Natalee Roan

Vjournal Update - one year later

2009-07-28T22:56:00Z

It's now been a year since I launched Vjournal. Yesterday, I launched a brand new look to the site because I've decided to take it that much more seriously. I thought I'd run through a list of questions that I've received as a means of updating all of you:

Did you Know?

2009-06-29T23:06:00Z

Highly recommend that entrepreneurs see this video - Great facts to be aware of that will likely spur some great ideas for the most opportunistic among you! Did you Know Video

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Job seekers: How to see competitors' resumes

2009-05-05T00:36:00Z

If any of you know of someone looking for a job (and these days who doesn't), make sure they see this article on how to check out other resumes for similar job titles - it's a great way to beef up your competitive positioning. Pass it around to anyone you know who could use a helping hand looking for a job.
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What NOT to do with social networking

2009-04-08T17:36:00Z

In the past 3 months, I've managed to get Vjournal's Alexa ranking from 3,237,678 to just above 620,000. Some days the ranking breaks into the top 500,000 websites. Roughly, this is an indication that, based on people who have downloaded the Alexa toolbar, there are 619,999 sites that get more traffic on a monthly basis than Vjournal. And my response is, so what? What I've learned is that these rankings mean little and are incredibly easy to manipulate. Unless the traffic coming to your site is truly quality, it doesn't matter. Yet so many companies have incorporated goals of improving their Alexa ranking (or some other ranking barometer) to be in the top 100,000 websites - and are paying consultants and "community managers" to help them do it. learn more about quality social networking here.

Are you "Blinking" through meetings?

2009-02-08T17:44:00Z

Startups are famous for rapid-fire decision-making - But how do you determine whether you've crossed the line into poor decision-making habits that mask your company's real problems? Here are suggestions on how to prevent "ready-aim-fire" from turning into "aim-fire-ready".

Explain this to me like I'm a 5 year-old

2008-12-02T21:24:00Z

I just posted this article on Vjournal.com and thought I'd share it with you. Nearly every entrepreneur knows the importance of their elevator pitch, yet an extraordinary number of them fail this simple test. Your pitch could be costing you investors, customers, employees and media attention just when you need them more than ever. The article goes through an example from my consulting experience which took a company's revenue from about $196k to over $3 million in 6 months.

Google problem solved

2008-11-23T19:04:00Z

My issues with Google took much longer to resolve than I could have imagined, but Google's bots are finally indexing Vjournal pages quite readily now. Google never responded to any of my pleas for help. But

Testing your business idea: Phase 2 - Focus groups to test the business concept

2008-09-10T22:37:00Z

This is Part 2 of my response to a reader question regarding how I came up with the idea for Vjournal and, given its edginess, whether I tested the idea before proceeding. YOU BET. Phase 1 was coming up with the brand name. Phase 2 is testing the concept in focus groups and you can read about that process here.

When to quit your day-job

2008-09-09T21:32:00Z

Recently I’ve been getting a number of questions from part-time entrepreneurs and those with an idea they want to pursue on the criteria they should use in making the decision to quit their current day-job to pursue their entrepreneurial dream full-time. Learn how I'd make this decision here.

Testing your business idea: Phase 1 - Developing a brand name

2008-09-04T20:43:00Z

This is Part 1 of a 3-part answer to a reader question: How did you come up with the idea for vjournal, and given its edginess, what kind of testing did you do before going this direction? Here I discuss what led to the the idea and the strategy for creating a brand name.

Female bosses - your opinion?

2008-07-12T00:44:00Z

Do you have a preference for male vs. female bosses? If so, why? I'd also be interested in your opinion of this new website dedicated to women business leaders - www.vjournal.comThanks for commenting, I appreciate your feedback. ...

WORSE than a pornographer?!

2008-06-29T23:22:00Z

Today I learned that I'm actually much worse than being a pornographer. It turns out that www.vjournal.com used to be what Google calls a "link farm". This is a LOT worse than I thought as Google has BLOCKED MY WEBSITE altogether. Now what?

Great update on Earth Class Mail

2008-06-24T00:36:00Z

For those of you who follow the TV series Start-up Junkies, the Seattle Times had this great update on Earth Class Mail.

Apparently I'm a pornographer

2008-06-14T21:19:00Z

It seems Google has deemed that I’m a pornographer. I’m not, of course, but because they decided that I am, they won’t let Google ads appear on my new website. Here’s how I got to be a porn queen:

The Ultimate Question to Predict your Growth

2008-06-13T17:09:00Z

I want to introduce you to a strong predictor of your company's growth: It's called the Net Promoter Score, or NPS. The reason it's so powerful is that it provides an objective measure of customer loyalty, and research has shown that companies with extremely loyal customers tend to grow faster and at a lower cost than competitors, because their customers continue to refer business. The part I love about the Net Promoter Score is that while it's so effective, its also incredibly simple and cheap to put into place - You just ask your customers to answer this question:

Start-up Junkies on Hulu.com

2008-06-01T18:06:00Z

Thanks to those that let me know that all of the Start-up Junkies episodes are available free on Hulu.com. Here is the link to the episodes. ...

The Definition of a Lead

2008-05-29T20:31:00Z

I admit I have a real issue about how people throw the term "lead" around, as many in sales and marketing use the term incorrectly. Using the right definition is critical because its the only way you can protect yourself from using faulty data in determining the quality of your sales and marketing programs. I have a very simple definition that has served me extremely well:

Managing Website Sales

2008-05-29T19:04:00Z

While working on my 500+ Sales and Marketing Questions document, a debate has occurred regarding roles, responsibilities and accountability for website sales. The debate was made even more interesting when the TV sitcom "The Office" showed the character Ryan, the boss at corporate, nudging the sales people in the field office to remember to enter their sales into the website. It is only on the season finale that we learn that Ryan has been intentionally double-counting sales because the website, which he heavily promoted internally, wasn't doing well versus the sales people, and we watch him being carted off to jail for fraud. OK, omitting the fraud plot twist, historically website sales have indeed caused friction

SweetieGate

2008-05-15T19:16:00Z

I'm really pleased that 70% of the readership of this blog is male - that I could earn such praise as a professional and as a woman is a huge achievement. I love working with men and have had GREAT colleagues and mentors of the male persuasion. That puts me in a unique position to comment on Obama's recent outrageous-unbelievable- slanderous comment -- He called a professional woman "sweetie". I'm kidding of course - it was certainly wrong, but the number of comments and blog posts on news sites on Sweetiegate (read ABC news post here) and especially the comments, make it clear that what happened is extremely misunderstood.

Startup Junkies Episode 4 - The pricing argument

2008-05-07T23:33:00Z

With Episode 4 airing on MOJO again I thought I'd address the pricing argument that occurs in that episode of the show. What was my beef?

The issue was around the number of people that would be needed to manage the Cheetah account and whether enough headcount and additional operational expenses were factored in before we gave Cheetah a pricing proposal. When I first got to the company, no account manager was in the headcount plan. Once Cheetah came on board, which has over 70 offices and 60,000+ employees, I was concerned we'd need not just 1 account manager but ...