It all began with me arriving at BOS (Logan airport) about 2 hours early to catch a flight to ORD (O’hare). Upon seeing the massive check-in line I quickly jumped to the kiosk which usually gets you in and off to TSA quite quickly. Except when half the kiosks are offline and then the one I do use says I need to see a Front Desk Attendant. Alright, off to a great start. I go back to the line, plead with the ticket checker to let me skip ahead as I have now wasted 20 minutes at the kiosk and I get the best response ever “Sorry, I can’t help you.. have you tried the kiosk?” .. ummm, yah.. came from there. Okay, anyways I wait in line once again.

Finally about 40 minutes before my flight leaves (not boards, but leaves) I arrive at the longest TSA line ever. I quickly realize AA’s system is slow as dirt today and a few other travelers are stuck in line for the same departure time. We try to flag down a few attendants, but that is pointless as they only tell you they can’t help. After about 15 minutes of slow line moving I ask the other travelers to hold my place in line and i’ll go up to the front and ask around for assistance. Luckily one TSA agent is helpful and tells me to go back and get the others for expedited screening (read: mandatory body scanner) but we are a little closer to the plane at least. After 2 hours of hell, waiting and unhelpful AA staff, I arrive at my plane 5 minutes after it was supposed to leave the gate.. phew, horrible experience with American Airlines is over, or is it?

In something similar to an episode of the twilight zone I arrive to ORD in hopes of quickly getting through check-in, TSA and get some food while I wait for my plane.. and if I flew jetBlue I probably could have. However since AA is destined to make my life hell they once again tell me the ticket is un-linked and in one case, not paid. How is this even possible? Its not like this is Joe’s Airline from the midwest. Well thankfully after trying the kiosk (yes, they made me) and getting a manager I was able to get some quicker assistance. This time it was a bit less eventful, the desk attendant just called corporate, got some override, typed in a bunch of numbers (all the while telling me what it is she’s doing) and I got a ticket. Oh but thanks to all these delays I have 40 minutes to get through TSA onto my flight. Luckily for me this attendant walks me to TSA and gets my priority placement (front of the line) to get through and get some food!

One of the worst flight check-in experiences i’ve ever faced and unlucky for them its the first and last time i’ll fly American Airlines.

Now, how would this have unfolded if it were jetBlue? Well first the kiosk would recognize me, but on the off chance it didn’t, I would find an attendant in blue, explain the issue and they would walk me to the front of the line or close (if others are in the same process) and quickly get me to the plane. Doubt it? Well a while back I had a client book a flight and they misspelled my name, so of course the validation failed upon check-in. After two forms of ID and a couple key presses later I have a boarding pass in hand, no convoluted trouble-codes (VCR, wtf is that?) and unhelpful attendants.

Of course your mileage and experiences may vary, but this traveler will be sticking with jetBlue whenever possible.

So, in closing:

Why jetBlue runs circles around the competition

• Free drinks (okay, AA had this)
• Free snacks (not on AA, I got a free cookie since they couldn’t find it in the system)
• In-flight TV, at your seat and even includes XM radio
• First bag free

 
What jetBlue could add to be near-perfect

• In-flight WIFI. AA did have this (for a fee) and it was very useful
• Offer Passbook support in their mobile app
• Bring back Munchies mix

Update: From jetBlue on my horrible experience.

@mkeefe Thanks – we’re so glad to hear that. Hope to see you again soon!

— JetBlue Airways (@JetBlue) December 19, 2012

The Beginning

Its amazing to think that 10 years ago in the comfort of my room while still in high school was the beginning of mkeefeDESIGN. It started as a free time hobby before the logos, website and advertising. It mostly happened during time at the computer lab. I will never forget helping the teachers with graphic design questions, getting access to thousands of dollars in software and in some cases skipping classes to stay there. Not to mention developing an amazing dynamic website on lycos.co.uk. Anyone remember that host? They offered PHP/MySQL servers FOR FREE!

Making it a Career

The Fall after I graduated was when I really started looking at this career path and it was that November Thanksgiving that I was excited to tell my family all about my new “company”. Of course some thought I was insane for working with computers, not going to college and “wasting my time”. Though to my pleasant surprise my dad was excited for me and I really do owe ALOT of my success and experience to him.

Soon after creating mkeefeDESIGN I learned that graphic design was not my preference (great, picked a name with design in it…) and started to learn coding. I picked up some web design books and started created websites. First it was gaming sites, personal weblogs and small business sites for local clients. Then as I began to grow my skill level so did the caliber of clients I had the opportunity to work with. Over the next 8 years I would have the immense pleasure of working with amazing brands, some of which included Adobe, XM Radio, Delphi, Microsoft and Warner Brothers.

Thanks for all the Support

To think if I had been too busy partying and “being a teenager” I wouldn’t have my dream job at my own company still working with some amazing people. Thanks to all my supporters both professional and from my family. I owe much of my success to that constant stream of support.

Now I have my wife supporting my dreams (and I support hers) and putting up with long and tireless hours. I also have my own son who i’m already seeing his dreams be formed and excited for the opportunity to help him achieve them.

Never give up on or let the doubts of others stop your pursuit of your dreams.

All too often the world casts a negative light on making mistakes, but the truth is the most successful people make mistakes better than anyone. While this may seem counter-productive it actually builds better products, people and companies. Over the last year and a half while growing PixelBit from all sides i’ve experienced my share of mistakes and learned from them. Here is the top 5.

5 – Gathering the Right Tools on Day 1

It would seem that a new business needs to be very cautious of spending (unless you’re funded) but sometimes you can take that to extremes. Early on I didn’t see a need for legal counsel until a well known client of mine decided to change that perception overnight. Now anytime I start another venture my lawyer will be the 2nd call I make. Now he and my accountant are in my favorites.

4 – Make Bookkeeping and Record-keeping a Weekly Task

As you start to build and grow a company you want your focus to be on growth and money making aspects. However what I did was originally left working in Quickbooks for later and then when it was needed spent 2 days reconciling, reporting and filing (not tax related) everything. This year i’ve made it a point to set aside time and on average spend 20 minutes a week.

3 – Stretch the Funds

If you’ve freelanced you know all about highs and lows in payments. Sometimes you have a record month and other times you can actually see the dust collecting on your mailbox. Well in running a company with others relying on money this becomes a major issue. Having learned and survived the down months (usually in the Summer) I now make it a point to set aside a good chunk of money not allocated to payroll and bills for those dips. The amount you need to set aside will vary based on company but you’ll quickly learn.

2 – Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help

Don’t let your ego or desire to “go it on your own” actually hurt you. About 4 months in I wanted to source more local work while maintaining our existing client obligations. I spent money on advertising and quickly learned I should have bet on dog races as I knew nothing about marketing a company. I mean in freelance you market yourself, but its really not the same! Well after a few meetings and help from some great friends I was able to re-run the campaign and had an amazing response.

1 – Create a Website and Keep It Updated

When I started PixelBit my intention was to take the first 2 months and create the brand, website, mobile presence and market it in hopes of capturing work for the team. To our great surprise we had our first project in our hands 2 weeks after announcing the companies existence. Then it was day in and day out of work for clients. Which was awesome, but finally this Summer I had to take a step back and properly build the brand, once and for all. The website is now in its final development stage but next time i’ll be sure to create all that before announcing the company. Its not only awkward for a web company to not have an active website its borderline painful to not be able to show live examples of work with our words and brand attached.

Hopefully this post will help others and don’t be afraid to fail and make mistakes, be afraid not to. If you only take one thing away from these 5 points its to plan ahead, draw out everything and expect things to be rocky as you get started, however as you grow you’ll be thankful you created a firm foundation.

As you may have read on PixelBit’s blog we recently launched an iPhone/iPad/Android game called Wrangler Rope Your Rewards. While this may have been the first game the PixelBit team developed it was not my personal first. Way back in the early days of AIR mobile I developed Happy Peg for Android using the iOS packager for Flash before it was initially banned by Apple. I was amazed how easy it was to port the web version to mobile in little over 8 hours which included graphics changes. Though it did irk me a bit the file-size was a whopping 8mb.

Not satisfied with this even today i’ve decided to rebuild it using native iOS Objective-c but with a twist. I’m not porting any of the existing code or graphics. I’m using this as a test to see how quick I can design, develop and even add some features to an extremely simple game. The reason behind this is out of pure boredom this weekend and taking a break from wedding planning.

I don’t expect it to be the next Draw Something nor would I really want it to as then i’d have to support and enhance it for all those users. I actually pride myself and my team in staying small, working on niche projects and building awesome results for some pretty amazing brands.

Oh and as a final twist i’ll be releasing the standard version on GitHub for the world to fork and build from. A simple *hat tip* is all I ask if you build something cool!

While I realize this is a horrible tragedy (the killing of a young man) banning guns and going all “guns are evil” is a knee jerk reaction at best. Furthermore don’t be so quick to judge the man in question without knowing all of the facts first.

I’ve been a firearms enthusiast for years, went through NRA and LTC-required training in the state of Massachusetts in order to receive my license. Between the psych exams, FBI searches and criminal database inquiries (CORI) almost all avenues are covered for lawful acquisition of an LTC/FID.

All these anti-guns proposals do is stop lawful citizens from owning firearms, it doesn’t stop the criminals from going into any city/town and buying one from a trunk of a car. It doesn’t stop crime or even slow it down (aside from accidental injuries). In regards to police being the only ones that should be allowed to carry? I think not.

I witnessed a serious car accident outside my home and it took 4 minutes for a first responder to show up on scene! 4 minutes? I guess you would still be alive if that were a home invasion and the criminal got lost in your house but in reality the police would be filling out reports, not saving you.

Now back to this story. Its hard to come up with a definitive conclusion since we still don’t have all of the facts. Did he pursue? Was he in danger? Was it self defense? I wish the media would shut up for a minute and let the facts speak for once.. but that won’t happen anytime soon.