2021, Mr. Korolev suggested hiring another programmer to create a new interface. I brought on Mr. Vladimir Sirenko from Ukraine. Despite the challenges caused by the Russian invasion, our team successfully brought the previous version back online.

This new version was further enhanced with the assistance of AI tools, including Gemini.AI from Google, Grok from xAI, ChatGPT from OpenAI, and Claude from Anthropic.

To be continued…