Effective January 22nd, 2006 (revised 10/14/07):

History of Concept

Back in the 90's my brother and I thought up a site called Every1.com however it never got off the ground. Again in 1999 the site began to form but school, work, and life interrupted. Since then I have been continuing to work on that concept. Then in 2002 the first glimpse of what would develop into this site came about. Over the next couple years I researched different social networking sites such as friendster and facebook along with sites such as craigslist. Through continual assistance from a wide variety of people the AchievingLife Network was developed incorporating aspects similar to social networking sites, yellow pages, directories, and various community websites. Speaking to over 300people on yahoo messenger over the last six years lots of ideas continued to develop and be put into the overall plan. Throughout the entire process a vision of having a community that would have both online and offline aspects was key along with creating a safe, secure, friendly environment, with diverse group of members whose focus was on growth, respect, learning, and living a more balaned life.

What is the site/company structure

AchievingLife Network is currently just a sole proprietorship yet plans are for the formation of a c-corp in early 2008. Previously Achieving Perfect Balance, Inc. was formed but has been let go.

Goals - Vision

There are a number of goals that are part of the main vision to be a leader in social networking and targeted classified advertising and to be the best in creating a community online that promotes respect and real world activity.

How targeted groups were chosen

What additional target groups will we see in the future

AchievingLife Network will include levels for teens, artists, programmers, and many others. The teen version is a big part of my vision but requires the most security as the goal is to have a site that would be appropriate and approved of by the people who find other social networking sites dangerous. With recent problems concerning myspace and other sites we want to make sure the Teen Version is working well before testing it.

Within each level how are the cities/schools/disciplines chosen?

Metro/Local - Our goal is to create a site whereby no matter where you are in the United States there is a city listed that is within 120mi of you. During the process though cities are chosen based on metropolitan size with the presence of advertisers. Therefore, if you know a city you would like to see added and know advertisers who would sign-up then please e-mail achievinglife@gmail.com

Student - We have started out with over 4500 schools being listed - our goal is to have as many trade, tech, and general colleges/universities as we can. Unlike our competitors we want to include students who are going to trade and tech schools, as such we do not require a student e-mail to create a student profile. If you attend or know a school that we do not have listed please e-mail achievinglife@gmail.com. As a note, since we have launched with so large a number of schools a majority of them will not have advertisers or information to populate the community pages initially.

Scholar - While it will be easy later to add in additional disciplines we have tried to start with some of the general ones - as we become aware of needing to differentiate we will. Scholar is not currently set up to differentiate by school - one will have to use student to browse their specific school. If you have any suggestions or can help with this level please e-mail achievinglife@gmail.com

Why is membership required

At current time do you foresee ever charging for membership

No

Why should I become a verified member - how much does it cost - why? When will this feature start?

While most of our income will be generated from advertisers there is benefit for the member to pay this one time fee. The amount of this fee will be $25. In order to try and create a safer environment we felt that by using verification and thus comparing a users provided name to that of the credit card/etc it will help to confirm that the people on the site are who they say they are. The reason for the fee is to process and confirm the members additional information that is provided (mailing address). Verified membership should be started sometime around Jan 08.

How are advertisers chosen

A lot of advertisers will be initially suggested by YOU the member as your favorite places to go in the area you live in or visit. Beyond that in any one section (excluding Scholar) we do not want more then a couple national or Multi-Intra-State company and preferably no more then a few state-wide locations. In regards to exceptions to these generals is that if a place has one location say in Melbourne Fl and one in Boone, NC but no more then that they really do not qualify as a multi-intra-state. The goal with this is that we want to promote the small, the local, the community stores/shops. Further, within each area we are looking to have advertisers that are not in direct competition. By this we mean that for doctors different forms of insurance will be accepted or for retail shops each advertiser will have something that separates them from the others.
We have a system of points in areas of customer service, environmental stability, and business focus that are given to potential advertisers. Based on how high they score in these areas the business qualifies to be advertised. Eventually we will be implementing an additional rating system for users to help further improve our advertising to meet the needs and desires of our members.
Businesses advertised are generated internally without using outside advertising companies.

When will it be possible to rate advertisers - what are the concerns

While we would love to think someone would not just keep voting, until we have designed the site to allow a user to only rate a business once or at least once over a period of time we will not have ranking. As a note, while we are waiting to implement the rating if you are completely dissatisfied with the customer service provided to you by a company advertised on here and it can not be reasoned away by extenuating circumstance (i.e. wait a couple days to cool off before writing) send a message to achievinglife@gmail.com with the name of business and what level/location you were looking. While we will not play the role of mediator nor do we have the ability to assist you in contact with the business or getting any response we will make note so if others make the same complaint that business will be removed.

How much are advertisers charged, what about organizations, and job posters?

Advertising rates and the point system can be found in the Advertising Section.

But are fees for groups listed in Volunteering/Giving different?

Yes. If an organization is a 501c, open book, uses no more then 30% of income to cover operating costs, and is a charitable group that's main focus is aide they can petition to be listed in the giving/volunteering section. If they are approved they do not have to pay any fee - now or later.

Profiles - I am confused?

Users can create a profile for Metro/Loca, Student, or Scholar (additional profiles over time)by going to the mysection page and clicking edit/create under the appropriate heading in the profiles table. A person does not have a user profile until they create one. Information that is provided during registration is not used to create a user profile. If you want to make your profile public or private you can click on profile preferences found in the banner at the top of the page.

What are the specials - such as movies, music, and books?

The specials are specific databases for the individual user. Initially these personal databases will be for music, movies, books, and journal entries. With movies, music, and books a member will be able to list what they have, if they would like to sell, buy, have gifted, and some short comments. Journal Entries are designed like a very simplistic blog that lets the user create, edit, and delete entries. Members will be able to make these specials either public or private in the future as well as having more options available.

Speaking of Private and Public designations - will you ever have others?

Initially the only options will be to make items either public, private, or friends only. Eventually we will be working to allow a user to have more options such as: Business, Cold List, and perhaps others. Implementation of a system to let users see other users' friends may also be incorporated - if we get requests for this.

I noticed your site does not have an auto-send to my yahoo, hotmail, etc address book - is that going to change - why?

Currently we are not using any such mass invite system. Though we will not deny the chance we may start one initially we are still researching whether to implement the system. There are a few reasons for this. One reason is that although many of us would like to think that everyone in our address book will join, and while it is possible with these invites to check/uncheck who you want to invite - the fact is many people do not respond with those mass invites, many times you might have people who receive the invite that you didn't mean to send it to (i.e. boss, ex, professor), and we feel if you really want to invite someone you can tell the person about this site without having to use some generic invite. Secondly, while the sites that provide for these invites are very secure in asking for login and password we feel it still is left better in your hands. Thirdly, as sites like Yahoo and other mail servers are getting more strict on spamming (possibly charging) we feel that these mass invites can be considered spam and already are in some cases. Finally, because we are not an invite only network we do not see the need to provide the service at this time.

Have more questions? E-mail achievinglife@gmail.com or sign-in and contact Debra Macking or Mark Delgado.