The Next Internet Millionaire: Episode 1 - It's Really Simple, or is It?

We begin with the contestants being driven to the compound in this huge black limo. They make a pit stop for lunch first and get to know each other a little bit. Hard not to notice that there is a giant among them - yes, it's Jason (I love bunnies) Henderson, and wow does he tower over the other contestants. It's a little intimidating for some of them.

Charles Trippy is sporting tri-colored hair - blond, brown and
and a splash of pink in front for drama. I wonder if he does his own hair?

They are deposited in a snazzy conference room at Joel's complex and we quickly see Joel's head pop up on two seperate screens telling them that they could win $25,000 cash prize and a chance to join him on a new online joint venture project. Yippeee!

After the video, Joel welcomes the contestants in person. "It's game on."

In the first challenge, Joel breaks the group up into partnerships of two. Each contestant must give a short presentation about why they think their partner should be The Next Internet Millionaire. The best presenter wins a Hacker Safe immunity challenge t-shirt. Whoever wins the shirt will be immune from eviction.

Debbie (Do You See I See) Ducic describes herself as a team builder who likes win-win situations and is not really into the whole head-to-head competition thing. Uh oh. Her view of competition is like "stabbing someone in the back". Yeah, Debbie, this is something you should worry about since this IS a competition.

Laura Martin wants us to know that she's "very single." She also wins the award for funniest line of the show. "My family members are very excited . . . they're hoping to learn what it is I do at home in my bed all day."

Hmmm . . . we're waiting for further details, Laura.

Cresta Pillsbury (does her name remind you of toothpaste and rolls?) tells us all about the Hacker Safe product - basically, it's a quality assurance thing for websites.

Cresta and Joel critique the presentations.

Big James H. presentation was "stilted", according to Joel (haw haw).

Okay, so most do okay with this challenge, but it's obvious that one person really stands out as a pretty charismatic presenter and he's the one who wins - Jason Marshall. He gets a $2,000 one-year Hacker Safe subscription for his trouble.

Cool. Everyone gets their own new laptop computer.

First IM guru up is Mark Joyner. He introduces our contestants to his Simple-ology program. We learn that the first law of Simple-ology is the law of straight lines. No, I'm not kidding. Apparently, Mark has gone very zen in his teachings.

Listen carefuly, grasshopper.

"The shortest path between where you are and where you wanna be in your life is a straight line."

Okay, Mark, but I have problems drawing straight lines. Maybe I'll need to use a ruler to do this one.

Oh my gosh. Why does he have to use Laura's day-to-day life as his teaching example?

I mean, she seems to spend a lot of her time in bed, and then Thor shares some juicy gossip with us about Laura that he heard: "When she does get out of bed in the morning she cusses at the world."

What?

" . . . she kicks things, she mutters and she says she hates life . . ."

This poor girl has some issues.

But Thor thinks it will be fun to see what Laura does now that she's forced to get up early. Maybe Thor likes watching trainwrecks.

Now comes the Execution Challenge - maybe they could think of another name to call this? JV Challenge, Big Challenge, Main Challenge, Elimination Challenge?

In days of old, if you told people they were going to an execution challenge, it meant they had a good chance of losing their heads. "I'm sorry, Mike, you're the first one to be executed. Off with his head!"

Anyway . . .

Joel informs us that the winning team will get rewards and immunity, while the losing team will face the judgement room. Ooooo, can't wait to see who's going there.

Next, Joel explains that Simple-ology is so simple that it's difficult to explain it on a simple web page. Got it?

Each team has 2 1/2 hours to create a more effective web presence for Simple-ology.

As the winner of the first challenge, Jason M. gets to be a team captain for this challenge and he also gets to pick the other team captain. He picks Debbie.

Jason's team is named KISS. KISS members are: Jason Marshall, Alisande Chan, Steve Schuitt, Jaime Luchuck, Jason Henderson and Laura Martin.

Debbie's team is named BULLSEYE. BULLSEYE members are: Debbie Ducic, Nico Pisani, Carly Taylor, Thor Schrock, Christine Schaap and Charles Trippy.

Debbie's team choses to develop their whole concept around her target market of "gutsy women". Carly's not feeling the team love so much. Seems like team KISS is suffering from too many cooks in the kitchen.

On a side note, Thor needs to eat when he gets stressed. I think he'll be eating a lot during this show.

Jason M. is getting props from his teammates for being a good leader so far. He's good at delegating assignments. His team works on creating a video concept. Jason H. is working on some kind of mafioso character for the video, huh?

Team BULLSEYE spends a lot of time brainstorming ideas. Better get moving guys, times a wastin. One smart thing they do is actually use Simple-ology to help develop their game plan. Carly is still not feeling the team spirit and takes a back seat to the goings on.

Nico informs us that he brought along several bottles of Panama rum, which he generously shared with his fellow contestants the previous night (hint: they got wasted). He calls this networking. Hey, Nico is hot so he can call it anything he likes.

This is cool. Joel has given each team a certain number of e-commerce chips (they look like casino chips) and before their time is up, he offers to give each team more time in exchange for 5 e-commerce chips. Team KISS takes him up on his offer to get better prepared for their presentation. Probably a smart move.

The e-commerce chips will play a bigger role in the game down the line. Teams will want to keep or earn as many chips as they can, it seems.

Great move by team KISS. They purchase a Hacker Safe account. Of course, this impresses Ms. Pillsbury, one of the judges.

On to the Simple-ology presentations.

Team BULLSEYE is up first. Debbie makes a BIG blooper right off the bat. She calls it Ideology. Her team is focusing on a target market of women 40+ who are career-oriented. The team thinks that these Baby Boomer women will use Simple-ology and spread the word quickly to others.

This team opted for an attention-grabbing video for the site. (let me make it clear that these teams cannot create a real video in 2 1/2 hours. They are using drawings with stick figures to demonstrate the concept). The team BULLSEYE video would highlight the hectic lifestyle of a typical day of their target woman and then BOOM the next moment everything is organized thanks to Simple-ology.

Joel wants to know if middle-aged women are the target market of Simple-ology. In a nutshell, no. Woops. There goes their whole gutsy woman campaign.

Now it's team KISS who tries to impress the judges. Jason M. adds a magic rope trick to his opening remarks. He's talking about squeeze pages and everybody being different. What he says makes sense, but not sure the magic trick worked.

His team focused on personalizing the experience for site visitors. People wanna know who they're dealing with, etc. Their video will feature Mark talking and making folks feel comfortable. They would also use video testimonials. No mafioso character, thankfully.

Oooo, more gossip from Thor. This time it's about Jason H. "Sometimes Jason comes off as a little bit overbearing . . . he's distanced himself from a few of the contestants already . . . he asked Christine if she'd like to do a joint venture and Christine was like, sure, what's that . . . he said, well, I need my shirts ironed, can you take care of that for me?"

Ouch!

Jason H. you just lost a good portion of your non-existent fan base for that one, buddy. No wonder his closest companions are rabbits.

Joel's critique:

Team KISS: Joel thinks their presentation was very well thought out. He loves the idea of having Mark walk onto a web page using video technology. He thinks it was brilliant to use the Hacker Safe trust mark. On the downside, they had a hard time communicating what the page was all about.

Team BULLSEYE: Joel thinks their copy and visuals are on target, but there's a lack of cohesiveness among the team that came out in the presentation.

and the winner is . . . team KISS.

They win immunity and lifetime memberships to Simple-ology and all it's products.

Team BULLSEYE makes a trip to the judgement room. Joel informs us that TWO members of the team will be eliminated. First, though, we're subjected to a silly Chitika commercial. Oh, alright, so I did learn how to pronounce Chitika properly.

Okay, back to the JR action. Team BULLSEYE faces Joel, Mark and Cresta.

Christine is reserved and too defensive of her own opinions. Christine says she was frustrated for 45 minutes trying to get her ideas out.

Thor has a strong personality and stepped up to take on the leadership role when he saw Debbie struggling. However, he needs to respect that someone else is the leader and let that person lead.

Debbie is a gutsy woman who didn't meet expectations when it came to leadership. Debbie acknowledges that she has a different style, but says she learns fast from her mistakes.

Nico has a gentle prodding style when trying to get his teammates to focus. He needs to step it up and show more hustle. He scores points for being the first one on his team to approach Mark with questions.

Carly didn't live up to expectations. She kind of faded into the background during the planning stages and was terrified of reading the web page copy in front of everyone. Mark thinks cultural differences may have affected her performance.

Charles didn't impress Joel much at first, but came alive as the day progressed. He's got a lot of good creativity. Mark warns him that his success is his worst enemy.

The first two people targeted for eliminated from The Next Internet Millionare are:

Debbie Ducic and Carly Taylor

But wait!

This is not the end, folks. Here comes the twist. Debbie and Carly are not on their way home. They are going into the "Sandbox" where they can observe the teachings, but not participate in the challenges. They will have a chance to come back and redeem themselves in the near future.

Wow, this first episode was really great and I can't wait to see what happens next, so stay tuned to this site for more exciting updates.

Watch Episode 1 of The Next Internet Millionaire

Joel Comm's Adsense Coaching Club