in the word. he could not win any of the world categories and then the internet came along and it changed everything. dan is now the founder of the record-setter.com and creating the opportunity for him and so many others to achieve their dreams of becoming world record holder holders and along the way, he built a great company, too. in early april in south beach, miami, 197 people got together to form the world's largest roller skating conga line. >> this is a new world record! >> and this record was confirmed not by the guinness book of world records, but by dan roman ceo of record setter.com. >> we would like to congratulate all of the people here participating today in setting a record for the longest roller skating conga line, and 197 people participated. >> and record setter is as he explains it wikipedia to the guinness book of world records and the encyclopedia britannica. >> it is an inspiration for anything and i saw an opportunity to take this idea of democratic crowd-sourced world records and document them on video and make a web company that the world could participate in. >> here is how it works. anyone can submit any record they want to the record setter site. they simply take a video of it and send it in. the team at record setter then confirms that it is indeed a record. >> we love giving people the opportunity to dream up and create their own world records. so we try to never subjectively judge categories, and we have very open rules as long as the records are quantifiable and breakable and you have media evidence, we well come it on to the site. >> which is why they have some really out there records on the site. like one of the more competite competitive question cans like smiling while listening to the song "beat it." and the tallest pizza tower jumped over. and the day i went to the company two records were set in the office. shawn mcdaniel did the most bare knuckle push-ups in one minute with 100 pounds on his back. and kyle peterson created the record for the most catches while juggling three clubs hula hooping and riding a unicycle. >> 15. >> yes! >> since it is a crowd source site if record setter gets something wrong, they hear it from the users. last year they mistakingly c confirmed the world's largest pie fight. >> within a day somebody left a comment that said, here's a link to a youtube video that shows a larger pie fight, and we reached out to the larger group, and we changed our ruling. >> record setter started as simply a fun activity and not a company. something that dan created at the outdoor festival burning man. >> it was a fun hobby that my friends and i were doing once a year, but the project was sticky. and people loved this open challenge we gave them to invent their own world records. >> so after a few years dan quit his full-time job in advertising and pouring all of the money he earned from freelance jobs of turning this hobby into a business. his partner cory did the same. >> as soon as we had the site launched we were fortunate to find a couple of angel investors who allowed us to make the transition of quitting our day jobs. >> the angels and the prominent venture capital company invested because they saw real income generating potential from the site. >> my background is in advertising and i saw from the very beginning an opportunity to integrate brands into what we were building in a unique manner. >> he was inspired by one of the early records posted to the site. >> one of the first records that we saw come up on to the website was a record for the fastest time to open up a bag of skittles and sort them by color and all of the sudden, people in our community found interest in that category and were competing against one another, and my advertising mind said that is really interesting and a very powerful way to engage people. >> and so now brands call and pay record setter to come up with new ways to get out their brands like toyota prias. >> we came up with 200 toyota prias challenges. >> like the fastest time to sit in every seat of the prias and the fastest time to do a handstand around the car. they did work with stride gum. >> their campaign is about long lasting flavor, so they wanted to come up with a pile of long-lasting world record challenges and the things like the longest time for the dog to lick your face and the longest time for two people to headbutt a balloon back and forth. >> and the conga line was for the bottled water group avian. >> and we liked their fun entrepreneurial way and they were great partners for us preevent way, and they help us in the preevent to engage with the public in interesting ways. >> so far, there are 65 countries participating in records on the site, but everyday someone, somewhere is doing something crazy to win them the title of fastest or longest or best -- something. so i did not set my world record yet, but i absolutely plan to. let's turn to this week's board of directors to see what they will do. belinda anderson is host of small biz chat and publisher as "succeed as your own boss".com and the mission is to end small business failure. and michael simmons is is the ceo and founder of the extreme entrepreneur tour, and they bring young entrepreneurs to sites around the country for conferences. thanks for joining us. it is fun to see the people doing the world records, but, b, there was the "guinness book of world records" and that it is, and he had the idea to take them on and that is amazing. >> well, the world is waiting for somebody to build a better mousetrap everyday, and the guinness folks let their brand get stale, and there is a new one out, and record setter is cool and hip and willing to target people doing crazy things, and this is a ono-brainer for them to use this company. >> it feels very modern to me, that company. >> well, with today's day and age with the mobile changes and the social media, new opportunities in every industry, and what they did was to look at it an old industry in a unique way from the ground, and they have created a compelling model. >> i mean, his comparison really struck me, right, we are the wikipedia to the "guinness book of world records" and the encyclopediabry tany encyclopedia britannica, and he had a cool idea with burning man, and then learned how to monetize it. how important is that? >> well, great ideas are a dime a dozen bbut to take the idea ad make it into a long term sustainable business is what people are all looking for. >> and the media and the 15 seconds is of fame, and how could we set a world record and get, and we would pay for media, so we would pay for it. so it is a monetizable model. >> and the reason i say how important is that when the obvious question should be incredibly important is because so many companies out in silicon valley get bought for lots of money, and they cannot monetize the product yet. this seems to do both. it is a way to get a lot of people, a lot of the followers and they have found the path to revenue which is fantastic. >> yes, it is going to make them very, very salable in the market, and should they go to get into an investment strategy to give the investors back their money. >> and they strategized because this is a man who came from madison avenue and worked for a lot of really big p ad agencies and big offices, and now he works on the third-floor walk-up, and really cool and retro offices, but they are really doing it. he boot strapped it for a while, and then he proved right away that there's something here and he got the angel investors and the venture capital funding which he did not go to set out to do. how many of the companies that you work with find that they have got something, and then go out and go out to find funding, but they don't go out knowing that they have something huge? >> well, the biggest challenge is not getting funding, but customers. at the tour events the best funder initially is the customer. the customer will give you money and incredible feedback to it rate. and the reality is once you have momentum for boot strapping, it is so much easier for investors. >> yes. and i love the mission, melinda, stopping the small business failure. >> i am tired of people going out of business. i rarely hear bad business ideas, but i see bad business execution on the streets like a plague. i want to give them helpful information to glow a small sustainable business. >> well sh, dan has the beginni of that and it looks like it is going well so far. great. thanks for all of the advice today and great to see both of you. >> great. great to see you. is. and for mall business partnerships are not the only relationships to help your business grow. here are five informal partners to help you grow courtesy of ink.com. one, local and national associations. the people you meet can serve as a broader network to tap into. and two, professional partners. three, businesses with similar target markets. connecting with companies that serve your core market helps to legitimate your partner and build up your reputation with the client base. and four, customers. a lead to a loyal customer translates to outstanding loyal customers so encourage customer referrals. and number five, unconverted prospects. potential customers who for one reason or another didn't officially sign on, but understands what the business provides can be valuable partners down the road. this week here in new york the edison awards were given out. now in the 25th year the edisons honor innovative new business products and ideas and i should note that the company i founded good search is one of the winners this year. now, let me meet the fellow winners and all of whom developed cool can products. i want to start with frazier hall who is the chairman of recon instruments. i looked at the product and immediately thought it was cool. can you explain what it is? >> yes, thank you, j.j. recon makes head's up display systems. the first is a ski snowboard and ski goggle and displays data on the hill, and speed, and time and temperature, and jump distance, and the list goes on. >> so you put the goggles on and down there at the bottom, you can see how fast you are going, and how high you jumped? >> yes, it is out of the normal view of field, but in the full view and user choice, and you look down when it is safe and connected to the world is infinite. you can be on social media and connect to the smartphone and third-party point of view cameras to polar heart rate monitors and there is already apps being built for these. >> and one thing earlier that you said is cool that is when you jump and depending upon how high it will immediately post to the facebook. >> yes, you can set an automatic trigger and share with the world your achievements. >> i love that automatic achievements that if you don't do well, it won't go out. >> yes, set the threshold high. >> and if you don't know where your family is all day, you have a gps. >> yes, you can track your friends and family with the gps mobile app. >> and moving on the lightbulb. >> yes. >> and tracy billbroesh, and th name of the company? >> switch lighting. >> and what does it do? >> it is an l.e.d. lightbulb and the lighting industry will go from incandescent to flouorescet to leds and there is a special challenge for the industry to replace the a-lamp and the tra igs d l a edison light bull thab we are most familiar with and we with the liquid thermal management have uniquely created a no compromise replacement for the incandescent lightbulb and you can use this in any fixture because we manage the thermals more effectively and creates the same lighting experience and the same color temperature and the same filtering. >> yes, we can see it, because it is right here and looks the same as what we are used to. >> yes, in any lighting fixture, you will get that same experience. >> what is neat is that we think of lightbulbs disposable and go to the store and buy it and throw it out. >> 25-year life in residential use, and 25,000 hours and 6 to 8 years in commercial use, and it will be a consumer durable and when you move, you take it with you. >> and how much time went into develop iing this? >> four years to bring it to market. >> wow, that is amazing. >> tremendous technical challenge, and that is one of the reasons that the edison awards recognized us. >> and you started to sell it this month? >> yes, more demand than supply. >> you like hearing that, right? better than the opposite. doug sniyder the lifton buddy? >> yes, a mobile lifting device that saves users' backs and takes the heavy out of heavy lifting and it reduces worker injury and increases the company's bottom line by saving on workman's compensation. >> how is that different than what is out there now? what is this making it an edison award winner? >> what is out there is 100 years and static device to load what you need and go where you need and take them off. a lot of times where they need to go is not at floor level or you can't offload, and you need to offload the material, so this is a secondary tow adding technology to the hand truck to raising it to the proper ergonomic height. >> how much research went into this, how many years? >> about a year to work out all of the bugs. >> congratulations to all of you and amazing and it is a big honor given how much work you put into the devices. the edison awards you are recognized for innovation and what is more important than that. thank you, guys. >> thank you, j.j. >> when we come back the owner of and online furniture store wonders if he should open up a brick and more tar showroom. >> and also, we are looking for an unusual bra and pocket holder innovation. they have names like idle time books and smash records and on small business saturday they remind a nation of the benefits of shopping small. on just one day, 100 million of us joined a movement... and main street found its might again. and main street found its fight again. and we, the locals, found delight again. that's the power of all of us. that's the power of all of us. that's the membership effect of american express. lay dis, are you looking for carrying your essentials around without a bag with you? well, today's ell evator has an idea for you. >> it is a retractable bra pocket that holds a woman's credit card and valuables safely and dry inside of the bra pocket. it fits safely in the bra for women of all ages, all sizes. women from young girls, college-aged girls to moms on the run and women in uniform absolutely love the rack trap. it is inexpensive to make and it provides a huge return on investments, and we are looking for $200,000 to do our own commercial and do the merchandising and hire a media buying company and all of the fulfillment. we expect a huge return on your investment, because every time we appear on television, be it the "today" show, or "wendy williams", the "doctors", the "view" and people from all over the country call about the racktrap. >> and you can't see it there, so stop looking. all right [ laughter ] melinda, start with you, and how did the pitch go? >> it went well, but $200,000 does not sound like enough money to do what you want to do with it and you did not explain what percentage of the company you are willing to give up for that kind of money. so if you do it again, tighten that up, and give the value-added points. >> got it. >> all right. michael? >> i want to nknow when it is available for men and maybe the other side, but i thought that the pitch was really powerful and connected. i would just really think that the media part is powerful that the more you can get on tv and if you could leverage the media more and rather than direct response advertising. >> okay. would you take another meeting, melinda? >> yes, i would. i think it is a great product and the catchiness and the fun in it. i think that it also makes it salable as well. >> michael? >> yes. i would. >> all right. congratulations. and good luck with everything. thank you, guys, for the advice on this. if any of you have a product or service and you want feedback from tell -- the elevator pitch panel, just send us your great idea to yourbusiness@msnbc.com. and you never know because somebody watching the show may be interested in helping you out there. time to answer some of your business questions. melinda and michael are here with us once again to help out. the first question is about investors and their involvement within your business. >> we have a lot of investors coming in, and it is difficult to integrate them into the corporate culture of the business, and i was wondering if anybody had ideas of how to do that rapidly. >> i love that question. one of the things is that do you want to integrate them, rig? >> no, i don't think that you do. investors are nit, unless they are coming into work in your business, i don't think that the investors should be integrated this the culture of the business, but understand that lots of investors sounds like a spaghetti mess. you want to make sure that your money is really worth take on that number of personalities and frankly demands. >> yes. >> and that is something to limit at the time of taking the money, and say, i'm taking the money and you will get a return hopefully, but stay out of my b business? >> well, setting the expectations up front is key and having clear communication, but i agree with melinda, if you don't have the right investor who is not giving you adequate advice for what you know works can get hairy. >> on the flipside, if you have a lot of investors who are strategic, and we did a story on the woman who developed dvds for kids and got a lot of mom investors, because she wanted their advice, but they weren't involved in the day-to-day running of the company, but she had advisory meetings for them to come to. >> well, depends, because the investors give you certain amount of money, they will take control of your business, and you won't have the option to say no. so you have to define the roles clearly up front so it is not a bigger headache than your cash flow problem was. >> absolute i. >> and the nice thing about the stra teeic investors they have more buy -- strategic investors, and they have more content. >> expectations up front. and mark writes, i have and online store, but so many new customers come with inquiries about the furniture are asking if i have a showroom and would a brick and mortar showroom help? >> well, it depend where is the current customers come from and if they are in a geographic area where the business is located, sure, open up a store front, but if the business customers are across the country and the world -- >> yeah, who cares. >> it is not suitable and does not make sense and it is a huge expense that may not pay off. >> and besides doing the analysis, i always think about if we don't know something, how can you test it as cheaply as possible? so i would definitely not jump into something for multiple years and i would if i can get it for a short amount of time and see how it starts. >> and do a pop-up store, and if it gets people coming and buy more. >> exactly. >> this is the next one, an e-mail from bruce, and how do i develop a focus group to get feedback and ideas on my business? >> social media, social media, social media is the answer to this. if he is active on facebook, look, people are willing to do a lot of things for food. he just needs to get some folks together, and maybe existing customer, and maybe friends and family and offer some food and that is a great way to get a focus group together. >> and once you get them together, it is really important to understand how you are asking the questions. you don't want to lead anyone. >> yeah, right. >> it is important to do research on that. >> yeah, i almost, and i know that when i have an idea i want to be excited about it and part of me wants you to confirm the idea, and so when i get advice i want to set the expectation that they can give bad advice, because we are not bought into this, and it won't hurt our feelings and create environment of open and honest as possible and at the end of the day with focus can groups, i'm aware that whatever people say is a huge difference of what they do. >> and if you have any way of testing the actual actions and put the product up on the site for sale and see how many people click on it. and finally, this question from maggie, and this is a situation that many small business owners have faced. she writes one of the key employees is not getting along with everybody else in the business. what should we do? it is hard and seems easy, but it is the hardest question that we have asked today. >> look it. there is nothing more important than the employee at the end of the day and the customers for the success of the business so first of all take itt seriously and even though you hope it gets better and you would facilitate it as much as possible, and solve it, and you don't want it to be waiting to wait to get to make a decision, because people will quit. >> i would say that trying to coach this person that is the problem personality through it. even perhaps consider can hiring a coach to coach them through it, because a lot of times, it is soft skills issues and i don't like how they spoke to this person. so, if you can coach them through it, great. if you can't, get rid of them, because one monkey does not stop the show. >> it is hard though, because the hard part of this is key employee, and you are allowing this person to get away with stuff that you would never allow anyone else to. >> and you cannot let one employee become more important nan the whole business. it does not matter whatever they do, because you can get somebody else to do it. don't feel handicapped, because a lot of small business owns say i cannot get rid of this person, but don't be afraid, because you can get somebody else. >> i have felt handicapped when we made the tough decision, and we get somebody ten times better, and you have to create the space. >> and you are talking about the culture of the whole company and if you let one person get a away wit, then it is okay for everybody to feel like you get away with it, and in small businesses, you don't have room for that kind of things. and the hr issues are incredibly tricky and almost black and white if you have the muster to deal with them. >> it is never worth compromising, because you want the a-plus people on the team. >> absolutely. thank you so much for all of the advice and very helpful all day today, thank you. if any of you out there have questions for the experts go to the website, and the address is openforum.com/your business and there hit the ask the show link and submit your question for the panel. or if you'd rather you can e-mail us your questions and that address is yourbusiness@msnbc.com. melinda and michael had helpful advice on how to improve your business, and now let's get some great ideas from the small business owners like you. >> my advice is to other entrepreneurs is to kros tracro your employees to do not just one activities, but other activities and when the slow times come, you can do more and employees appreciate that. >> and you can keep the company in your heart your heart, but you have to adjust for the american's culture. >> you run your own business, but the problem is that you are running your own business. stop that. let somebody else take care of the little things and push off as much as you can to someone else and not the important things and nothing about money, because you want to focus on where the money is going. >> hiring a graphic designer to produce professional looking catalogs can be a costly move. if you are looking to save money our website of the week may be able to help you. line sheet maker is a great tool for any business that sells a variety of products w. a range of templates, you can crop and edit photos and descriptions on the line sheet, and you can make as many line sheets as you need and after you are done, you can share the finished product using the link or the pdf file. to learn more about today's show, click on the website. it is openforum.com/business. you will find all of the segments today and plus more exclusive web content to help your business grow. and follow us on twitter as well. and become a fan of the show on facebook. we love your feedback. next week, we go to the boardwalk to find out whose employers who are staffs who are part-time teenagers manage to keep up with text in generation workforce. >> you have the make sure, one, that you are using all of the digital things, that you are texting information and, that the schedules are online and that you have a facebook page and employee website open 24/7. >> learn what tricks the old dogs are learning from the young pups. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg and remember that we make your business our business. you do a lot of kayakingno. whoooa i'm in a river. what are some good kayaking words? like...rapids? look, i'm going through the rapids. ok. i'll take it. new offers in new places so you can try new things. sync your american express card with facebook, foursquare, and twitter to find savings. that's the membership effect of american express. there's a lot going on. we have to start, because we always start somewhere weird. we have to start