A teaser of the names I jotted down using my FieldNotes booklet

Names

The first thing the 3 of us did was sit down together, drink a beer and jot down a number of keywords that we thought encompassed the direction and type of project we wanted to build. With that, we all went away and had a mini deadline set to each come up with names, phrases, quotes or keywords we could use to create a name for the project. In total we had close to 40 variations between the 3 of us.

I took the 3 lists from Basecamp, shuffled them and put them into 1 long list, which we now had to choose our top 3 favourites. Luckily we all had 1 name in our top 3, so we finally had a name!

Selecting a .com domain

.com domains are always first prize, so when we were batting our heads against the wall trying to find a domain to match our name, we flirted briefly with going the .net route, but every time I wrote down project#.net, it just never did the name any justice. This is where you must not give up. Keep on searching, trying alternative and quirky uses of the name of your project to come up with a .com domain that is available. Add keywords to the name that don’t change the meaning of the project such as project#app.com, thebigproject#.com or project#now.com. This was the route we had to go and came up with a gem of a domain that is catchy and memorable!

My tips on choosing a name and .com domain:

• Jot down keywords/phrases/quotes on paper that come to mind
• Mix and match the keywords and create a list of them
• Choose your top 3, sleep on it and finally choose 1!
• Don’t give up searching for that .com domain as it will take a couple of days and different angles to find one
• Add keywords that don’t change the meaning of the name such as keywordapp, keywordblog, keywordnow, thekeyword etc

By no means is this the definitive way of choosing a name and .com domain, but it worked for us. The more people you have to bounce ideas off the better, but make sure there is 1 person that makes the final decision as all of you may never agree and ultimately never get the project off the ground!

On paper its an easy decision – rather turn away the work and get on with that project. However, when you have money on the table, that decision is not that easy. As small businesses, we constantly chasing the money while the dreams and internal projects get postponed over and over again.

So you can understand now why me taking the best decision is definitely not easy!

The most difficult part of it all is our ideas aren’t usually something small that you could complete in an hour or two. They usually involve days of work. They also probably involve other people to help turn those ideas into reality. At this point, I’ve often found the mountain almost to high to even attempt to climb, which I guess has been my biggest downfall. This time, I’m trying something new. Using timelines. (I hate using the word deadline, because I’ve missed countless deadlines in my working life and not once have I or someone else died from it. I can’t say much for doctors that have deadlines though!)

Vintage calendar found on Flickr

I’ll let you in on something, I’ve taken an idea, shared it with 2 other guys and we all keen to work on it. It’s not the next greatest web 2.0 web app, nor is it something to do with <insert latest and greatest technology / keyword here>. Its something that if the 3 of us pull off, it will help us realise some of goals we all have in common. It will rock, that I can promise.

Back to the timelines thing. The only way we going to get this idea off the ground is if we break down the process to building it and stick those little milestones to a timeline. I’ve stuck the idea into Basecamp and added dates to all the milestones. By the end of today, for example, we all needed to penned our ideas for a name for this project into Basecamp. By Friday, we need to have whittled those ideas down to 3 names and then the domain hunting begins.

So as you can see, setting attainable targets with dates to your idea / project helps you get things done and also gives you the feeling of accomplishment as you tick those milestones off. Its the small victories along the way that are going to keep us motivated.

To summarise if you have managed to read this far: Break down your idea into attainable milestones and attach dates to them. That will give your idea the small pushes it needs every few days to keep the momentum going and ultimately, see those ideas made into reality!

I’ve come up with a number of ideas over the past few years that as of right now, I’ve either forgotten, or found the idea to be completely absurd and stupid. The good ideas (well to me anyway) get overwritten in my mind by the next good idea I think up. There is a constant flow of ideas, just not many make it out of my head onto paper and ultimately into reality. That’s what I’m wanting to change as of today. I bought myself a set of Field Notes that I’ll be using for writing those ideas, thoughts and dreams into.

Ideas on a piece of paper aren’t very useful unless you do something about them. Either share them with others, toss them away or, my favourite, put them into action. So I’ll make sure I leave a little space at the bottom of each page for some form of an action plan. And actions, they do speak louder than words. Excuse the clique.

Setup a U.S. based iTunes account

In order to do this, you need to download any free iPhone app from the U.S. iTunes app store, create a new account, select None when they ask for your payment method and fill in the rest of the information. Simple?

Here is a step by step guide:

Click on iTunes Store in the left sidebar of iTunes. Make sure you are in the U.S. store, but scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking the circle icon and selecting United States.

Once you are in the US iTunes store, find the Free Apps section in the right sidebar of the page, hover over any of those apps, and click the Free link. A popup window will appear where you must click the Create New Account button. Follow the next few steps until they ask for payment. Make sure you use a valid email address, as you going to need it to validate your account.

On the Provide a Payment Method screen, make sure you select NONE.

Fill in the rest of the details using fake details you can generate using the Fake Name Generator website. Don’t worry, Apple won’t ever use these details.

Once that step is complete, iTunes will send you a confirmation email. You need to click the link in that email to verify the account. Once you have done that, you are now the proud owner of an U.S. iTunes account. Click on the Sign In link in the top right corner to login.

Buying music from iTunes

Once you have your U.S. iTunes account setup, you are going to need to buy iTunes gift cards that you can load into your account to spend. There are 2 websites that come recommended:

• iTunes Express (I have personally used this service without any problems)
• MediaWoB (recommended by friends)

Once you have purchased the gift card, you’ll receive an email from them with a code. Click on the Redeem link under the Quick Links section (top right of iTunes Store), enter the Gift Card code and off you go!

You should now see your email address next to the value of your gift card loaded in the status bar like the image below:

You can now buy music and apps from the iTunes store!

Disclaimer: This does violate the terms of conditions of the iTunes store, but the music industry in SA need to catch a wake up. There is no decent place to buy music online in South Africa. At least this way, you aren’t pirating music (the artist is getting paid), the only people suffering are the record labels in SA who won’t get their commission.

Hat tip goes to Marc Forrest. Read his blog for some excellent iPhone related tips and tricks.

Accounting

From the money side of things, I use make use of 2 different web apps. One for invoicing & time management and another for keeping record of my income and expenses.

Harvest is a really simple, yet feature-rich (if you need it) application that manages the creating of invoices and tracking of time. For the most part, I use it to invoice and keep record of invoices. There is a pretty slick Dashboard widget for both PC and Mac for time and project management which I do use from time to time, but mostly I use it for sending invoices and creating statements for clients. There is a free plan, but I pay $12 a month for the Solo account which allows to me to make full use of all the features I need.

Pulse is a basic cash flow management tool for small businesses. I use it to track all income and expenses I incur relating to Beanbag Media. So every few weeks, I go through all my slips I’ve collected, from parking slips to coffee shop receipts to stationery I’ve bought and enter it into Pulse. I’ve also setup recurring expenses for ADSL and other monthly expenses that I know are constant (the $12 I pay for Harvest App as another example). I quickly go through my business bank account to record any income I’ve received and when my accountant knocks on my door to tell me its tax season, I hit the export button and that’s it! Everything is categorised too, so my accountant knows where to assign the different expenses and incomes to. Another $9 a month well spent.

Projects

As a small business, most of the projects I undertake are collaborations with other freelancers or small businesses. For managing all the interactions with them, I use Basecamp by 37Signals. It’s a no brainer in terms of project collaboration as well as a place to keep record and update others on the status of projects and ideas. It’s slightly pricey at $24 a month, but I feel its well worth the expense, considering how it keeps all the projects I am working on in order. You can’t properly manage a project with multiple people in different locations over email.

Beanbag Media’s email, calendar and online docs are run using Google’s apps for your domain, which is free!

So that’s a basic insight into how I run Beanbag Media from a day to day perspective. There are apps online that are free that do the same job as the products I’ve mentioned, I just found these apps to be easy to use as well as well-designed, which most of the free alternatives seem to lack.

I for one enjoy change. I might not be the one to initiate it all the time, but I do always try to find the positive in situations that have changed. For one, Karina and I are busy planning to move to Cape Town for a year. To us, that’s massive change. Change in scenery, change in lifestyle, change in our social life, change in our work schedule and change just for the sake of trying something new! It’s scary yet exciting all at once.

So, if you feeling a little down or uninspired, try changing something in your life. Even the most basic of changes could brighten things up. Try joining the gym, moving your furniture around, change your working hours (if possible), organise more braai’s and dinners with your friends or buy some new clothes. Its the little things in life that sometimes bring us the most joy.

I spotted an old man fishing with a handmade wooden rod and some fishing line. As we passed him, he looked up, gave us a big smile and carried on watching the river. Usually one would not bat an eye lid at this seemingly ordinary moment, but I had a long think about our friendly exchange. Here was a man, probably around 70 years old that owns little more than a tiny wooden house on a river in Bangkok. He probably lives off less money in a year than I make in 2 weeks. The amazing thing to me is he looked completely and utterly content with his life and is happy to sit and fish for hours on end and smile at the passing tourists.

You see, his definition and my definition of success and happiness are completely different. I now look at some of the people that I previously looked up to and wished I could of be in their position in terms of wealth and success and realise their goals, ambitions, success and happiness are a lot from mine. Some more than others, but the small lesson I’ve learnt is don’t focus about what others have, how happy they appear to be, or how successful they are. Learn from them, sure, but create your own path to success and happiness.

If you keep focusing and measuring yourself based on others, you’ll never reach your own goals and ultimately, success and happiness.

We also stopping off in Bangkok for some shopping as well as Singapore for some sight seeing. I’m planning on buying a couple of Apple Magic Mice (for myself and friends), a new lens for my camera, XBox games as well as clothes! I’ve heard electronics and clothing is dirt cheap in Bangkok, so going to burn a small hole in my credit card. I’m sure my wife is going to help me with that too. :)

There is free wifi at my hotel in Manilla, so I’ll post some pics and a short blog post or 2 if I have time.

So have a fantastic New Years party for those of you spending it with your friends and family. We will be in Manila with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law and are sure to have a blast!

This is also something really close to home as my sister died because of a drunk driver. The scary thing is with accidents involving alcohol, the person that is drunk most of the time walks away from the accidents, leaving the completely innocent and sober people involved either dead or critically injured.

Castle are running a “Designated Driver” promotion this December. So whenever you go out with a bunch of mates, someone needs to take one for the team and not drink so that you all get home safe! In honour of this hero, Castle will be giving free soft drinks to the designated driver at venues where they are running the promotion. At the end of the night, they’ll take a breathalyser test and if you below the limit, you’ll get entered into the competition to win free cab rides for a year!

Download this PDF to find out where the Castle’s “Designated Driver” parties are happening around South Africa.

Lastly, please add SACAB’s number to your cellphone: 08611 72222

So enjoy your holiday and drink as much as you want, just call a cab and get home safely.