Fresh Inc.: The Staff Blog

A New Way to Advertise

2010-03-12T11:40:52-05:00

iPhone apps that will help you get through conference season. For the small business owner or entrepreneur, springtime often equates to conference season. From booking flights and accommodations, to finding out what's going on in the local area, there are plenty of apps that will ease your stress, Mashable reports. For the procrastinating businessperson, Priceline's Hotel Negotiator app is free, and will allow you to find last-minute hotel deals within a radius of your current location. Also free of cost, the Free Wi-Fi Finder app will use your location to find local spots that offer free Wi-Fi access, with the ability to filter results by types of location, such as cafes and hotels. Another great freebie app is beamME pro, which allows you to e-mail, text or tweet all of your contact information instantly - perfect for staying connected with fellow conference-goers, especially if you neglected to bring enough business cards. Online ads that adjust to you. We've written before about the slightly creepy but cool trend in online advertising that is behavioral targeting, which allows websites to display ads to customers who, for instance, abandon their shopping carts. Now, Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times looks at something new: a start-up that allows companies to buy and customize online advertisements in a matter of milliseconds. The company, AppNexus, uses information collected about a given web user's purchasing and search history to make real-time decisions about which ads will perform best. Clifford reports that eBay is trying the system out, and that it's returning three times as much money as it costs. "Previously eBay had to buy a block of ads from a network or exchange, and when someone it recognized showed up, they could partially customize the ad," she writes. "Now, customers are offered one by one, and eBay--using AppNexus's automated system--only bids on the ones it thinks are worthwhile." Did Mark Zuckerberg commit a felony? Last week, Business Insider broke the story (supported by more than a dozen sources) that early in Facebook's history, Mark Zuckerberg, then a 19-year-old Harvard student, used Facebook members's information to break into their private e-mail accounts, hack a competitor's site, and alter users profiles. Now, BI has interviewed privacy lawyers who say those actions from 2004 could be considered felonies under state and Federal law. It's a troubling development for a company that has access to the private data of some 400 million people. How to advertise green products legally. It's no secret that making your product a little more green can also add some green to your profits. But it's important to make environmentally claims legally. The Federal Trade Commission has already gone after Kmart, Tender Corp., and Dyna-E international for making false claims of "biodegradability." There have also been class-action law suites against companies like S.C. Johnson & Son, which added its own "Greenlist" seal to its Windex products that misled consumers into believing that a third party had certified the product independently. The FTC has a guide for the use of environmental marketing claims. An updated version is expected later this year, but in the meantime smart marketers should follow these tips from Advertising Age to avoid dishonest labeling. Foursquare grows by leaps and bounds. Foursquare, the location-based social network/game just celebrated it's first birthday and it has been experiencing wild growth for the occasion. The site surpassed its own record of 275,000 check-ins in a day. TechCrunch contextualizes this milestone, explaining that the company had 1.2 million check-ins in a week just a month ago and half as many a month before that. Both Foursquare and it's top competitor, Gowalla, are gearing up for SXSW and TechCrunch writes that "both are absolutely on fire right now and could go nuclear this weekend." So stop procrastinating and get your business on Foursquare. Homes of the next big things. Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal and VentureSource teamed up to identify the top 50 venture-backed companies with the best chance to become "the next big thing"--a list that included HomeAway, Fusion-io, and Etsy. This morning, The Journal took a look at where these companies are located. Not surprisingly, just about half call Silicon Valley home. But New York City was well-represented, too.

How Much Money Should You Raise?

2010-03-11T12:06:15-05:00

The appetizer approach to raising funds. Mark Suster proposes the rule of hors d'oeuvres to decide how much money your company should raise. The idea is that it's bad form to take the entire hors d'oeuvres tray, but it's probably a good idea to take two servings (in case the tray doesn't come around for awhile). In other words, if an investor offers you more money than you think you need, but still at reasonable terms, take the extra money. "I know you think you're going to do a bigger round later at a higher price but the problem is that if someone offers you [extra money] now it's guaranteed," he writes. "That same extra [money] might prove very difficult to get one year from now if something fundamentally changes in the market, your company isn't getting traction as quickly as expected or your competition makes a lot of noise in the market." A handy social media cheat sheet. Our friends over at Fast Company have a quick and dirty cheat sheet that breaks down the value of different social networking sites for communicating with customers, getting brand exposure, boosting site traffic, and helping your SEO. For a more detailed guide, see how you can use social netowrking sites to drive your business. Ex-assistant to Yahoo's CEO disses her old company when she moves onto Twitter. Kristen Cordle, who tweets at GGateGirl, has shrewdly ascended the corporate ladder, moving from program manager at Logitech to assistant to Yahoo's Carol Bartz to assistant to Twitter CEO Evan Williams, according to Valleywag. But as soon as Cordle fully transitioned to Twitter, the veiled insults started. First with a tweet about Twitter having the most outstanding company culture she'd experienced ("#goodpeople") and then maligning Twitter rival Facebook. We're keeping it in mind for next year's list of the op 10 Most Awkward Social Media Moments. Competition for group buying heats up. GroupOn, the Chicago start-up that helps local businesses find new customers by offering discounts to groups, is very hot right now. The company raised $30 million from venture capital firms in December and, according to TechCrunch, is projecting $100 million in gross sales for this year. GroupOn is so hot, in fact, that it's spawning lots of well-funded competition. VentureBeat reports that LivingSocial, a a Washington, DC group buying start-up, just raised $25 million. VentureBeat notes that part of the attraction of group buying for investors is that it's easy to turn a profit--most group buying companies simply take a cut of sales--and because there's "room for niche-focused competitors. (Think Groupon for moms or LivingSocial for athletes.)" Have you been neglecting your company's Twitter account? You're not alone. According to Mashable, a recent study found that only 21 percent of Twitter accounts are active. Thirty-four percent of Twitter users haven't even made one tweet, and 73 percent have tweeted fewer than 10 times. The rapid growth of the micro-blogging site has also slowed: in April of 2009 the site grew 20 percent, but in December of the same year it only grew .34 percent. The Future of Mobile? Superphones. By 2013, the installed base of smartphones and superphones will exceed the installed base of PCs and web-browsing will become fully mobile. So predicts ex-RealNetworks chairman Rob Glaser, in his first speech since stepping down. GigaOm lists the five big opportunities that Glaser says will emerge from this new tech landscape, including "digital persistence" (the idea that all content will be available everywhere at any point in time), access to content across devices, and improving the discovery process. New apps from the Google Apps Marketplace you should try. Google has caused quite a stir among cloud-computing enthusiasts with the announcement of their new app store, which allows software developers to sell their Google Apps-integrated web tools to other businesses. To help users get the most of the search giant's new offering, Mashable has suggested a few of the best apps available so far, such as Intuit Online Payroll, which allows employees to retrieve their paychecks from Google Calender and help with e-filing taxes, and Aviary, a nifty graphics editor that helps create business cards and slide presentations. "We're only scratching the surface in terms of what the Google Apps Marketplace can potentially offer users, as well as developers and other providers," the post says. "But just looking at some of the apps and integrations that already exist, we have to say, this is exciting." Is it possible to teach entrepreneurship? In the past we've written about whether entrepreneurship is in a person's genes but a new article on ">CNN Money attacks the question from another angle: can entrepreneurship be taught? More specifically how good of a job are we doing of teaching it in schools. While the number of colleges and universities with entrepreneurship programs has increased tenfold in the last three decades, a study published by the Kauffman Foundation earlier this year found that that explosion has resulted in "no appreciable impact on entrepreneurial activity in the United States." Still, the next generation of entrepreneurs is honing their skills one way or another. More from Inc. Magazine: Get this delivered to your inbox. Or get it on the Kindle Follow us on Twitter or Tumblr. Friend us on Facebook. Apply now for the 2010 Inc. 500|5000.

Google Opens An App Store

2010-03-10T12:05:35-05:00

Happy Birthday Craigslist. The schlubby classified ad site, which managed to blow up the newspaper business by behaving decidedly unbusinesslike, was founded nearly 15 years ago, according to a blog post from the site's eponymous founder Craig Newmark. He digs up what he calls "the earliest archaeological find" from the site's early days. It's a message directing users of the Well, an early social network, to Newmark's new home page. "My focus, on this page, is on events around San Francisco that involve arts and technology, privacy rights, local writers and artists, and any other item that strikes my fancy," he wrote. "The approach is as minimalist as I could make." PSFK, which flags the post, puts it in perspective, "From that simple start, today the site serves over twenty billion page views per month, putting it in 37th place overall among web sites worldwide and 11th place overall among web sites in the United States." When is it okay to check your cellphone? If you're having dinner with your spouse and your phone buzzes with a text, do you reach for it? If you reach for it, do you text back? In Farhad Manjoo's house, that would be verboten (at least not without asking permission). In fact, one shouldn't text at all when having a face-to-face conversation, according to Slate's attempt to set the ground rules for cell phone use. On Twitter last week, young technophiles like the New York Times's Nick Bilton argued the opposite. When Bilton's lunching with his boss he leaves his phone alone, but around other tech-savvy people his own age, he texts without compunction. We're hoping the bit about his wife texting him to get his attention during dinner was a joke. Google begins selling business software. Apple's iPhone App Store has created a billion dollar opportunity for small businesses that develop applications and games for the popular gadget. Now Google is trying to pull off the same trick for business software, which could be great news for business-to-business companies in need of customers. TechCrunch reports on the release of the Google Apps Marketplace, which allows companies to sell web-based business software that integrates with programs like Gmail and Google Docs. The app strategy will undoubtedly improve Google's already impressive (and free) software offering. But it could also be an opportunity for entrepreneurs. "For...small startup developers, it means instant access to more users than they can likely imagine," TechCrunch writes. "It also potentially means something more important: money." How to handle employee turnover. Entrepreneur turned venture capitalist Mark Suster posted on his blog, Both Sides of the Table, about how the difficulty of moving from one job to the next. On A VC, Fred Wilson responds by breaking down the issue from every side: the employee, the current employer, and the future employer. One recommendation: If a key employee leaves suddenly, it's worth exercising some patience before bringing an outsider onboard. In that scenario, a "battlefield promotion" might be the best option. Charting the Facebook economy. We've written in the past about the dangers of building your business on someone else's platform. But many companies, undeterred by that risk--and attracted by the prospect of hundreds of millions of potential customers--have built business models that rely heavily on Facebook. The Guardian takes a stab at estimating the size of the Facebook economy, figuring that among a slew of companies such as Playfish, Zynga, and Plancast, the social network's broader economy is easily worth several billion dollars. The article asks "whether [Facebook is] a viable ecosystem, a bubble or a house of cards." How to simplify your phone system. Can't get an invitation to Google Voice, the free service that transcribes voicemails and rings multiple numbers? (Read more about Google Voice here.) A start-up called Phonebooth.com is attempting to pick up the slack, Mashable reports. The website is now offering Phonebooth OnDemand, which is a full-featured phone service that will set you back $20 a month per user. The no-cost version, which is called Phonebooth Free and is aimed at small businesses, will give you a local number with up to five extensions, call-forwarding to multiple sources, and voicemail with transcription. More from Inc. Magazine: Get this delivered to your inbox. Or get it on the Kindle. Follow us on Twitter. And on Tumblr. Friend us on Facebook.

Offline Celebrities Launch Online Start-ups

2010-03-09T12:30:52-05:00

Hey internet entrepreneurs, celebrities are encroaching on your market. Thanks to flexible technology and an abundance of developers, web start-ups are practically the new must-have accessory for Hollywood types, reports Business Insider. Check out their list of the 10 companies to watch. There are the A-listers like Ashton Kutcher's Katalyst Media and Will Ferrell's FunnyOrDie. But did you know that Ludacris and Will.i.am have social networks? Or that Peter Gabriel came up with a Pandora-killer and Kim Kardashian launched the Netflix of footwear? Big numbers from Tumblr. We've periodically sung the praises of blogging start-up Tumblr, which boasts slick technology and an entrepreneurial prodigy of a founder. Today, via Mashable, Tumblr announced some serious traffic growth: 1 billion pageviews and 15,000 new users joining everyday. Meanwhile, Mashable reports that Tumblr, which has operated thus far without a business model, "plans to launch a two revenue generating features next month." Advice for first time CEOs. Bijan Salehizadeh deals with a lot of neophytes but he doesn't mind (via peHUB). "In consumer Internet companies, first time CEOs are the norm - perhaps even encouraged and preferred," says the general partner at Highland Capital Partners. He has two nuggets of advice for greenhorn CEOs: 1) Share bad news with your board and investors early and 2) always be planning for contingencies. "The 'what if' exercise is incredibly valuable and tells me that a CEO is thinking extremely strategically and not afraid to admit that things sometimes do take longer." Another acquisition for giant vacation rental company. When HomeAway raised an astounding $250 million in a single venture funding round back in 2008, CEO Brian Sharples told Inc.: "There are going to be some great opportunities [for acquisitions] the next couple of years." Now, TechCrunch reports that HomeAway has bought the publisher of AlugueTemporada.com.br, Brazil's best known vacation rental site. This is at least the third acquisition the company has made since its last funding round and the first outside of North America and Europe. How not to kill your start-up. ReadWriteWeb has put together a list of core principles entrepreneurs should internalize in order to keep their start-ups from biting the big one. One thing the post says to dodge is the tendency to become caught up in the allure of modern technology. "Consider other sources of competitive power than just technological sophistication, such as superior customer experience or service, exclusive distribution partnerships, or other market-based advantages." The most provocative, and perhaps, pertinent piece of advice? "Remember that sometimes start-ups need to be killed, for their own good -- or yours, at least." Apps for TV have yet to catch on It is estimated that by the end of 2010, Americans will own more than two million Web-connected TVs. And in 2009, Yahoo! announced that Samsung, Sony, LG, and Vizio televisions would come with its Connected TV software, which is open to all developers. However, unlike the Apple App store, which had more than 3,000 programs just two months after its debut and more than 140,000 by 2010, apps for TV haven't taken off. Only 35 full-featured apps are available on the Yahoo! service. BusinessWeek reports one reason apps for TV have yet to take off is that the approval process for television apps is more difficult than for their online counterparts. After Yahoo! approves the App, each individual TV maker must also approve the app. Some TVs cannot run certain types of code, and TV makers are reluctant to take on the risk of being blamed for an app that disappoints. Selling your business? A lawyer can help. Over at the New York Times' You're the Boss blog, lawyer Harry Styron offers pointers on selling a business and when to get a lawyer involved (hint: not until the decision has been made to sell, ideally not out of necessity). Especially for family run businesses, Styron says, "if the decision to sell is a result of a key family member having died or become ill or if the prospect of selling the business means some family member is going to lose a good job or a good income, the decision to sell was made too late." Now all you need to know is whether your lawyer should specialize in entrepreneurship. How to cope with changes at the workplace. From budget cuts, to massive layoffs, to new management techniques, there are plenty of reasons why changes at the office can stress out employees. A recent survey conducted by Right Management, a career management consulting firm, shows that 31 percent of employees have trouble adapting to changes in the workplace, Boston.com reports. The Boston.com team has also come up with five tips on how to deal with change in the workplace, which include taking time to get to know a new boss in order to develop a good working relationship, staying on top of the latest skills that employers expect when seeking out job candidates in your field, and having an open flow of communication with your manager if you feel too bogged down by your workload. More from Inc. Magazine: Get this delivered to your inbox. Or get it on the Kindle Follow us on Twitter or Tumblr. Friend us on Facebook. Apply now for the 2010 Inc. 500|5000.

Starting Up While an Employee

2010-03-08T12:24:19-05:00

The "real" story on Facebook's founding. On Friday, Silicon Alley Insider published the results of its two-year investigation into the controversial founding of Facebook. Among the new details to emerge is this purported IM from Mark Zuckerberg to a friend right before Facebook's launch, in which Zuckerberg suggests that he is intentionally delaying the launch of a similar site, HarvardConnections, which he had previously agreed to work on. "I feel like the right thing to do is finish the facebook and wait until the last day before I'm supposed to have their thing ready and then be like 'look yours isn't as good as this so if you want to join mine you can…otherwise I can help you with yours later.'" How to start a company when you still have a job. Over at a Smart Bear, Jason Cohen tackles the subject of bootstrapping a start-up using your salary. He recommends picking a slow growth business--you can afford this because you already have a salary--that doesn't require you to answer emails or phone calls during normal business hours. "Remember, your immediate goal isn't to make millions of dollars, it's to build a business just solid enough to quit your day job," he writes. You also have to make sure you don't get sued by your employer. To avoid this, Cohen suggests being upfront about what you're doing and getting a signed letter from a company representative that gives you the go-ahead to work on your business on your own time. "When it comes to company property, be paranoid," he writes. "Assume everything you do on the Internet is recorded, cataloged, tagged, and monitored continuously by a methamphetamine-powered slave-army." (Via Hacker News.) How to get a better night's sleep. Having trouble keeping your eyes open? Couldn't wind down after all that Oscar excitement last night? You're not alone. Seventy-five percent of Americans report having problems sleeping a few nights a week, which can lead to missed workdays, errors on the job, and even diminished job satisfaction. Web Worker Daily has some tips for better sleep in honor of National Sleep Awareness Week and we . 1. Go to sleep at the same time every night. 2. Keep your room in total darkness. 3. Don't drink tea, coffee, or soda late in the day. 4. Avoid sugary foods later in the evening, and opt for snacks with tryptophan in them instead, like bananas, sunflower seeds, or low-fat yogurt. Lastly, experiment with a little white noise. A plea to abandon ad blocking. As more businesses grow increasingly dependent on a solid Web presence for survival, tech-related news site Ars Technica writes that there's one menace threatening to snatch away the crutch: ad blocking. After observing over a period of time that a substantial amount of users were using software to block the site's advertisements, founder Ken Fisher decided to explain to readers exactly how and why ad blocking can hurt your favorite websites. "If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us -- bandwidth being only one of them -- but provide us with no revenue," the post says. Fisher, who goes on to compare ad blocking to "running a restaurant where 40 percent of the people who came and ate didn't pay," also detailed a 12-hour experiment to make content disappear for visitors using a specific ad blocking program, which was met with mixed results. While it was a technical success, Fisher says he found out that most ad blockers were not doing so with ill intent, which raises an important question for business owners and developers alike: Is it ethical to block content for users who block your ads? Apple nixes "cookie cutter" apps. In its latest crackdown on the appsphere, Apple is reaching out to companies that build apps from a single template, writes TechCrunch. Apple isn't opposed to these app generators categorically, but just wants to weed out apps that are little more than RSS feeds. Still reaching out to companies individually and suggesting that they add more features seems like unproductive micromanagement to us. See these 15 CEOs on their ways to be more productive and check out the best iPhone apps for business. Pandora's potential IPO. In the past we've written about Pandora's near-death experience, and how it was saved by it's loyal user base. Now the Internet radio start-up that got 347 no's before it landed it's second round of funding is being wooed by a slew of investors, writes The New York Times. The company's success in the mobile sphere has piqued VC interest and though it says it is focusing on growth rather than going public, it hired a new CFO Steve Cakebread who held the same position at Salesforce.com when it went public. Wi-Fi phones for China. China Unicom, one of three Chinese state-owned telecommunications carriers, is working with Apple to introduce iPhones with Wi-Fi capability to China, the Wall Street Journal reports. Up to now, government regulations have forced the companies to disable Wi-Fi capability in the iPhone, which makes the phone less attractive than fully functional iPhones that are resold in China from other markets. More from Inc. Magazine: Get this delivered to your inbox. Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Tumblr. Friend us on Facebook. Apply now for the 2010 Inc. 500|5000.

Lessons Learned From a Bad Haircut

2010-03-05T11:32:44-05:00

The education of Mark Zuckerberg. The Wall Street Journal has a must-read profile of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has kept a firm hold on his company, even as he's raised hundreds of millions of dollars and plotted an eventual initial public offering. The Journal reveals that Zuckerberg has grown up a lot over the last few years, for instance giving up the practice of ending meetings by leading his employees in a chant of "domination." Meanwhile, the article reports that he still owns 25% of the company's stock, controlling most of the voting shares, and three of the five board seats. He's also fond of quoting from--of all things--the movie "Troy." The business lesson of a bad haircut. Think back to the last time you got a really bad haircut. Did you complain to the hairstylist directly? Probably not. If you're like most people, you simply paid your money, sulked away, and then proceeded to complain to anyone who would listen. On her blog, Kicking Niche, marketing guru Mary Dean points out the business lesson to be learned from a bad haircut experience. Namely, that "lack of complaints does not indicate a job well done." As Dean explains, just because your customers aren't actively voicing their displeasure to you, that doesn't mean they aren't doing so to their family and friends. Austin-area residents can catch Dean speak today at the RISE Austin conference about the business opportunities of marketing towards the female demographic. Why you should give yourself a "Do Over." Do you keep yourself awake at night torturing yourself about an unsuccessful email? Do you ever replay a bad interaction with someone while you're still in the middle of a meeting with them? Former venture capitalist and professional coach Jerry Colonna figured out a way to help entrepreneurs break through the "obsessive rumination, self-recrimination, re-writing of the script." And he figured it out by coming to terms with his relationship with Oreos. In short: give yourself a Do Over and try again. (Hat tip, peHUB) More venture capitalists expected to back start-ups in 2010. According to a recent survey conducted by tax and advisory firm KPMG, venture capitalists are optimistic that a rebound will occur this year, after flagging opportunities in 2009, the Boston Globe reports. The survey polled 200 venture capitalists, including investors, bankers and entrepreneurs, and found that 67 percent of respondents expected investments in start-up and growth companies to increase in 2010--compared to a mere 23 percent predicting growth in investments in 2009. Companies that supply green technologies were singled out to receive more attention from venture capitalists, with 38 percent of respondents expecting the energy storage and efficiency sector to see the most investment. Get ready for the electronic medical-records boom. According to CNNMoney, the next goldmine tech start-up industry will be medical records,. There are currently about 300 to 400 companies in the United States fighting for the relatively new market, but small start-ups are poised to hold their own against branches of large corporations. One reason is that of the doctors' offices that have yet to adopt electronic records, the majority are small businesses themselves. Until recently, the bigger players ignored them, focusing on larger hospitals and clinics. Small start-ups were able to fill the niche by offering lower cost products and creative solutions to smaller clinics. Expect long lines at Apple stores on April 3. It's coming. Apple announced this morning that the first iPads will be available in the U.S. on April 3, TechCrunch reports. Those will be Wi-Fi models. The versions that have both Wi-Fi and 3G will be coming later in the month. Pre-ordering for U.S. customers starts on March 12, both online and at Apple retail locations. For more on the much-hyped tablet, take a look at Inc.com's iPad coverage. Winery prices hit the bottom of the barrel. If you're interested in buying a business to flip it, wine is probably not the place to look right now. But as a long term investment, current prices may be too good to pass up, writes WalletPop (via Huffington Post). John Bergman, of Bergman Euro-National, a firm that sells estates in the Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino regions, says that while prices for wineries have bottomed out, better times are on the way. Foreign investors are already looking to take advantage of the situation. For comparison, see this Arizona winery we profiled a few months back as our business for sale, and check out this gadget guide for wine lovers. A jeans start-up designed with your iPhone in mind. Ever wish you had a pair of jeans with a pocket that was meant for your iPhone or iPod touch? Thanks to WTFJeans, a denim startup based in France, your wardrobe wishes are about to come true, Mashable reports. With a pocket designed specifically for your iPhone with micro-fiber interior protection, not to mention a secret USB stick pocket, these jeans aim to fit both your style and gadget-protecting needs. Look for them in early May, and expect them to set you about 59 euro (about $80). More from Inc. Magazine: Get this delivered to your inbox. Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Tumblr. Friend us on Facebook. Apply now for the 2010 Inc. 500|5000.

Reinventing Our Energy Infrastructure

2010-03-04T11:49:29-05:00

Take a look at 10 companies reinventing America's energy infrastructure. Changing the way we use energy is going to require more than just new ways of generating electricity. At an innovation summit organized by ARPA-E (a research branch of the DOE modeled after DARPA that looks at high-risk, high-reward ideas), most of the finalists for funding had the lofty ambition of reinventing the entire energy system, reports Wired. Check out Wired's list of ten companies leading us to more a sustainable future. Phonic Devices makes thermoelectric materials that converts "waste heat," the byproduct of industrial processes directly into electricity. Graphene Energy figured out a way to get more energy density out of graphene, a one-atom thick configuration of carbon. And Makani Windpower, the brainchild of mad scientist Saul Griffith, uses large kites at high altitudes to get the most out of wind power. Check out our recent feature on the incorrigible inventor, Saul Griffith's House of Cool Ideas. For first product, the fewer features the better. You know all those product managers obsessed with feature-rich first products? Steve Blank would like to have a word with them. In his most recent post, he explains how the goal should be the exact opposite: "the minimum feature set." "The reality," he writes, "is that the minimum feature set is 1) a tactic to reduce wasted engineering hours (code left on the floor) and 2) to get the product in the hands of early visionary customers as soon as possible." Google, for one, is a believer. Small business plea for direct lending. AIG, GM, and scores of banks have received bailout money from the federal government. But recovery efforts directed at small businesses have stalled out at the lender level, where large corporations continue to get preferential treatment. Back in October, legislation that would require the SBA to help companies willing to find lenders and, as a last resort, lend the money directly was passed in the House. But it's currently facing a tougher time in the Senate in part due to ongoing skepticism from the current administration, reports the Wall Street Journal. On the campaign trail, Obama proposed expanding the SBA's ability to give direct funds to companies hit by the recession. But then recanted, saying direct lending would create a "massive bureaucracy." On Friday, entrepreneurs testified at a congressional hearing that the $30 billion TARP initiative to help community banks lend to local companies would be better spent by giving it to the SBA to lend out. Raising money, with a little help from your friends. Interesting video on the RISE Austin site from Maggie Miller, a social entrepreneur and founder of the micro-finance organization, DiscoverHope Fund. When raising start-up capital, Miller says she would talk to everyone she saw and "literally make 100 friends a day." Those friends helped her raise an initial $60,000 for the project, often $100 at a time. Her advice to other entrepreneurs is to, "Surround yourself with people who will cultivate that hope in you. You never really know who is set up to support you in that particular inspirational goal that you have." In other news from the RISE Austin conference, Inc. editor Jane Berentson took some time away from her magazine duties to serve on a panel of judges for a quick-pitch competition. The winner was Steve Barcik, CEO of FireFly LED Lighting, a maker of energy-efficient light bulbs. The 2-minute opportunity checklist for entrepreneurs. If you have a business concept on the back burner but you want to test it for holes before trying to sell friends, family, and VCs on the idea, the Harvard Business Review has an 18 question checklist that can help. It starts out with the basic and essential question "Does your idea soothe someone's pain, discomfort, frustration, or dissatisfaction?" and grills you on other key particulars such as whether you can sneak by big competitors unnoticed for a while. The post also offers some counterintuitive advice: if everyone loves your idea, you're in trouble. "Unless you have at least one major detractor, then you are probably not onto something big. In fact, if everyone thinks it's a wonderful thing to do, then probably a legion of competitors is on the launch pad." Apple bans a popular iPhone app ... again. The review process for the App Store has become rather notorious for its strict and seemingly arbitrary guidelines, with Apple quashing thousands of apps within the past few months, citing reasons that puzzle developers. According to TechCrunch, the latest on the chopping block was Tokyo-based Tonchidot, whose augmented reality app Sekai Camera is Japan's most downloaded iPhone app to date. The app, which allows users to tag their surroundings with virtual content like text and video, employs a GPS function that collects nearby Wi-Fi signals, which Apple apparently no likey. Click here for more info on the augmented reality craze, and one investor who was particularly wowed by Tonchidot's TechCrunch conference debut. Protect your business from corrupt employees It's easy to think of employees as family. But that can be a risky mindset, reports the WSJ. Employee frauds at businesses with fewer than 100 employees--which tend to use fewer internal controls, security cameras, and other defensive tactics--cause a median loss $57,000 higher than the median losses of larger organizations. Business owners can help protect themselves from these losses by installing an anonymous employee hotline, requiring all employees and managers to participate in inspection procedures, and requiring employees who are handling money or inventory work in teams of two or more. How cities and states develop programs to help small businesses. Rather than wait for the federal government to figure out how to get funding to Main Street, several states and municipalities have initiated programs to help local businesses and save jobs, The New York Times reports. A small business council in the Cleveland area created a program to encourage consumers to buy products from locally-owned stores. Likewise, North Carolina began a pilot program called BizBoost last year, in which the state gave $600,000 to help the Charlotte area rebound from big bank layoffs. Since last fall, the program has been able to provide financial guidance to 158 small businesses. More from Inc. Magazine: Get this delivered to your inbox. Or get it on the Kindle Follow us on Twitter or Tumblr. Friend us on Facebook. Apply now for the 2010 Inc. 500|5000.

$50,000 for Social Entrepreneurs

2010-03-03T12:20:51-05:00

The top Web apps for business growth. It takes a lot to run a small business -- but what do you do when there's too many tasks and not enough help? Tech entrepreneur and blogger Neil Patel has put together a list of the top 25 online tools that can help you get projects done, manage your finances, leverage social media, and even have a little fun. There are a few high-profile choices in the bunch, such as Mint and HootSuite, but also some fan-favorites that are still under the radar, such as Recurly, which helps set up and maintain recurring billing for customers, and RescueTime, an automated time tracking and management program. Putting your business on the (Google) map. If you've done a Google search for just about anything lately, you've probably noticed the handy map that pops up on the results page complete with a handful of pushpins pointing out the relevant local businesses. Marketing guru Jane Dueease has some tips for anyone who has ever wondered how their business can land a spot on the Google map. And as she explains, that map is prime real estate. Companies that appear on the map "not only show up above the 'organic' or 'natural' search results, but [the map] has a higher click rate than the Google Adwords." Austin-area residents interested in learning more can catch Dueease today at the RISE Austin conference discussing ways to improve your company's Web site. Young social entrepreneurs, here's a way to win $50,000. The Hitachi Foundation is scouring the country to find young entrepreneurs making an impact in their communities, particularly start-ups that "help move people out of poverty and into the mainstream of American society," says the Foundation's chair. Six applicants will be selected and each will receive $50,000 and technical resources to strengthen their business. Apply here by March 22. Making pay-per-click pay. Paid search engine marketing can be more profitable than search engine optimization, but it can be costly and futile if misapplied. The Wall Street Journal suggests following these tips to optimize your efforts: In addition to buying your company name and your competitors' names, consider asking customers what terms they use when they search for your products; Use keyword tools like Google Trends and Google's keyword suggestion tool; Monitor your results; Make sure your landing page aligns with your ad; and be specific in order to filter out undesirable clicks that you will still need to pay for. Tesla production on schedule despite engineers' deaths. Two weeks after three of its top engineers died in a California plane crash, electric car maker Tesla said on Wednesday that it is sticking to its plan to produce and sell its first sedan within three years, The Associated Press reports. The young automaker, led by CEO Elon Musk, is hoping that the $49,000 sedan will "cement the Tesla brand in the market place," chief designer Franz von Holzhausen said. The company's only current car on the market is the $109,000 roadster. Omniture customers get new analytics perks on Facebook. Though the analytics powerhouse and the social media giant first joined forces in May 2009 to build upon Facebook analytics capabilities, TechCrunch now reports that the two companies will be expanding their social media marketing partnership even further. The partnership will now allow businesses using Facebook to utilize Omniture's SearchCenter Plus product, which will enhance its search engine marketing management application with better efficiency for purchasing Facebook Ads. As a result, Omniture customers will now be able to compare Facebook ad campaign metrics with other media channels (learn more about how to advertise on Facebook here), and they will also be able to generate reports specifically designed to understand ad effectiveness for Facebook Pages and applications. For more on how Omniture grew from a college start-up to its $1.8 billion acquisition, check out our How I Did It on co-founder Josh James from Inc.'s March issue. The changing landscape of e-commerce. It's becoming increasingly difficult to recall a time when pundits scoffed at the possibility of e-commerce outlets as viable businesses, but Half.com founder turned VC Josh Kopelman remembers it. He also notes on his blog, Redeye VC, that up until recently the e-commerce field has been pretty stagnant innovation- wise (via peHUB). "The online shopping paradigm is finally changing," he writes. "We've seen more innovation in the last 10 months than in the last 10 years." Kopelman lists game-changing e-commerce opportunities in the post and proudly touts the fact that his firm, First Round Capital has invested in over a dozen ventures in these fields. For strategy tips for your online store, check out our guide to selling online. More from Inc. Magazine: Get this delivered to your inbox. Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Tumblr. Friend us on Facebook. Apply now for the 2010 Inc. 500|5000.

The High Cost of Distractions

2010-03-02T11:50:40-05:00

Why you need an FAQ page. Let's face it -- good customer service or not, answering daily queries about the same topics can become tedious and time-consuming. That's why you should consider creating an FAQ page for your company's website, according to a recent post over at Web Worker Daily. A good FAQ page not only educates clients and customers about your services, but it can also provide useful info about your work processes and pre-empt absences and missed deadlines. "An FAQ page can help you reduce the frequency in which you provide the same information to different people," the post says, "It can also help you to remain productive and focused on tasks that actually require your expertise." What Krishna can teach you about business. As we mentioned yesterday, Austin-area entrepreneurs might want to check out this week's RISE Austin conference, a free conference designed to encourage the sharing of ideas and encouragement between entrepreneurs. On the RISE site, Bijoy Goswami, founder of the Bootstrap Network, discusses the business lessons he has learned from an even higher power--the Hindu god Krishna. Taking lessons from the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu scripture, Goswami tells of how Krishna explains to a young warrior that, "Your job is not to be good at everything...your job is to know what you're good at, discover what it is, and then deepen that capability. From that excellence, you will then find out what you're here to do. And then you will find people to come along with you on that journey." Consider it a lesson in delegating from a higher power. Quiet time: not just for kindergarten anymore. All of the dings, buzzes, and alerts coming from your computer and cellphone might be small distractions, but they can add up to big losses for your business. Reuters reports today that interruptions and distractions cost the average desk worker 2.1 hours of productivity every day and the companies they work for as much as $1 billion annually. In addition, constant e-mail lowered workers attention spans, increased stress, and decreased job satisfaction and creativity. Intel dealt with this problem by imposing a four-hour "quiet time" on its engineers. The 14 people worked alone and all messaging and contact was banned. Although you might not be ready to enforce an all-out ban on communication, Inc.'s guide can help you develop a cell phone policy that fit's your company. Google secures a patent for location-based advertising. While most of the blogosphere was distracted with Facebook locking down the patent for its news feed format, Google stealthily nabbed a patent for location-based advertising, reports VentureBeat. The patent itself, which was fairly broad, was filed 6 years ago. It governs location for targeting, setting a minimum price bid for an ad, offering analytics, and changing the content of an ad. VentureBeat says that it's still unclear whether start-ups should be alarmed, calling it "a defensive practice, rather than as a tool for pressuring other companies to desist or pay license fees." But it certainly gives Google, which has made location-enabled search and advertising a priority in the past year, an edge in its war with Apple over mobile advertising. Indeed, competition has heated up recently with Google acquiring Admob in November and Apple buying Quattro Wireless in January. Another start-up bites the dust (thanks to Google). Google's recent buying spree continues with the announcement that the search giant has acquired Picnik, a start-up that offers an online photo editing service, The New York Times reports. The service allows users to edit photos through a browser without having to download any software. "The sale puts Google in yet another competing business with Adobe, going up against Photoshop.com, and with Apple and the basic photo editing tools within iPhoto," the Times writes. Picnik CEO Jonathan Sposato previously sold another company to Google--Phatbits, in 2006. Why Joel Spolsky is Giving Up His Blog. He wants to focus on other ways to market his business. Spolsky is the creator of Joel on Software, a long-running and very popular blog about programming, the founder of Fog Creek Software, and an Inc. columnist. He writes in his latest column that he has decided to hang up his pen for awhile and will no longer post Tweets, record podcasts, or speak at conferences. "The truth is, as much as I've enjoyed it, blogging has become increasingly impossible to do the way I want to as Fog Creek has become a larger company," he writes. "We now have 32 employees and at least six substantial product lines. We have so many customers that I can't always write freely without inadvertently insulting one of them." Meanwhile, Spolsky says that although blogging has been an effective way to reach people who read blogs, he has been ignoring customers who might be reached through more traditional marketing channels. So, bad news: Joel is giving up his Inc. column. But, good news: We're adding a new columnist, 37 Signals founder Jason Fried. Starbucks unruffled by gun-toting customers. In the past we've covered the debate over workplace gun policies but now chains including Starbucks are being drawn into the fray. Even in states that allow people to carry firearms openly, businesses can choose to ban them. Fans of the 2nd amendment in those states have been parading through establishments forcing them to take a stand on the issue. While California Pizza Kitchen and Peet's Coffee & Tea have given the NRA crowd a chilly reception, Starbucks is letting it's customers flaunt their firepower, writes the Huffington Post. John Bruce, a University of Mississippi professor and gun policy expert says, "Starbucks is a special target because it's from the hippie West Coast, and a lot of dedicated consumers who pay $4 for coffee have expectations that Starbucks would ban guns. And here they aren't." Make way for a new chocolate entrepreneur. From your everyday extras, like caramel, toffee, and almonds, to more daring additives, like chili peppers or bleu cheese, there are plenty of ingredients you can add to chocolate to make it taste better - even air bubbles. While aerated treats have become all the rage in Europe and other countries worldwide, air-infused confectionary goodies have yet to make a real mark in the U.S., until now. The Boston Globe reports that a year-old, Salem, Massachusetts-based company called Bubble Chocolate is attempting to become the first successful aerated chocolate bar business in the U.S. market. The company has begun nation-wide distribution through Whole Foods and Duane Reade, with additional talks in the works with other retail giants, such as Wal-Mart and Target. According to owner Paul Pruett, "The U.S. is the last frontier for this type of chocolate. The premium chocolate category is looking for something new." More from Inc. Magazine: Get this delivered to your inbox. Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Tumblr. Friend us on Facebook. Apply now for the 2010 Inc. 500|5000.

Sales Tips for Start-Ups

2010-03-01T11:48:20-05:00

How to sharpen your sales pitch. Focus! That's the advice of Jason Cohen, who blogs at A Smart Bear about the virtues of focusing on a single competitive advantage rather than trying to explain how you're better at everything. "Hanging your hat on just one advantage that you can own completely is stronger than diluting your message across many advantages," he writes. "It's already hard enough to stake out a niche in this massive world!" To make the point, he takes three possible advantages--being obsessed with quality, being the little guy in a sea of large competition, and even having the most expensive product--and suggests what you might say on a typical sales call. (Via Hacker News.) Fred Wilson on how to handle online criticism. Over at A VC, Fred Wilson explains why it's important to own your online brand. You can't stop people from tagging compromising pictures of you on Facebook or saying nasty things on blogs, "But you can control what the Internet sees about you by overwhelming it with your social media presence," adds Wilson, who points out that your posts will bury negative information deep within Google's search results. Wilson recommends thinking of your blog as a resume and says he's hired junior investment professionals based on blogs, rather than resumes or LinkedIn profiles. The rise of the entrepreneur-in-residence. With ten-year returns for the venture capital industry down to 8.4 percent a year, there's a unique position gaining more and more popularity in the Valley these days: the entrepreneur-in-residence. As the New York Times reports, these in-house entrepreneurs "receive a monthly stipend of up to $15,000 to sit and think for about six months. In return, the venture capital firm usually gets the first shot at financing the idea that emerges from this meditation." Facebook lets the e-commerce in. Here's a crazy thought: Instead of getting "friends" and "fans" on Facebook, soon you may actually make money. Facebook recently struck a deal with eBay's Paypal that will allow developers to incorporate the online-payment service in their apps and ads. As Facebook expands its internal store and more developers launch e-commerace apps using the Paypal platform, Facebook will look more like a store than ever before. According to Advertising Age, this could be fortuitous for advertisers. Ads on the site will be closer to a potential purchase, which could help Facebook make the leap from marketing tool to sales tool. The rise of the free conference. Industry conferences are great places to network and get new information, but most tend to take a big chunk out of a company's checkbook. Hopefully that may beginning to change. TechCrunch announced today that they will be hosting TechCrunch Disrupt, a New York City-based conference held in May where start-ups get to have their products judged and critiqued by experts for the chance to win a $50,000 cash prize. Best of all, it's free for start-ups to attend. Here's the application. Today also marks the start of RISE Austin, a free conference held this week in Austin in which entrepreneurs organize and host their own sessions for fellow entrepreneurs. Among the conference's keynote speakers are auto entrepreneur Red McCombs and the founder of Toms Shoes, Blake Mycoskie. What's changing about the global start-up scene? A lot, according to Robert Scoble, video podcast pioneer (and formerly of Inc.'s sister magazine Fast Company). Scoble wrote today on his blog Scobleizer about his current mission of traveling the world studying how start-ups get formed. While attending such events as YCombinator Demo Day, Scoble observed several emerging trends -- the first being that cloud servers have made it easier to start a company anywhere in the world. "That infrastructure didn't exist five years ago, and before then, if you wanted to start a Web company you would need to build your own data center," he says. 3D TVs hit shelves. As James Cameron's wildly popular film Avatar has proven, explosions are at least twice as awesome in 3D. Now, it looks like 3D may be a big business for gadget makers. The Los Angeles Times reports that the first TVs that can show 3D programming are hitting stores. More from Inc. Magazine: Get this delivered to your inbox. Or get it on the Kindle. Follow us on Twitter. And on Tumblr. Friend us on Facebook.

Going Virtual with Matt Mullenweg

2010-02-26T10:24:04-05:00

If you've been following this blog for the past month, you'll know that Inc. has ditched its offices in an attempt to investigate of how virtual companies work. As part of the experiment, I've been asking the sharpest entrepreneurs we know how to manage a company without an office. Recently I had a chance to record a Skype chat from my living room with Matt Mullenweg. Matt is the founder of Automattic, the company that publishes Wordpress.com. Automattic was founded without a central office and has 50 employees spread all over the world. (For this reason he uses the term "distributed company" to describe Automattic's structure.) I asked Matt how he stumbled on this novel organizational model, how it works, and what he thinks of our little experiment. Click on the title to see the video. Enjoy!

The Top 25 Angel Investors

2010-02-26T09:39:08-05:00

Ranking the top angel investors. A couple years ago, we told you about a start-up called YouNoodle that claimed it came up with an algorithm that could tell you what your company's worth. Now YouNoodle's teamed up with BusinessWeek to use the same vetting process on angel investors, with some surprises. Ex-Googlers Chris Sacca, Aydin Senkut, and Andrea Zurek--all relatively unknown outside the industry--are some of the best performers. And Hunch confound Chris Dixon, who may not be a top tier influencer, does have the most diverse portfolio, as well as YouNoodle's endorsement as the top investor in tech. Web analytics, the sketchy way. Ever wonder how the different web analytics companies get their data? TechCrunch has the lowdown on one practice said to be used by Compete. And it feels a little dirty. New service allows brands to build their own Yelp. We already written about foursquare.html?partner=newsletter_News"> how to make money on Foursquare and how Yelp can be a boon to business owners but what if your company's needs don't mesh with these outside services. Well, Ad Age reports that a new service called Socialight allows companies and brands to build their own versions of Yelp, Foursquare, and Gowalla, kind of like Ning but for location based services. Our article on online review and answer sites has some pointers on sites_pagen_3.html?partner=newsletter_News"> whether you're ready for your own branded community. As VCs get skittish, start-ups suffer. The Wall Street Journal reports this morning on what one venture capitalist is calling an "unprecedented level of syndicate failure," which occurs when a VC decides not to invest in a start-up at the last minute, effectively scuttling the deal. "Syndicates" are groups of venture capital firms that invest together to cut down on the risk that a start-up doesn't pan out; they're the norm in most VC investments. But some firms have been so risk-averse during this recession that they've been getting cold feet and leaving entrepreneurs at the altar. This creates an awkward situation where the start-up must hastily explain to its employees and customers why it didn't raise the money, and in some cases must shut down. The Journal notes that better established VC firms are usually able to kick in more cash when a syndicate collapses, which is a good reason to make sure that you're investors are financially sound before you sign a term sheet. Do B-Schools set up entrepreneurs to fail? Tech entrepreneur and consultant Sramana Mitra certainly thinks so. In a column today at Forbes, she argues that the tendency of most business schools to focus on raising funds, especially VC funding, rather than the more fundamental aspects of launching a business is doing entrepreneur students a disservice. As she explains, "I have come to observe that most business school programs have an extensive emphasis on fundraising, especially from venture capitalists, and very little pragmatic understanding of what it really takes to get a venture off the ground. As a result, business schools launch students into the real world with completely unrealistic expectations, set up to fail." Her idea to fix it? Give students a crash course in bootstrapping. Jobs still on the fritz, but not for temp workers. For four months straight, companies have hired more temporary workers -- but that doesn't bring the omen of recovery that it used to, according to an article by the Associated Press (via the L.A. Times). While it was once considered a preface to the hiring of permanent workers, the phenomenon is now viewed as one of many signs of low confidence in an unstable economy. "Even companies that are boosting production seem inclined to get by with their existing workers, plus temporary staff if necessary," the article says. Check out this article by Inc.com contributor J.J. McCorvey for more info on temporary hires, and one start-up that's cashing in on the uptick. Lawyer turned cupcake entrepreneur When David Arrick got laid off from a Wall Street law firm in 2008, he thought he would end up in real estate. But he ended up in cupcakes, or, more precisely, "mancakes." Last December, he started an online delivery service that makes cupcakes with manly flavors, like beer-infused cake with beer buttercream. The WSJ has full details on the sweet startup, which Arrick plans to expand into Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles within the next year. Dramatic changes to your industry? Try reinvention. Do you ever feel like new technologies are edging out the way you're used to getting things done? Do you worry that consumers are rapidly changing their demands? Entrepreneurs whose industries are being turned upside down should never rule out the possibility of reinventing their business, especially in a downturn. USA Today has come up with five suggestions on how to get your company back on track after a period of transition, including recognizing new opportunities, leveraging your current assets by developing new products or services, and learning to juggle, by developing a strategic plan to help you shift your resources. More from Inc. Magazine: Get this delivered to your inbox. Or get it on the Kindle Follow us on Twitter or Tumblr. Friend us on Facebook. Apply now for the 2010 Inc. 500|5000.

What Founders Forget

2010-02-25T11:06:11-05:00

Yelp hit with a class action lawsuit. In our January/February cover story, Inc. told you about the rising tensions between Yelp, a popular reviews site, and the small businesses that are being reviewed by it. Yesterday, as Inc.'s Christine Lagorio reports, the site was hit with a class action lawsuit that alleges that Yelp's sales people are extorting some businesses. "The suit hinges on the question of whether Yelp is simply offering to run a positive advertisement above negative reviews, or whether it is further offering to remove negative reviews for cash, which could in court amount to payoffs to prevent the site from doing future harm - a.k.a. extortion," Lagorio writes. The hidden headaches of starting a business. There's an interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal about an aspect of launching a new business that many first-time entrepreneurs often overlook. Namely, the unexpected trials and tribulations of being a boss. For a new entrepreneur intent on growing a budding business, managing employees is the one part of the job that many are unprepared for. As one first-time business owner explains, "I was interested in building a company. I never thought through that it meant I would have to hire people, terminate people and do all of the things associated with being a boss." Start-up visa wins friends. Fred Wilson, who has been agitating for legislation that would entice start-up founders from other countries to relocate to the United States, blogs that Senators John Kerry, a Democrat, and Richard Luger, a Republican, introduced a bill yesterday to the Senate to create a so-called "start-up visa." "I am certain that anti-immigration forces will find something not to like in this proposed legislation...but we have to fight back," Wilson writes. "So many great American corporations...were founded by immigrants...We need to create new businesses that employ our citizens. And the history of our country is rich with stories of immigrant entrepreneurs. We have to embrace them, welcome them, fund them, and let them do their thing." Think you know the real Silicon Valley? Prove it in 15 questions. You've heard of Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt, and Mark Zuckerberg. But Business Insider is betting they still have 15 questions that might stump you. For starters, which Valley start-up that took an investment from "the Evil Empire" has a lego replica of the Death Star hanging in its office? What does "WFH" mean in Yahoo parlance? Which start-up uses board games, such as Mouse Trap, to name their meeting rooms? What famous, successful start-up CEO has been known to throw (stuffed) sheep? What start-up has a picture of a Shiba Inu drawn on a couch and why? A new tool to increase foot traffic in your store. E-commerce may have replaced the traditional means of shopping for some, but physical retail stores have a new trick up their sleeves to lure customers, according to an article by TechCrunch. Location-based advertising start-up Placecast has launched a technology called ShopAlerts, which can notify consumers of sales and specials through texts and Facebook alerts whenever they are in the vicinity of the store. A major benefit of the platform is that it also works on non-smartphones, which means the potential to reach a much broader audience than other location-based services like Foursquare and Loopt. The New York Times recently reported that Seattle-based outdoor gear retailer The North Face is among the first to try out the technology, sending texts about new arrivals and promising free goodies such as water bottles with a purchase. How to test each and every part of your business model. If you know Steve Blank, you know he loves his diagrams. Today, the serial tech entrepreneur doesn't disappoint as he outlines the Customer Development technique, used by start-ups to "quickly iterate and test each part of their business model." How to use online video to market your small business. Using Web-based videos can be a powerful tool for small businesses that lack the finances and branding experience of large corporations with their own marketing departments. While Inc. has reported on the business benefits of hosting videos, video marketing site Reel SEO has also supplied five helpful tips for small businesses who want to market their videos online. Advice includes adding video to Facebook fan pages, optimizing video for Google searches, and posting your videos on YouTube and other video sites to increase your potential for expanding your audience. Yahoo teams with Twitter. Yahoo announced on Wednesday that like Microsoft and Google, it too has teamed with Twitter to offer access to tweets from its sites. CNN reports that the partnership will allow users to access their Twitter feeds on Yahoo, including through their home pages, Yahoo Mail, and Yahoo Sports. Users will be able to update their Twitter feeds from Yahoo! as well as share Yahoo! content in their tweets. GigaOm notes that this is part of Yahoo's plan to become an aggregator of the social web, which includes an integration with Facebook that the companies announced in December. Unfortunately for Yahoo, Google also has aspirations to become the social web aggregator, having launched its own social networking feature, Google Buzz, last month. More from Inc. Magazine: Get this delivered to your inbox. Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Tumblr. Friend us on Facebook. Apply now for the 2010 Inc.500|5000.

A Steve Jobs Birthday Tribute

2010-02-24T10:17:58-05:00

How bad is the credit crisis. This bad. The Wall Street Journal reports that 2009 saw the lending fall at an "epic pace," the most severe drop since 1942. The article predicts that more banks will fail this year than last, even as the largest banks have begun to post profits. Small companies, which typically rely on smaller community banks, have been especially hard hit. The Journal says that President Obama's $30 billion small business lending program may help, but that many community banks, which are supposed to make the small business loans, have problems of their own. Community banks face defaults in commercial real estate loans that they made before the recession and that generally take longer than home loans to default. Could the nation's capital be the next Silicon Valley? As part of an ongoing series on cities around the world that might one day usurp the Valley as the nexus of innovative start-ups, ReadWriteWeb has turned its scope on Washington, D.C. The piece highlights some pros and cons of the city's entrepreneurship scene -- Mixx founder Chris McGill notes, for example, that "the best thing about D.C. is the diversity of people," and the worst is the "inability to walk down the street and form a strategic partnership" as one would in Silicon Valley. The article also acknowledges the government's role in shaping the development of local companies, citing an $80 billion allocation in the President's budget for new technology, which could represent a lucrative opportunity for tech start-ups in the area. A happy 55th birthday to Steve Jobs. A round of kudos goes out today for entrepreneurial icon and Apple founder Steve Jobs, who was born on this date in 1955. To celebrate this momentous occasion, the folks over at tech blog Walyou have put together a virtual trip down memory lane in his honor. The tribute includes old photos of Jobs throughout the ages, fan artwork of Jobs, YouTube clips, and a video of the Simpsons episode inspired by Apple. Best of all is a rare clip of a young Jobs at a 1983 Mac event hosting something called the Mac Dating Game. One of the contestants is none other than Microsoft's Bill Gates. It's amazing to see the two giants in their youth getting along so well. What's even more amazing is Gates' praise of Apple. As he explains, "To create a new standard, it takes something that's not just a little bit different. It takes something that's really new and really captures people's imagination. The Macintosh, of all the machines I've ever seen, is the only one that meets that standard." A tech investor's public insult binge on Twitter. Former PayPal-er Keith Rabois, an investor in LinkedIn, Yelp, YouTube, Slide, and more went on a Twitter rampage yesterday and Valleywag has the 140-character carnage. Mint.com designer-cum-venture capitalist Jason Putori was told he was "confident and ignorant," for someone who's never sourced a deal. Rabois also had no respect for startup advisor Tyler Will since, as he says, "I have raised more capital than you will ever see in your life." And in a twofer, Rabois also manages to undermine both TechCrunch and an "idiotic 'professor' who has never accomplished anything except creating pseudo-titles." Warning: contains strong language. VCs and Intel attempt to inspire confidence. Intel is announcing that through a partnership with 24 VC firms, they will be investing $3.5 billion in U.S. start-ups over the next couple of years. It sounds nice, right? However, no new capital has been raised, these commitments aren't signed in blood, the company and its VC partners are simply looking to send a message, says the Wall Street Journal (via AllThingsD). The announcement is "an attempt by venture firms...to send out a confidence-inspiring message especially to Washington but more generally to the public and the tech ecosystem at large to let them know we're open for business," says Dixon Doll, a general partner at DCM, one of the firms involved. If you'd like to join the ranks of the investees, see how your business plan could affect VCs' investment decisions. McDonald's gives free Wi-Fi a big boost. In December, the home of the Big Mac announced that it would start offering free Wi-Fi service at its 11,000 U.S. locations where customers had to previously pay for access. Now, as VentureBeat explains, a new report from the Wi-Fi hotspot ad service JiWire explains just how big a deal the McDonald's move is to the overall free Wi-Fi hotspot marketplace. Wondering where to recycle your cellphone? Try an ecoATM. Though Inc. reported on a San Diego-based cellphone recycling startup called ecoATM in December, the company has since begun creating outposts for its environmentally-friendly kiosks across the country, Reuters reports. The ecoATM, which is similar to a Coinstar vending machine, allows customers to plug in the phones they wish to recycle, and its software will then inspect the phone for content, scratches, and the like, and assess whether the device has any monetary value. Customers were reported to have paid an average of $11 for each phone during recent trials at store in Nebraska. "It's hard to predict how consumers will react to kiosks," said ecoATM founder Mark Bowles. "But we're not asking for consumers to pay us. We're paying them for the used phones, like a Coinstar machine, which is why we think this automated approach will work." More from Inc. Magazine: Get this delivered to your inbox. Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Tumblr. Friend us on Facebook. Apply now for the 2010 Inc.500|5000.

Going Virtual: A Whole New Perspective

2010-02-23T18:57:07-05:00

I have to admit I was a bit skeptical before Inc. began its virtual experiment earlier this month. My work as a magazine reporter is such that I am constantly interacting with other writers and editors. During the past few weeks, I have become a huge fan of Skype as a way to stay connected with my colleagues, but working virtually has meant missing out on that spontaneous meeting in an editor’s office to discuss an idea, or the inspiration and energy that comes from a random conversation with a co-worker in the hallway. What’s more, I knew after attending an in-office session on the psychology of virtual work, conducted in January by consultant Cindy Floggart, that I'm the type of person that may not be as productive in the home-office environment. So, for most of this virtual month, I've scheduled my workdays with a destination in mind—a café, a library—and spent time accomplishing tasks in places where other people were around. But, last week I left my apartment in New York City for one of the quietest places around: Alpine, Utah, population: approximately 9,800, where my dad, Dean Schweitzer, who runs a home-based business, has a second home (His primary residence is in Southern California). And what I found during my time in Utah surprised me. I used to think that the buzz of office phones and constant stimulation was integral to my work lifestyle. Well, it’s hard to argue against working from home when I’m starring out at the majestic snow-capped mountains from my dad's huge kitchen window, and the only noise is of the sound of my fingers typing on my keyboard. Granted very few people work in places where they have this kind of view... But scenery aside, coming here has helped me understand virtual work from the perspective of an entrepreneur. The Inc. challenge for our editorial team was to see if a magazine staff could go virtual, and there have been all kinds of lessons that have already come out of that. I've had the added benefit of seeing how our subjects, the people who are actually running virtual companies, are doing it. My dad is a pediatric dentist, and in 2008 he developed an esthetic full-crown restorative procedure for children and the PedoNatural Crown, an original product integral to the procedure. He holds seminars out of Salt Lake City where he trains other dentists on how to perform the specialized restoration, and he sells PedoNatural Crown kits with all the materials needed for those dentists to implement the procedure in their own offices. My dad is his company’s sole employee: He serves as the marketer, the public relations person, the fulfillment center, and the web developer, among many other things. So when you do all that my dad does for his business, the concept of having an office really becomes meaningless. He doesn’t go to his company each morning; his company goes with him wherever he may be. During my few days in Utah, my dad was preparing for an upcoming seminar in Salt Lake City. As I sat downstairs doing research and preparing for interviews with sources, I listened to my dad record audio for an instructional DVD he’s going to sell, and polish the language on his Website. I also watched as he meticulously put together all the materials he would need to bring to the seminar – instructional packets for the dentists, models to work on, ordering forms, etc. – and marveled at all the work that went into creating each element of his business. Time seemed to go a little more slowly while I was there. Either that, or I was completely free of distractions, and being among nature has a way of helping my mind focus. I barely thought about the things that normally consume me at home like what I will eat for lunch, or when I will catch up on my DVR. Luckily for my dad, that’s what almost every day is like for him. And the best part was seeing first hand the joy he gets from putting everything he’s got into the business, no matter the place or the time. The virtual work life isn’t for everyone, of course, and there is no denying that there are many entrepreneurs who have built wonderful cultures that employees yearn to be part of. But as my stay at my dad’s home has taught me, entrepreneurship in its truest form has nothing do with the physical structure, boundaries, or even culture of a company. In most cases, entrepreneurship is about starting something out of nothing and pushing the limitations of the status quo. To see more of my virtual experience in Utah, here's a video interview I did with my dad using a Flip Cam: