StartupSidekick

Pound the Pavement: Meeting VC's and successful entrepreneurs

Jason — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 19:03:41 +0000

There's something paradoxical about meeting with Venture Capitalists. Centrally endemic in our pursuit of entrepreneurship is the core quality of autonomy. You get to call the shots. You determine the strategic direction of your company. You determine your company's image. You. You. You.

But it all dissolves away once you start meeting with the boys with the big checkbooks. Once again, you are returned to a world where you need to sell yourself. You need to justify why you are worth investing in. You need to convince someone that your idea, time, passion, and the previous few months of your life are worth actually worth something. It's a pressure filled experience, and it's uncomfortable.

I've always subscribed to the bootstrapping theory (when possible) myself. Pay your own way, and preserve your equity. But there are definite advantages to having funding, and one of them that interests me is the mentorship that most VC's will provide.

I spent most of my day yesterday meeting with various startup accelerators, looking to land an advisor/mentor for my company. They were all shocked when I told them that I didn't want any funding; instead, I wanted someone with enough connections to bring some serious PR to my company. I'm developing a social media advertising platform, and I have already built a working prototype (I'll post it soon for you guys).

It's almost humorous to read their reactions while you answer the inevitable question "What does your company do?". You can just see them asking themselves "should I throw him out now? Should I let this go on? Oh wait, maybe this is a good idea"..

I had a great chat with a local startup consultant at one of the accelerators, and he's putting me in touch with some very established entrepreneurs (you'd recognize a few of their names); we'll see where it goes.

As someone that's always been averse to seeking funding, I'd recommend meeting with some of the local startup accelerators in your area. Most will take some time to sit down with you and at least provide you with some topical advice for your business. And it also exposes you to the pitch process, which is never a bad thing (unenjoyable yes, but bad, no).

You can basically get free consulting advice from people who have already succeeded as entrepreneurs, and you also can build up your network. What's not to like? It's also free, so it's not going to cost you anything (unlike a phone call to Accenture to provide the same service).

If you're not a fan of networking, this is a great exercise, because startup accelerators are filled with people just like you; most of the time they want to help people like you succeed, and they'll be happy to provide you with a bit of advice. The environment is friendly, and it's an easy way to ease into everything. The team at an Accelerator can put you in touch with VC's (most are VC's themselves), and they can also tell you if your idea sucks (which is good; maybe you need to fix it?). Get to know some of the big boys at your local startup accelerator this week. Make it a personal challenge.

As a new feature, I'm going to start posting a book of the week, of books I've read (or am currently reading). I'm currently reading Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup, which is an awesome book, with a lot of advice you will use immediately. You can get it here if you're interested.

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The Need to Fail

Jason — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:47:44 +0000

Sorry for the delayed absence guys (yes, I'm still alive). I've been working like a maniac on my latest startup (which is going to be released soon), but I'll be posting regularly again from now on.

With startups there's an endemic barrier to entry that can deter just about anyone, and it's important to fight it off. The most depressing (and yet natural) of them all is as follows:

Your idea seems perfect, but you eventually realize that nobody wants to buy it

Before you throw the idea/work in the trash compactor, try to refine it first. I could throw out a lot of different examples to illustrate how, but the easiest one is Play-Doh. If you're a cinefile, you'll note that this story was recently told in the movie 'How do you know' (which was a waste of time by the way).

The short version of Play-Doh: It was created as a wallpaper cleaner. It wasn't doing so hot. They realized that people were using it as pliable clay instead. So they marketed it as such, and it all worked out.

Interestingly, this cyclical repositioning/refining technique appears in almost every successful business to some degree.

There's an important book that most entrepreneurs I've met have all read called Founders At Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days (You can get it by clicking here). The book details how so many businesses have had to shift their focus, and this is what ultimately made them successful.

One of the many examples in the book is PayPal. PayPal basically started as a method of transferring money between two wireless devices. This was their 'idea'. While the idea was cute, it wasn't especially profitable. Thus, the idea was refined, and it ended up taking the form of third party company that assists with transfers online. It's now a titan of the online world.

There are countless other examples in the book of companies that have followed the same cyclical repositioning path. The book is basically a collection of case studies from successful businesses.

This technique of:

Release the product
Collect feedback
Refine (make changes)
Repeat

is at the heart of being an entrepreneur. This is the framework you must follow. You need to fail in order to succeed. Here's a variation of the cycle, which is employed by the vast majority of entrepreneurs who fail:

Release the product
Ignore feedback
Wait out the storm (do nothing)
Try to advertise more
Go down with the ship

The goal of your startup should be continuous refinement/improvement of the product. This technique has become so important, that there's actually a second book that is dedicated entirely to this concept. It's called Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a better business model (Get it by clicking here). The book is written by John Mullins, and Randy Komisar (who most know from Stanford University's Entrepreneurial Thought Leader podcasts). The book basically ascertains that your business is almost definitely going to fail in its early stages, and that's fine. In fact, that's natural. Only once you've failed can you start to refine the product and reposition it accordingly.

If you follow this type of framework, you'll find yourself much less stressed by early signs of failure in your business. If you go in with the mindset that you're going to need to adjust on the fly, you won't panic when the initial reaction to your business sucks. You'll automatically only worry when you need to; in this case, you only need to worry if you can't reposition the product for success. Only at this point should you be looking to dispose of the idea like it was last week's leftovers.

So don't be afraid of failing. In fact, embrace the need; The Need to Fail.

Just make sure you build off it and come back with a better product.

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Business Opportunities: Identify them with The Birthday Strategy

Jason — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 18:47:44 +0000

Identifying business opportunities is the most difficult part of being an entrepreneur; it is also the most critical. If you don't solve an important problem, nobody will pay for what you're offering (no matter how cool it may seem to you)

My birthday is coming up shortly (I'll be turning a cool 27), and as usual, I've been asked for a list of things I need/want. Believe it or not, this 'Birthday List' is actually an excellent analogy for identifying customer problems (always interpret 'customer problems' as 'business opportunities'). Here's how

Birthday Lists: 2 Possible Outcomes
We've all been there (especially at a very young age): Somebody asks you for your birthday list or wants, and you rattle off a few items you'd actually like to have. The eventual gift-giver, now has 2 options:

Listen to my want/need
Decide for themselves what I'd like

We've all exercised the second choice at some point. We rationalize it as "I know he asked for movie gift certificates, but he'll love this sweater" (evidently, he won't). Other people do it to us too ("I know you wanted that particular t-shirt, but I decided to buy you this book about the political system in 1800 instead"). Why don't people (us included) simply stick to the list?

Customers don't care for your opinion
Your customers express their problems ('Lists') all over the internet. It's very easy to find complaints about their needs/wants that are not being filled. You need to understand that they know their needs better than you do

If lots of people ask for an app that stores a simple grocery list, then build exactly that for them. Don't build them an app that lists the manager at every grocery store in a 10 mile radius (even if it seems cooler to you)

Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs fail to realize that you need to listen at all. Most will come up with an idea (that sounds cool in their head), and then build it. Next, they try to find customers who can use it. This is a guaranteed way for your company to fail

If you want to create a product people will buy, use their wish list; you don't like having your wish list ignored, and your customers don't either. The only difference between giving a bad gift and creating a bad product is that you won't get the pretend 'Thanks, I love it' reaction; they simply won't buy it at all

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How Stanford MBA Students are Taught to Identify Business Opportunities

Jason — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 01:35:07 +0000

Stanford University is a breeding ground for successful tech startups. One of the interesting elements of their MBA curriculum is a focus on identifying business opportunities. It might seem like an abstract skill, but it can be developed

Tina Seelig, the Executive Director for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program published some of their techniques in a book earlier this year. Her book is an outstanding read (you can get it Here), and I highly recommend it

While the lessons in the book are obviously too vast for this small post, I wanted to point out one of the techniques that I found particularly interesting

How to Recognize Business Opportunities
Tina lays out a very powerful technique in the book for identifying opportunities. A circus is used to demonstrate how the technique works. It goes like this:

Think of the business (a circus in this case)
Take a piece of paper, and draw a line in the middle
On one half, write out everything that comes to mind when you think of the business (clowns, elephants, etc)
Next, examine each thing you wrote down, one by one, and consider if it would be better if the opposite of that item were true (I'll explain in a sec)
Roll everything up into a new business

So how does this work? Let's say that on the left side of the paper, I wrote down the following items:

Clowns
Elephants
Popcorn
Loud Noise
Death-Defying Stunts

In the next step, I would keep what I liked, and Reverse the things I didn't like. My new list would look like this:

Clowns
No Elephants
Popcorn
No Loud noise
Death-Defying Stunts

The new business that would emerge would be my second list. It would contain automatic improvements to each of the areas that I didn't like.

What's interesting about this particular example, is that the second list is exactly the type of business that was formed by Cirque du Soleil. It removed the animals, along with the loud noises, and it created a whole new type of circus. It has been a tremendously successful business for them, and has revolutionized the circus

This technique is definitely worth practicing on everyday businesses. The more you practice, the better you will become at identifying business opportunties

Tina Seelig's book is called What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20: A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World, and is full of many more useful techniques. It's one of the few books for entrepreneurs that offers immediately applicable techniques, and that's a big reason why I recommend it

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Negotiation: How to Avoid the Deadliest Mistake

Jason — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:59:33 +0000

It amazes me that the deadliest mistake of negotiation is also the most common; it's also the most preventable. You might not be a good negotiator, but you can at least be better than average if you avoid this common pitfall

The Mistake Illustrated
After leaving one of my first jobs at IBM, I decided to pursue a different position at a new company. I was only 21 years old, and I had a lot of interviews to choose from. One was appealing because I could travel, so I decided to go after it. When the interviewer asked me what I wanted for an expected salary, I offered a low amount. In my head, I rationalized it as follows:

I really found the position exciting
If I did well I could always get a pay raise
By pricing low, I could get a 'foot in the door'

Well, I got the position, but I cost myself thousands. Company policies at this particular company were to never share salary information. However, a few months later, I learned that subordinates were actually making significantly more money than I was. Naturally I was furious. I left the company a year later, and realized what a wasted opportunity it had been in my young career. My pathetic negotiating skills had caused me to leave tens of thousands of dollars on the table, and it stung.

When the interviewer had asked me for salary expectations, I'd based my offer on salary info websites like Payscale.com. I took the average of similar positions, then I went just under that average, in an attempt to make myself seem more affordable. Looking back, it's almost humiliating; it's easily one of my worst decisions ever. However, it taught me a lot, and I've benefited from that mistake ever since

How I should have handled the negotiation
I've made sure to never repeat that mistake again, and I now follow a simple 3 step framework to make sure that I always get an optimal offer. You can use these principles when negotiating with customers, on a new salary (if you're still working while you launch your business)

3 Steps to Negotiation Success

Always overprice yourself first
Learn the maximum they can afford to offer
Accept a deal that works for both sides: Or Walk Away

Establish the Threshold
The steps above might sound obvious, but most people don't use them. If you take one thing from this post, it's that you should always overprice yourself initially. Obviously, you need to overprice yourself reasonably. Don't ask for a ridiculous amount just to exceed the average. The goal is to find an acceptable average, then make an offer that exceeds it by enough that will force them to counter it. Let the customer/manager tell you that your request is too high; they will tell you if it's out of their range, and what they can afford to spend; and that's the goal. You want them to tell you what they can afford. That threshold is the real bargaining line. If you start off with a low figure instead of a high one, you'll never approach the threshold, and you'll leave money on the table

It's easy to negotiate your amount down; it's impossible to negotiate it up
Once the client/manager tells you what they can afford to do, you now have a number to consider. If it's acceptable take it (or try to push for an amount that suits you). If you don't like it walk away. It all starts with overpricing yourself first, and finding out what they're actually willing to spend. It's unlikely that anyone you're negotiating with will tell you what they're truly willing to spend up front. So don't try to guess what they can spend; force them to tell you. If you overprice yourself (within reason) and force them to counter, they'll let you know. Don't be fooled by them saying right off the bat: "We're looking to spend X dollars". If they're offering X off the bat, see if they'll offer X + 20%. If they refuse, at least you've established the threshold. Often, they'll accept. So make sure you're happy with the percentage you tack on

By using the negotiation framework above, you'll get better offers, and make/save money. Use it and avoid the mistake that I had to learn the hard way

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Why Most Brilliant People aren't Successful. Is it Stopping You Too?

Jason — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:20:43 +0000

We all know people that are much smarter than we are. Often though, they earn tiny salaries, or are unemployed. Why is it that most of the brilliant people we know, earn substantially less than other people with "average" intelligence? It's because they're deficient in a key ability

A First-Hand Look
Having spent most of my company days working as a software developer, I've gotten to know a lot of brilliant people. Most of the computer programmers I worked with could answer even the most challenging calculus problems. Math questions that would make most people shudder were of little challenge to this group of people. Yet, to this day they take orders from the same people that used to beg them for tutoring help. So what gives? What are so many brilliant people lacking?

Intelligence Isn't Enough
I met Peter at a previous software company I worked with. We were both software developers. I did very well in school, but it was nothing compared to Peter. In Grade 11, Peter took grade 12 math and scored 100%. For the entire year, he didn't get a single question wrong. Fast forward to today. Peter earns a decent salary of $70,000 a year, still working as a programmer. He's now the "lead" programmer. In 10 years, he might make $100,000 as a project manager. But given his extraordinary abilities, he's sold himself extremely short in life

The Problem Revealed
Years ago, after I ventured onto my own, I started to realize very quickly that my earning power was at its greatest when I worked for myself. I learned this very quickly, when I signed my first contract. At the time, it was a big deal. I made $5,000 seemingly overnight. It would have taken a little over a month to earn that at my previous job. It took less than 2 weeks to finish the consulting work, and I helped my client tremendously. It was rewarding, and it paid much better than my previous job. I began devouring every piece of reading material I could to bolster my entrepreneurial skills. After tasting even the smallest amount of success, I realized there was no turning back. My long-term goals were 100% focused on building my own business. While I spent as much time as possible learning skills that would make me money, Peter continued to learn about how he could be a better programmer. In effect, he spent his time developing abilities that would make his company money

I've ran into Peter a few times since we stopped working together. When I asked him about any of the most primitive tools used by entrepreneurs, he gave me a blank stare. How could a brilliant person have never used Google Analytics before? How could he not understand the purpose of measuring conversions? He can do calculus blindfolded, but he doesn't understand the relevance of tracking leads or customers? I've asked him why he never tried to do his own thing. He just gave me a strange look, as if I'd asked him to bet his life savings on a football game

It's not a lack of intelligence. It's a lack of Vision
Peter is unable to see beyond the employee mindset, and because of that, he will always be limited in his earning power and freedom. It doesn't matter how great you are at your job; if you work for someone else, you'll never be truly rich. Truly rich means taking 2 months off to camp in the Amazon. It means waking up at 11am for a few weeks because you feel like it, and still earning more money than Peter will

No matter how smart you are, you need to be able to see that the only way to earn complete freedom, is to have your own business. So many intelligent people are deficient in this simple skill. Make sure your aspirations in life are not constrained artificially by a self-imposed ceiling; the ceiling of being an employee, and making somebody less intelligent than you rich

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How MIT Students are Taught To Create Breakthrough Products

Jason — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:36:13 +0000

Few schools produce more successful entrepreneurs than MIT. But their students don't just learn about product development on their own time; you might be surprised to know that they actually have a class dedicated to creating breakthrough products. The course exposes students to an innovation framework, that they can utilize to create the next big thing. You can actually view the course here (complete with video lectures), and I highly recommend that you do. If you want the short version though, here's how it works:

The 2 Types of Innovation
The two types of innovation:

Incremental Innovation
Full Innovation

Incremental innovation deals with minor improvements to existing technologies. A few examples of incremental innovations can be found when examining Scotch Tape:

new double-sided tape
new dispensers

These minor innovations lengthen the lifespan of the product, and lead to more sales.

A full innovation is an innovation that is truly original. These are extremely rare in product development. An example of a full innovation would be the telephone when it first came out. While these types of innovations are true game-changers, they are almost impossible to come up with

How to Innovate the MIT way
A huge part of the course at MIT is teaching students to recognize the sources of innovation. A great example of innovation is the skateboard. While nobody has officially been credited with creating the skateboard, it is known how the innovation was conceived. The skateboard was actually invented by children. They thought it would be fun to attach roller-skate wheels to the bottom of boards. They had an idea, and they built it themselves (because nobody else had met that need in the marketplace). Shortly after, skateboards were being manufactured by companies. The companies didn't come up with the idea however; the children did. The innovation occurred because they built it themselves. Skateboards could actually be viewed as a full innovation

Another example would be roller-blades. Roller-blades would be an incremental innovation, because they were based largely on roller-skates. The innovators (Scott and Brennan Olson) wanted a rollerskate that was more akin to an ice skate. They went ahead an mounted wheels on hockey skates. With that, the roller-blade design was born

MIT teaches their students to recognize an unmet need, and recognize what a solution would entail. This ties in nicely with one of Guy Kawasaki's best pieces of advice: "Design like a God". When you design like a God (free of constraints), you can usually find a way to bring the results to reality. In the case of the skateboard and roller-blades, the solution didn't require anything expensive, or highly technical; it only required the recognition that a solution was possible. With that, the innovators solved their own problem

You've Already Innovated
Believe it or not, you've probably already done a fair amount of innovating without even realizing it. Have you ever created a macro in Microsoft Excel? Or created some kind of a special rack to hold all your tools? These are all examples of innovations. Innovations occur all the time when you solve your own problem. One of my more memorable innovations was a small computer program I wrote about a decade ago. The program held a collection of my best excuses. Whenever someone called with an invitation that I wanted to decline, I would consult the program, and have a random excuse generated. I created the program because I could never think of anything on the spot. So I solved my own problem

For best results, try to solve a problem that affects more than just you. The bigger the problem you solve, the larger the potential consumer base you can sell it to. Always try to base your business around solving a large, and important problem. If your innovation can accomplish that, you'll have a chance at a fantastically successful business

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Size Does Matter: Why it Pays to Jump into One Special Type of Market

Jason — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:21:04 +0000

Ask a group of women the question: "Does size matter?" and you'll get varying responses. Ask any Venture Capitalist, and you'll get a definitive answer every time: "Yes"

But why do Venture Capitalists believe new businesses are more likely to succeed in larger markets? And why do they believe it so much, that most of the big firms won't even consider funding new ventures that target tiny markets?

In fact, VC's love to key in on a special type of market. They believe that this particular type of market offers the highest chances of success; and statistically, it does. Knowing that, wouldn't it make sense to pursue a startup that fits into the market that makes VC's drool?

High Growth, Large-Size Markets
This is the optimal breeding ground for business success. You might have heard this before, but have you actually considered why this particular market is the best choice? It's not as obvious as it seems

There are 4 big advantages to launching a business in a high growth large-size market:

High-growth markets lack dominant companies
It's cheaper to get into a high growth market than an established one
The knowledge needed to partake in the industry is less than an established one
You can earn more sales from the same amount of work (when compared to a smaller industry)

How these 4 factors apply to you (Yes, you personally)
Let's look at how these factors can benefit your business. In the first point above, we note that there are few (if any) dominant companies in new markets. This is a huge benefit to you as an entrepreneur. Just try to get into the laptop product market right now. Immediately, you'll find yourself up against Dell and HP. They have massive advertising budgets, and huge factories. Good luck. But if you went after an emerging market (such as cloud computing), you'll find far fewer companies. It's a much fairer playing field

The second point notes that it's cheaper to enter an emerging market than it is to get into an established one. Why? Because in a new market, you aren't being forced to match up with established players. Let's go back to the previous example of manufacturing laptops. If you want to enter the laptop product market, you'll need to advertise. Unfortunately, you're up against brands that have been advertising for years. Customers already know the dominant players, and therefore those companies can actually spend less and get a better return on their advertising budget than you can

Being a late entrant into an established industry is a lot like switching schools halfway through the school year. It's harder to make friends because the other students have already established relationships. You'll have to work a lot harder to get invited to a party (or acquire customers)

The third point above deals with knowledge. It's easier to get into an industry that is new, because you'll be starting at more or less the same level as everyone else. Take aerospace design as an example. If you want to get in on that industry now, it will be very tough. The companies that are already there have been building up their knowledge for decades; that's a serious barrier to entry. But what about clean-tech? It's easier to enter clean-tech because you'll be up against companies that are either new, or only a few years old. Therefore, the knowledge gap is smaller

The last point above deals with sales. Simply put, if you're going to do the work, why not have more people waiting to buy it? It takes the same amount of work to be a massage therapist in a downtown office, as it does to be a massage therapist in a rural area of the suburbs. The difference though, is that you'll have a lot more clients in the downtown office. Markets are the same. It's usually not much harder to create a product for a large market than it is to create for a small one. Go after the big markets, and you'll have a greater chance of succeeding

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Entrepreneur Software: Why Rapportive is a Must Get

Jason — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:16:52 +0000

In this edition of Entrepreneur Software, we examine the free Social CRM tool called Rapportive. Rapportive has smashed onto the scene because of 3 big reasons:

It works well. REALLY well
It's easy to use
It's completely FREE

Straight to the point: What Rapportive does
Rapportive replaces the ads panel of your GMail account with an abundance of info about your contacts. But this isn't just any info. Rapportive displays each contact's biographical info, social media accounts (are they on Twitter, Facebook?), and even their recent Tweets. It's like a miniature Social CRM, and it's free

How Rapportive can Help your Business Immediately
Rapportive answers the following questions about your contacts/leads/prospects:

Who are they? What do they look like?
Do they currently have a problem your business could solve?
Are they in your area? If so, you can arrange a face to face meeting
What do they do for a living? (As a bonus, it even includes their LinkedIn Profile)

The more you know about your customers/leads, the more effectively you can communicate with them. This is what Rapportive is all about.

To illustrate how useful Rapportive can be, I'll provide an easy example. Let's pretend you own a marketing company. Now, suppose one of the leads in your contact list posts a question on their Twitter account. Thanks to Rapportive, you can see this in the toolbar (through their Recent Tweets). Let's say it's a simple marketing question about how to track a campaign in Google Analytics. Realizing that this is in your domain of expertise, you take the time to explain to them how to accomplish this. By answering their question, you can greatly enhance your rapport with them(it's no coincidence that the software is called Rapportive). This improved Rapport can can end up transforming them from a lead into a customer. Without Rapportive, you probably wouldn't have even known that this particular person was on Twitter, let alone seen their question. This is just one example of how you can leverage Rapportive

What's the catch?
There is none. The only things to remember are that you need a Gmail account, and Firefox (it runs as a free Firefox plugin). If you don't have a gmail account, just sign up for one and import your contacts from whatever mail system you're using. If you're not using Firefox (you should be), just download it (along with the Rapportive plugin) and you'll be off and running

Where To Get the Goods
Unlike a lot of entrepreneur software, everything you need for Rapportive is free. You can download everything from these links:

Get a Gmail Account Here
Download Firefox Here
Get the Rapportive Plugin Here

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Marketing Video: Seth Godin on How to Stand Out

Jason — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:51:08 +0000

Marketing videos: There's a million out there, and most are really not very helpful; I'm convinced the one below is

I've always avoided content from Seth Godin because I've seen too many people praising him without actually generating results from his advice. However, after browsing through some TED Talks (which are must-views for any entrepreneur), I decided to give him a chance. The video below is outstanding

Seth simplifies what it means to stand out, and how you need to think in this new digital age. It's not enough to just be really good anymore; now you have to be different

But what does it mean to be different? And why is it so important? In the old days, you could interrupt people enough on TV, radio, or email, and make them aware of your brand. Nowadays, all of those mediums have become ineffective. Many people use TiVo to skip through commercials on TV; email spam filtering has become much more advanced; and radios are largely being replaced by portable music devices and satellite (commercial free) radio

On top of all of that, consumers themselves have become increasingly proficient at blocking out any ads in their day to day lives. Scientists say that people see 3000 adds a day; can you remember 100 of the ads you saw yesterday? Probably not. So you need to make sure your business isn't producing one of these 3000 forgettable ads. You need to start thinking differently

If you're going to watch a marketing video this weekend, make sure it's this one; it's one of the best I've seen in a while. Check it out below:

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Drive Sales with these 1 Minute Boosters

Jason — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:40:04 +0000

Driving sales doesn't always require a lot of work. Each of these 5 tasks take less than a minute, and can power up your business:

1. Put sharing buttons on your content
This is an absolute must and it's simple to do. Make it easy for your audience to spread your content around the web, and often they'll reward you with retweets. WordPress and Drupal have free modules that will do this for you. If you don't use WordPress or Drupal, make sure you put the sharing buttons into your website yourself. Go here for Twitter buttons, and here for Facebook 'Like' buttons. It takes less than a minute to stick them into your site, and it can lead to thousands of extra visits

2. Get a Facebook Business Page
Your customers rely on more than just google for their searching needs. In fact, your customers are actively looking for answers on Facebook right now. You need to make sure they can find your business when they're searching. To illustrate, check out our Facebook page here. A Facebook page is a great way to build up a community of users that are interested in your product, and it takes less than a minute to create one. If you do it properly, it gives you another weapon that can drive sales. Click here to set one up now

3. Get a vanity URL for your business
If you've just set up your page, you'll need to wait until you have 25 fans before you can get a vanity URL. So if you just finished step 2, you can worry about this one later. If you already have 25 fans, then you need to make sure you have a vanity url. A vanity URL allows you to post links to your Facebook page as: www.Facebook.com/StartupSidekick instead of www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Entrepreneurial-network/135405916492902?ref=ts. See the difference? From a branding (and professionalism) standpoint, it's a lot easier on your customers to remember the first URL. Get a vanity URL by clicking here

4. Post a thoughtful comment on a high-traffic, related blog
Commenting on a story with a meaningful opinion is a great way to meet people with the same interests as you. You want to find blogs that are related to your product; the blog should align with your sales demographic. Also, make sure to post something meaningful (don't just write 'Great Post', followed by your URL). If your comment is insightful, it can lead other users to see what you and your business is all about. Respectfully leaving your Twitter ID is a good idea; leaving your website ID is not such a good idea, and most moderators will not allow it. The goal is to contribute something of value to other users, not to spam someone's blog. If you do it right, it takes less than a minute to create interest in you and your business

5. Solve someone's problem in a forum
Go to message board that is related to your business, and solve someone's question. If you do a good job, and (tactfully) provide your website or Twitter ID, and there is a good chance that you will generate interest in your business. Taking just one minute to answer someone's question can actually drive sales to your website. After you solve their problem, there's a natural inclination on their part to see what other problems you can solve. You'll gain immediate credibility, and some good will (perhaps they'll recommend you to other friends). A quick, one minute answer can save someone hours of frustration; it can also generate a lot of (free) interest in your business

Don't just read the list above; Do it! You can accomplish a lot between now and the next 5 minutes!

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Business wisdom from Slipknot (seriously)

Jason — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:17:49 +0000

Yes, your business can learn a lot from a band whose members play on stage in their Halloween masks. Find out what it is, without being subjected to their awful "music"

How Slipknot stands out from the million other bands with no talent

Slipknot's musical style is not for everyone. In fact, it's for a very tiny percentage of people. Their music is loud, contains plenty of screaming, and is downright frightening. Their live shows look like a rave in Hell. But lots of other bands make music that sounds identical; so what makes Slipknot a huge success, and similar bands nobodies? Simple: They make themselves stand out with fantastic branding

A simple trip to the costume store = Branding genius
Unlike other bands with no talent, Slipknot's members all wear memorable, one of a kind costumes on stage. The costumes are Halloween masks, that look like props from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. To be honest, it was hard to find any that were appropriate for this story; they were all grotesque. But that's the point. The more disturbing, the better as far as Slipknot cares. Their masks are genuinely frightening, and they ensure that the band is remembered by anyone that sees them. It's branding genius, and it has elevated them from 'just another loud band' into a huge commercial success

The "scary mask" strategy's success throughout history
Slipknot is not the first band to incite interest through props. Black Sabbath had almost no success when they first formed a band. But they underwent a dark makeover; they realized that people enjoyed paying money to be scared by scary movies. The took this idea, and ported it over to the music world. They reached stardom by looking frightening on stage, while using dark lyrics to build a massive audience. They became a "scary" band when nobody else was. Obviously, this distinguished them from the other bands that looked relatively plain by comparison

Kiss was actually failing miserably on their music alone when they started out. But after initial failure, they turned things around. How? Gene Simmons started to get people talking about his on stage stunts. Among them were spitting blood on stage (yogurt with food coloring), and breathing fire. Kiss developed a reputation as a great live band, and their sales took off

Have you noticed the recurring theme?

Consumers don't really care for the band
Band becomes memorable by becoming "scary"
Band becomes successful

It's fascinating that the music is not the biggest reason behind each bands' success; the branding is. The theatrics, costumes, and explosions, are what turned Black Sabbath's and Kiss's fortune. They didn't grow in talent. They simply changed their appearance, style, and target audience. This adaption turned them into music giants. Slipknot was smart enough to distinguish themselves with masks since the beginning. Like Black Sabbath and Kiss, their unique image contributed to their success at least as much as their actual music did

How you can apply similar tactics
Your company needs to stand out from the millions of other "bands" that you compete against. Let's face it: there's usually not a big difference between web design companies, or roofing companies, or whatever it is that your business sells. Similarly, there's not a big difference between loud bands that spend all their time screaming about how enjoyable Hell would be. The key is differentiating your company from the pack.

You need to be creative in how you execute your differentiation strategy. On a feature level (the lowest level), you should be able to fill in the following sentence: "We're the only company that provides _______". If you can fill in the blank with a meaningful answer, you can differentiate yourself on a low level. You can bubble this sentence up through the different levels of your business, until you reach the presentation layer (your website, or store front). Modify the sentence accordingly for each level. At the top level, the sentence might read: "We're the only website that provides ________", or "We're the only store with a _________ appearance". As you make the different elements of your business memorable, you can begin to carve out a brand

For optimal success, you need to get people talking about your product. Slipknot uses Halloween masks to achieve this; Black Sabbath used scary music; Kiss used spitting blood and fire breathing. What will your business do to get people talking about it? This is where your creativity comes into play. You need to spark people's interest; you need to drum up buzz. You need to become your industry's Slipknot

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2 Ultra effective marketing tips from Victoria’s Secret

Jason — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:21:39 +0000

Everyone loves Victoria's Secret; women love it, and men probably love it more. The company became a powerhouse, and it used these 2 strategies to get there. Your business should use them too.

1. Give your audience a reason to be interested in your company

Victoria's Secret throws a massive made for TV event each year, right before the Christmas shopping season(not a coincidence). But this is actually nothing new; your local shopping mall tries to get your attention right before Christmas too (look no further than the 'Santa Clause' that they bring in, who looks nothing like Santa Clause). The difference between the two, is that Victoria's Secret actually generates excitement.

Victoria's Secret uses their show to grab the interest of both male and female shoppers. What might seem like an hour long spectacle, is really just an elaborate hour-long advertisement of their latest inventory. Men gobble it up because it has Adriana Lima walking around in her underwear; women love it, because they might get some fashion ideas. It's a win-win, and Victoria's Secret knows that lots of couples are watching it together; they know that the words "oooh, I want that" are going to be uttered by girlfriends around the world. They use the show to create a buzz around their product so efficiently, that you don't even realize you're watching an hour long advertisement (and for many men, re-watching it several times).

Your business can apply similar tactics (no, I don't mean having your employees march around in their underwear on a webcam). Like Victoria's Secret, you need to provide compelling content to your audience that will get them talking. Obviously it's hard to top a bunch of supermodels strutting in lingerie while Seal tries to resurrect his career in the background; but if you can create excellent content, you will get people talking about your business. Use social media marketing to help your content generate buzz. Create enough buzz, and you'll create interest in your company, which leads to more sales. The more people that know your business, and trust what you have to say, the more sales you are going to make. Give your audience a reason to be interested in you

2. Make it easy for your customers to help themselves

While shopping with my girlfriend in Seattle last week, I came across a Victoria's Secret store in the mall. In the front of the store however was not what you'd expect. Staring me right in the face were actually Men's clothes (I believe it was the 'For Him' collection). Why would they put Men's clothes in the prime real estate out front? Simple: They know that women are going to walk to the back of the store anyways, to look around. Women enjoy shopping more than men. They really don't mind heading into the store to check it out. For many guys however, we could care less about entering the store, let alone walking to the back to look around. They know that if they want my attention, they'd better make it easy for me to see what they're offering. Victoria's Secret isn't the only store to use this tactic; in fact, most stores do (check out Banana Republic next time you walk by). Clothing stores realize that they have a much smaller window of time to capture the attention of Men, so they go right after them. By doing this, I became aware of the 'For Him' apparel at Victoria' Secret (no, I didn't buy any of it). If it had been hidden in the back, I never would have known that it existed,

Your business needs to implement this tactic too. Make it easy for your audience to help themselves. If your business sells shoes, make sure it's ridiculously easy for users to find what they're looking for. If I want to see all the white shoes on your website, it should be easy for me to do so. I shouldn't have to go through page after page searching; if I have to dig through your site to find them, then you've basically done the equivalent of stuffing your 'For Him' section at the back of the store. I'm not going to look there; I'm going to keep walking. Be like Victoria's Secret, and make it easy for your customers to help themselves

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Quality vs. Quantity: Why your number of friends/followers means nothing

Jason — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 01:10:25 +0000

When it comes to visitors, quality means infinitely more than quantity. But how can you measure the quality of a visitor? And why is it imperative that you understand the difference?

Levels of Quality
There are several different levels of quality. At their elemental levels, they are as follows:

Level 1: The meaningless visitor
At the most primitive level, you have a visitor that has stumbled onto your website and quickly left. They never return again. Their reason for leaving is typically caused by your content not addressing their needs. They may also leave because your website's design irritates them. Typically, they won't spend more than 3 seconds on your website before leaving. They represent nothing more than an isolated visit; one extra visit in your hit totals, and nothing more. Many companies still lack a real social media marketing strategy, and because of this fault, they end up bringing in primarily these Level 1 visitors

Level 2: The interested, but not subscribing
Think of the Level 2 visitor as the guy who steals your paper in the morning. He likes the content, sure; but he's not willing to subscribe. These visitors will usually spend a few minutes checking out your website, before leaving. Unlike the newspaper thief, they almost never return

Level 3: The subscriber by association
Everyone is familiar with the subscriber by association. When one of your friends launches a new Facebook page, you've probably seen a lot of your friends 'Like' the page. In the vast majority of cases, the friends that 'Like' the page are doing so out of nothing but support. As another example, employees often 'Like' their own company's page. They have virtually no interest in purchasing anything. Last week I 'Liked' a hockey page launched by my brother. Will I buy any hockey products he promotes? Nope. For many new businesses, the cultivation of these (non-purchasing) friends and family members as followers represents their entire social media marketing strategy

Level 4: The Pure Subscriber
The Level 4 subscriber is the ultimate visitor. The pure subscriber is basically the amalgamated opposite of the above 3 types of visitors. They:

find that your content addresses their needs/interests
subscribe to it
subscribe because of your content; not because they want to be on your good side

When you are trying to measure your online presence, the Level 4 visitor is the type that deserves the most attention. Sure, tweaking your website's content or design might help to convert some Level 1's and 2's into 4's, but managing the relationship with your Level 4's will provide the best ROI.

Why it matters: 2 Real life Case Studies
To really lock in the lesson here, let's examine 2 real stories that I've witnessed personally:

Case Study 1: A concentrated dose of meaningless visitors
My first attempt at Adwords came a long time ago, but I still remember it vividly. I had a new product to sell, and a 'killer' sales page. I bought $20 of Adwords placings, and went to sleep.. It was going to be millionaire time when I woke up! Not so much. I generated 400 hits, but zero sales. Figuring this was just an anomaly, I pumped another $20 in. Once again 400 hits, zero sales. Why? Because clicks don't equal sales. The quality of people coming into my website had very limited interest in buying my product. They were looking for free information, or they were located in a country that would have no use for my product. I was basically attracting 400 Level 1 visitors each day; of the 400, none were of high quality. I eventually refined this process, and ended up turning things around. But that lesson instantly made me aware of the difference between quantity and quality of visitors

Case Study 2: Subscriber by association overload
A friend of mine started a band with his buddies. After several months, they managed to amass 1100 followers on Facebook. When they promoted their album to their 'followers', they got 3 sales. Why? Many followers were friends, or friends of friends. Most of the others had heard the band once, and decided to add them as a 'Like' in Facebook, probably for no more reason than to express interest in the band to their friends. A few of their followers fell within the target demographic of being a pure subscriber. Most were just friends, or friends of friends however. Their seeming popularity did not translate into sales because their 'popularity' was comprised almost exclusively by Level 3's

So, next time you analyze your online presence, make sure you grade the quality of your visitors and leads appropriately. Simply counting all visitors equally will provide misleading (and downright inaccurate) results.
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The Danger of Dreams

Jason — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 19:42:32 +0000

Are your dreams just dreams? All of us daydream about financial success and personal accomplishment. But while comforting, your dreams might actually be imprisoning you in a stagnant cell of non-direction. Dreams come with a price.

The hidden danger of dreams
Dreams seemingly lay the pathway to our desired destination in life. But they can also leave you in a state of flux, lost in a place between dreams and reality. They can become so comforting, that they lose their ability to inspire action. When this occurs (and it inevitably will, within a small window of time), we continue to revisit dreams that will simply never become reality. They lose their ability to assist your lifestyle design. When dreams lack the means to inspire action, they instead provide a safe house of comfort, that incubates us from the harsh reality that we are not on the path to reaching them. Their ability to provide an artificial reality sustains our feelings that we are 'on the right track'. In reality, these dreams have already been marked for death

The dream graveyard
Most lifestyle dreams follow a particular pattern:

The collapse of reality
When dreams fail to trigger action, they end up clouding thoughts, and actually triggering a semi-permanent state of inaction. We have all seen this in the form of the word "someday". "Someday" is the single biggest threat to your dreams. "Someday" is capable of manipulating your thoughts for years on end, without you ever realizing it. It vaporizes time, and opportunity. An optimal Lifestyle design can never be reached "someday". In fact, "Someday" is incredibly potent at stagnating your success, and keeping you in the same house, job, city, financial position, and lifestyle. It is so effective, that it does it all without you even realizing it. Eventually, you clue in and say, what happened to the last 15 years? Where did they go? The mirage of success evaporates, and you are left standing in the exact same position as before, only 15 years older, with nothing to show for it. You never lived abroad, launched a successful product, quit your job, went rock climbing, learned how to scuba dive, tried to form a band, auditioned for a movie, or asked out the girl you always would 'someday'. Without action, your dreams are just dreams.

How to defeat Someday
The antonym for Someday would be "Today", but a more useful interpretation is "Right Now". Only by immediately taking action, can you ward off the danger of inaction. The choice is binary: Either you take action, or you take inaction. There is no middle ground. You must choose

The curious effect of Action
Action will not only affect reality, but it will also affect your dreams. It will position them in a realistic setting; a setting that can be achieved. This is not to say the destination at the end changes; simply, the path becomes clearer. At the inception level, the end result might appear clear, but the path is murky, if existent at all. With action, the path becomes clearer, and attainable.

So ask yourself, are your dreams just dreams? If they are, you must take action to bring them closer to reality. Today you will be forced to decide: Action, or Inaction?

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How to develop a web presence in 30 minutes

Jason — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:54:51 +0000

As a startup, your company needs to be visible online. For years, this required paying a nerd to develop a website; but now you can create a fantastic site, and you can do it free

What you'll need
Because we are concerned with creating a high quality web presence (and doing it for free), we are going to need certain tools. These tools are called Content Management Systems (CMS for short). A CMS will handle all of the hard work for you when it comes to setting up your website.
They will:

Handle the appearance of the site
Allow you to add content by simply typing it (just like writing an email)
Optimize your site for Search engines (known as Search engine optimization, or SEO)
Help you track your visitors (through analytics)
Provide RSS Feeds that your visitors can subscribe to

The above list would take a programmer weeks to create (and a lot of money). CMS systems let you create a web presence easily in minutes. There are 3 different CMS systems that you should consider, and they're all free: Wordpress, Drupal, and Joomla. Each of these systems will perform all of the tasks listed above, either directly, or by using modules/plugins. Modules/plugins are similar to Apps that you'd install in your phone. These "apps" for CMS however, let you do things such as:

Install Google Analytics with ease
Create fancy picture galleries
Automatically employ SEO tactics

After you've chosen a CMS system, you need to buy the domain name (if you don't have one), and pay for hosting. Typically, you can get everything for about $80 a year. This is a small investment cost though, and it's one of the most important investments your business can make. Note that the money is not for the CMS system, just for the domain name, and the hosting on a server.

Which CMS is right for you?
Wordpress is the easiest CMS system to use, but Drupal is also quite simple. Joomla is another popular choice, but I would generally recommend staying with Wordpress. Wordpress is very quick for anyone to pick up, and there is a great deal of free support for it online.

What will your website look like?
That's up to you. The easiest thing to do, is select a "Theme" that matches the style of your website (pick one with a customizable header, so you can insert your business name or logo). You can see the different themes for Wordpress here. There are free themes for Drupal and Joomla too, if you prefer those systems.

How to use the CMS System
It will take about a week to feel comfortable using the CMS system once you've got it up and running. The best thing you can do is just practice with them. You will find that they are no different than learning any other program (they're much easier to learn than Microsoft Excel). You can find a ton of free learning tutorials on the web; YouTube is especially helpful, as it provides step-by-step tutorials that will explain any questions you have.

Why these platforms make sense
If you are serious about establishing an online presence, you need to employ a blog for your business. A blog will allow you to pull in visitors for free (rather than paying for traffic with Adwords). This free traffic could then be monetized if your visitors are related to your product. Each of these 3 CMS systems provide tools that will make blogging very easy. Many people believe that CMS's are only used for blogs, but that is completely wrong. You can use the tools to power full-on business websites, or full-on blogs (and anything in between). As a small business, you will want to utilize inbound marketing (providing great content, and pulling people to your website). The alternative to inbound marketing is outbound marketing, which relies on (expensively) spraying your message at thousands of people that don't want to hear it. All of the CMS's will provide you with a perfect platform to perform inbound marketing.

Video Overview of each CMS
The videos below will (quickly) demonstrate what a CMS is all about. Remember,a CMS will help you establish a web presence quickly, and cheaply. Check these out to see each CMS in action:

Wordpress

Drupal

Joomla

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5 Zealous people that will strengthen your business

Jason — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 21:21:00 +0000

Simply hanging around these 5 types of people will enhance your business. Absorb their intelligence and drive, and inject it into your business

1. The Battle-Tested Veteran
If you are trying to find a business partner, you The Veteran might be the best choice. The Veteran has been there before. They know what it takes to launch a successful startup firsthand. On the surface, they are the toughest type of resource to acquire; they're actually the easiest. While you might not know any successful entrepreneurs personally, you can find business mentors in less than 10 minutes. A quick Google search for entrepreneur clubs or meetup groups in your area will yield plenty of results. They usually meet at mixers or small events. Attend an event (or better yet, many), and get to know some of the entrepreneurs that have gone before you and won. Most are happy to share their experience with you; some will even agree to work with you (if your idea is a good one). There's a reason every sports team in the world wants players that have won before; it makes a big difference. Find yourself a Battle-Tested Veteran for your team

2. The Grinder
The Grinder only has one speed, and it's always set to Max. They love to work, and will relentlessly attack any problem in front of them. The Grinder spends more time in the office than anyone. You'll find them first thing in the morning, and you'll find them when you shut down the lights. The Grinder never gives up: Ever. Having them around boosts everyone's morale. They set the tone in the office, and their presence makes everyone work that much harder. They are arguably the most inspirational members of the team, and their effort never fails to galvanize everyone else. If you your team starts lacking motivation, bring in a Grinder. If you are trying to find a business partner, the Grinder might not be the best choice however. Experience and talent needs to be favored more importantly than raw effort if you only have room for one more member.

3. The Beautiful Mind
The Beautiful Mind is typically the smartest person you personally know. They're usually fans of Start Trek (I don't know why this is so, but most are). Obviously, they need to be intelligent with respect to your industry (being a chess master won't help you if your business is ERP software). If they are on your team, fantastic. If not (why not?), they are still a resource that you can consult with when you get stuck. The Beautiful Mind is capable of formulating solutions that would otherwise go undiscovered. They understand how to solve a problem, and they are well versed at implementing the solution. Having them around can rectify problems that would otherwise cripple a startup. If your business has hit a roadblock that seems impossible, consult with the Beautiful Mind

4. The Negotiator
Often, the Negotiator is not actually part of a team. Their skill set is somewhat narrow, and as such, they are not often rewarded with an equity in the team. Negotiators are often lawyers, or aspiring lawyers, but this is not a necessity. They are tough, intelligent, and unpleasant to deal with. They drive down prices for you, and they're not afraid to ruffle feathers if your company is getting ripped off. Did a hosting company accidentally take your site offline for 2 hours? The negotiator makes sure that you're well compensated for the mistake and then some. This position can be filled by any of the other 4 personalities listed. They are indispensable, and a key to ensuring that nobody pushes your business around

5. The Believer
The Believer is among the most underrated people to have around. The Believer always has faith that your business will succeed, because they believe in you first. They help you maintain confidence, even when you've experienced setbacks. You can find them in the form of family, girlfriends, boyfriends, and close friends. Their support can re-ignite ambition that has been diluted because of setbacks. Utilize them to 're-fuel' when you're stagnating

Know of any more people that can strengthen your business? Throw them in the comments below!

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5 Poisonous people to avoid when starting a business

Jason — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:12:03 +0000

Be cautious of these 5 types of people when you launch a business; they pose very real business threats.

1. The Jester
The Jester loves to passively take shots at your business idea in a playful manner. Jester's are fond of throwing out barbs such as "any profits today haha", or "here comes Donald Trump". They quickly follow up their barb by saying "I'm just kidding". The Jester is among the most irritating of personality types, but also the most satisfying when you shut him up

2. The Lottery Winner
The lottery winner likes to empathize with your entrepreneurial challenges because they see themselves as an entrepreneur too. What separates them from you, is that they inherited all of their contacts and business infrastructure from a family member. They basically had someone else run the marathon, and let them take the last few steps through the ribbon. While occasionally well-meaning, lottery winners often feel compelled to brag about their huge earnings, in an effort to assert superiority over your accomplishments. Don't worry about Lottery Winners; your success will be far more meaningful than theirs (if you can call what they walked into success)

3. The Cynic
The cynic feeds off disparaging comments. They love nothing more than breaking the morale of anyone that is working to accomplish more than they are. Their primary means of destruction revolves around 'convincing' you that your idea has no possibility to succeed. They will drill in on every possible problem you could encounter, and completely neglect any reason you can succeed. They are fond of saying things like "I just don't think anyone is going to care for that". Take note of what the cynic has accomplished in life. Almost all have stagnated in the same position for years, without any motivation to improve. The toll of their frustrating advice is less obvious than other business threats, but they can wear you down if you're not careful. Avoid them

4. The TimeCop
The TimeCops live in a world where there's seemingly no time to accomplish anything special. Jean Claude Van Damme sums up their mantra in the movie TimeCop, with the line "There is never enough time". Even reading a short business book is out of the question for them; there simply isn't time. They love to say "well that's great for you, but I don't have any free time because I have a job". It doesn't matter that you might have a job too; theirs is so much tougher, that there isn't a second in their day to work on a business (or exercise. or read a book. or take up a hobby. etc). TimeCops live their whole lives without realizing how much free time they actually have. These individuals typically consume 3 hours or more of television each day (they will tell you that it's because they need to relax after their impossibly difficult job). Avoid the TimeCops. They will offer you nothing of benefit as an entrepreneur

5. The Genius
The genius loves to give you advice, and sneer at your decision making abilities. They honestly believe they know how to do everything better than you can; if they had their way,you would simply channel their ideas. Most of these 'geniuses' have never stepped on the battlefield of entrepreneurship, and their advice is typically useless. Unless the genius has had success as an entrepreneur (or similar career path), ignore them. After all, if they are so smart, why haven't they launched a successful business?

While these 5 personality types are the ones to avoid, you can actually immunize yourself with 5 personality types to help your business. We'll profile those in tomorrow's article.

Do you have any more personality types to add to the ones above? Throw them in the comments below!

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How to get all your business software Free

Jason — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:40:41 +0000

Software for entrepreneurs: It doesn't have to be expensive. In fact, many companies are offering their software programs online... for Free!

Office Live
Why pay for Microsoft Office on CD, when you can use it for free online (yes, legally). Check out OfficeLive.com and start using Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint for free. OfficeLive is virtually identical to the CD version. Of all the software for entrepreneurs you could choose, this might be the one that makes the most sense. Plus, as an added bonus, Office Live saves files to Microsoft's SkyDrive, which means you can retrieve your documents from any computer with an internet connection. Sweet!

CMS Systems: Drupal | WordPress | Joomla
Forget about paying some expensive nerd to create your website for you. A CMS System (Content Management System) will do all the hard work in creating your website for Free. If you use Drupal,WordPress, or Joomla, you'll only be in charge of choosing a pre-built theme, and writing the articles. That's all! You don't need to worry about coding, or doing any fancy image manipulation. CMS systems make it easy to create new posts; you basically just write them as if they were an email. You can pay money for a theme if you want, but there are plenty of excellent ones for free. Websites used to be expensive; not anymore!

Trend/Market Information
Google Insights can provide you with all the information you need to size up interest in a particular keyword. You can use this information to get in front of an industry wave (IE.- clean energy) before it really takes off. The tool is easy to use, and of course, free!

With free options available, why bother paying for software anymore? Start leveraging free software to help your business, and your cash flow

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Learn from these 3 (real life) business disasters

Jason — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 01:31:28 +0000

Instead of analyzing the Dell's, Microsoft's and Apple's of the world, how about learning from a few businesses that went down in flames; see what sunk them, and how you can avoid becoming the spectacular failure that they did.

Disaster #1: Furniture.com
Legacy: Humiliating

Of all the entrepreneur case studies, Furniture.com might be the most famous. The premise was simple: Sell furniture online. Online businesses were becoming the rage, and the founders of Furniture.com wanted a piece of the action. Online stores are usually quite profitable due to lower fixed costs. Low fixed costs + furniture sales.. A match made in heaven right? Unfortunately, shipping a 200 pound couch ends up being expensive (who would've thought?). The shipping costs alone sliced and diced the potential profit margins for this new online startup. But shipping costs weren't the only problem.

Furniture.com failed to provide any meaningful sales advice to its customers. It also lacked a selection of furniture that anybody other than your great grandparents would want in their home. Unsurprisingly, it went down in flames.

What you can learn
A website is not a business; it's a medium, that helps put you in touch with potential customers. If your products are junk, nobody is going to buy them. Period. And if you are able to sell something, make sure you factor in all of the factors that are going to eat at your profit margins. Furniture.com never took a holistic enough approach, and as a result, they went under.

Disaster #2: Webvan.com
Legacy: Embarrassing

Webvan.com is one of the entrepreneur case studies that is studied in many MBA programs. The company was designed to sell groceries online, and have them delivered to customers' houses. The business model sounded reasonable, but Webvan didn't account for several possible problems:

Customers typically like to feel their vegetables, fruit, and meats, and hand-select their food
Customers did not value the convenience of having their groceries delivered enough to pay for it

These issues ended up being the least of Webvan's problems however. Webvan decided it would be a good idea to begin building large distribution centers before fully validating their business (by validating, we mean accruing enough paying customers). Each new distribution center ended up costing Webvan around $30 million dollars. Each center had the latest and greatest information systems, and seemingly everything the company would need to ship out groceries successfully. These centers chewed plenty of Webvan's investment capital, and were a major reason they ran out of money.

Customers never truly warmed up to Webvan the way investors expected. It didn't help that Webvan was being run by a pack of executives with virtually no previous knowledge of the grocery industry. Without this knowledge, Webvan was obliterated by smaller supermarkets that were more in tune with customers' needs and wants.

What you can learn
Don't invest in something you don't understand. Warren Buffet lives by this rule, and you should too. It applies to your time, as well as your dollars. When starting a business, ensure that you are fully versed in the market, and that you understand your customers' needs. You can get this type of information by collecting feedback from them (see here).

Lastly, remember that fancy CRM systems and other technologies are designed to augment your business; they can not be relied upon as sole providers of customers, or sales.

Disaster #3: Barings Bank
Legacy: Shame

Barings bank was the largest merchant bank in London, until one employee sunk them. The bank had a star trader, Nick Leeson. Nick's job was arbitraging; he basically bought futures contracts in one market, and sold them on another market. The difference in price when he sold them was minimal, but the sheer volume of his transactions created a profit. Unfortunately, Nick thought he would start trying to hit home runs, instead of singles. Rather than selling the contracts at small gains, he thought he would wait until a larger gain could be realized. This went on and on, and the bets kept getting bigger. Leeson was also in charge of auditing, and he ended up auditing his own transactions! He used his auditing authority to mislead company executives into believing that he was actually making a profit, when in fact, he had lost huge sums of money. In 1994, he reported a 'gain' of £102 million, when in fact, he had lost £200 million. Not surprisingly, Barings collapsed soon after.

What you can learn
Sometimes it only takes one employee to tear down a company. This doesn't have to be viewed from a purely financial lens; if one of your employees actively tarnishes your company's image on different social media networks, the effects can also cause catastrophic damage. Make sure that your employees are projecting the brand you want your business to be known for. And as you've seen, it's a good idea to have objective auditors, rather than employees that audit themselves. You don't need to be a cheapskate with spending, but as a new startup, your financial capital is your lifeblood. Make sure you know about every place it's going.

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The 2 reasons most entrepreneurs fail are...

Jason — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:31:20 +0000

There are many reasons entrepreneurs fail; but these two are by far the most common

Overestimating the response to your product
It is common to believe that your new product or service will be received well by customers; often, their response will surprise you (often, not for the better). Having an overly optimistic expectation for your product can throw off all of your cash flow estimates, and even prevent you from obtaining a single client. When trying to gauge how customers will view your product/service, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What important problem am I solving for customers?
2. Who is my first customer going to be?
3. Where will I find my first customer?
4. What will I do if customers don't care for my product? (Adapt it, scrap it?)
5. Where will I find subsequent customers?

If you have good answers to all of these questions, you can avoid problem number one. If you can't answer all the questions, that's OK. Now is the time to find the answers to them; it's much less costly to find the answers now, as opposed to later. If you can save yourself 3 months of work on a project that was likely doomed, you can invest those 3 months into a product with a much better chance of succeeding. The second major reason that most entrepreneurs fail is actually an extension of the first problem:

Locating your first real customer
This can't be a friend or family member. You need to locate a real customer, and make certain that they will invest in your idea; they have to agree to pay for it. Having them simply say that they are interested is not enough. By securing a paying customer, you will validate your product's worth in the marketplace. If you can't find a single customer, and you've exhausted all avenues, then it's time to re-evaluate question number 1 above:

What important problem am I solving for customers? Revisit this question, and adapt your product accordingly. Add features, drop features, whatever it takes to make your product viable in the market. You will move in a loop through the two questions that we've discussed.

Create a product that solves an important problem
Locating your first real customer (one that will actually pay you)

Continue looping until you have balanced this equation. If customers won't pay for your product, revise the product until somebody will. Note that you need to look hard for customers, but not so exhaustively that you are spending months locating a single customer. You should know where your customers will be located (their industry, company names, names of possible leads), and you should ask them directly. The process should only take a few weeks. Use their reasons for not purchasing your product, and build them into your adapted version. If they tell you that your product only solves half their problem, find out what you're missing, and add it in. Then come back and re-pitch if necessary. This ongoing loop will eventually lead to a product that they will value enough to purchase.

If you can't feasibly meet their needs, or they simply tell you they have no interest in your product, it might be time to throw in the towel, and move on to the next idea. By being agile, and failing quickly (and cheaply), you can save yourself plenty of time and money.

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The benefits of cloud computing for startups

Jason — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:11:08 +0000

Everyone has heard of cloud computing by now; but how is it relevant to your startup? Read this, and start leveraging "the cloud" today.

What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing (also known as Software as a Service or SAAS) is a software architecture that basically allows you to run computer applications from the browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc). The application is hosted on a provider's servers, and you essentially "lease" the software and maintenance from them.

Cloud computing benefits: Why you should care
In previous times, your software setup would often require an installation CD, server, and workstations. You would also need to pay a computer technician to backup the devices, ensure everything was connected and running smoothly, etc. SAAS minimizes all of these extra costs. Because SAAS runs on a server in somebody else's server room, you are not responsible for the maintenance

SAAS saves you from the following headaches and costs

Installing software
Patching/upgrading software
Backing up software
Keeping servers running
Paying for extra tech support

Because the software runs off of your SAAS provider's server, they ensure that you are always using the most recent edition. Another huge benefit is that you can use almost every SAAS application from any computer with an internet connection! You no longer need to install it on every machine that you want to use it on; simply browse to the program's website, log in, and that's that. Many SAAS applications will work from your mobile phone too

Cloud computing benefits specific to startups
As a startup, cash flow is paramount. You don't want to be throwing away your capital on expensive computer systems, followed by labor costs for technicians, etc. On top of that, you could lose weeks of work if the systems go down and lose your data. SAAS is an affordable alternative to the traditional method. You essentially pay a low monthly fee (or free for many SAAS programs, such as Windows Live Office), and that's all

Free SAAS programs
Some of the best SAAS programs are completely free. Microsoft's Office Live provides free Office applications straight from the browser. Instead of investing big dollars in the stand-alone versions, use the free SAAS versions to save some cash.

Google also provides a suite of free SAAS programs, ranging from calendars to collaboration tools. Try them out, and see if you can cut down some of your costs.

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Passive Income: How to generate it

Jason — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:46:00 +0000

Passive income is the ultimate income stream. Here's (exactly) how to generate passive income.

Your business model matters
This next sentence will sound impossible but I'm going to show you how it's not: Before anything else, make sure that your your product can be sold, shipped, and supported without you. Sounds hard doesn't it? It's actually not, once you rely on a simple business model and free tools.

The Business Model
There are many business models that can help you generate passive income. Here's a few that you could use:

membership sites
e-books
software
Drop-shipped inventory via an e-commerce website

Can your business's offerings fit into any of the above categories? If you have a blog, could you create any special membership content that you could charge $20/month for? If you are technically capable, could you create a website that solves a business problem for users that you could charge a recurring monthly amount for? Membership sites and software are the easiest types of passive income models for most people.

If you are not as technically savvy, E-books or drop-shipped inventory are also options. E-books are only a viable business if you are a certified expert in the field (you will need to prove this to your users by possessing academic degrees, professional designations, etc, or they won't buy from you). Drop-shipped inventory can be sold through an e-commerce website with virtually no interaction from you. The challenge here is getting a website built, finding a product people will buy, and setting up the automatic shipping and distribution through your website (this is not as hard as it sounds; many established drop-shippers will provide an easy integration to their service).

Once you've found a way to adapt your product into one of the 4 automated business models above, you're ready for the next step:

Removing yourself from the sales equation
This is the easiest part. Your website needs to provide a compelling sales message, because we don't want you speaking with clients over the phone. Everything they need should be transparent, and located on your website. Your goal is to maximize email, and minimize phone conversations. Utilize split testing (learn it here) to optimize your sales page for conversions. Having your sales page churn out conversions is half the battle; you still need to process them somehow. Of course we don't want you processing anything personally. So...

Removing yourself from the payment processing equation
Processing payments is a huge problem for many small companies, because it can become expensive very quickly. Setup fees and commissions on each sale can chew away virtually all of your profits. So if you're on a budget, try E-Junkie. Setting up an account is simple, and it's ridiculously cheap (up to 10 product for a flat total of $5 a month, with no commissions). Each payment is securely processed over an SSL connection, and the money from each sale goes directly into your bank account. It works fantastically, and it takes you out of the equation. E-junkie can handle recurring memberships, as well as product delivery (if it's an e-book or software, it will send them a secure link to the product that can't be shared). If you are selling through drop-shipping, you will need to invest in a payment processor however; sometimes this can be coordinated through your drop-shipper (which also allows for smoother integration). Please note I don't work for E-Junkie, I've just used them before and liked them. They are a terrific asset when setting up an automated business

Enlisting free salespeople to sell your product... While you stay out of the equation
Almost anything product be configured to allow for affiliates to sell your product. Affiliates will advertise and sell your product at a small commission (that you can set beforehand). Let them work hard for you while you do something else with your time. You can find many directories of affiliates; try not to spend any money joining a directory though. Just optimize your pages to make it as easy as possible for affiliates to join you (there is a plethora of information on the web that will show you how to do this).

Believe it or not, that's all you need. A business model that is flexible enough to let you remove yourself, a highly optimized sales page for your product, an automated payment/shipping setup, and an army of affiliates marketing your product. Put this business model to use, and fire up a passive income stream.

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How to get product feedback (that is actually useful)

Jason — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 23:59:34 +0000

So you've come up with a great idea that could realistically become a successful business. You're also smart enough to realize that you need to ask your future customers what they think of it; so how do you do that exactly?

We'll cover 3 rapid methods of collecting customer feedback for your product (only 2 are worth consideration.. can you guess which?):

1. Go straight to selling it, and see what happens
2. Start by giving it away for free, then charge at a later date
3. Carry out "focus groups" or surveys

Believe it or not, but the third method (focus groups and surveys) is not as practical as you might expect. The reason focus groups and surveys lag behind the other two options is because people in focus groups are going to answer your questions differently than your consumers will.

Tim Ferriss (of 4 hour workweek fame) illustrates it best: Suppose you hold a fancy focus group for 20 people. Most entrepreneurs will actually invite family members to this event (what a disaster), but the audience doesn't matter. After pitching your product to these 20 people, the vast majority will tell you that it's a great idea, and they'd definitely buy your product. This seems great, doesn't it? Mission accomplished? Well not exactly. Because, as Tim says, if you were to follow their answers by saying "Great, I've got a whole supply in the car. I can take your money right now", all of a sudden, nobody will pay you for it. This happens over and over again, and it is a reason that startup businesses should avoid focus groups or surveys in the early stages. On a very large mass scale, they can be important, but for the vast majority of startups, there are much better methods available.

The first method mentioned above (go straight to selling it) is actually superior to the second method when it comes to providing customer feedback. And as a bonus, it allows you to earn some money in the short term. As an entrepreneur, cash flow means everything, so this is the method you should be using. There is nothing wrong with giving the product away free, then proceeding to charge at a later date (option 2); but you lose a vital piece of information with this approach. If you give it away for free, you won't really know whether your product is valuable enough to purchase in the eyes of your customer. On top of that, if it was valuable enough to charge for, you've flushed potential profits down the toilet. So let's focus on the first method.

Note, that the goal of the first method is not to sell a piece of unfinished junk to your consumers. The goal is to create a functional version of your product, that offers reliable core functionality. You can save the bells and whistles for a later date. At first, focus on building a product that is good enough to sell. It needs to provide benefit to the customer, but it doesn't have to be complicated.

Now that you have your product, how can you elicit customer feedback by selling it early on? Simple. Your customers are going to give you the best feedback of all: Either your customers will pay for it, or they won't. Period. This is feedback that you won't get from a focus group, or by releasing your product for free. If nobody is purchasing your product, there are 3 questions you need to ask:

Is it too expensive?
Does it not provide enough functionality (this should never be the case, because you should have included the core functionality of your product already)?
Does the market simply not care for this product?

These are the most fundamental questions you need to answer. If tinkering with the price of your product produces more sales, then that's fantastic. If a tiny feature is added, and it ends up producing sales, that's great. But if you have provided the core benefit of your product, and nobody is willing to pay for it? It might be time to find another idea. You want to reach this stage early, before putting enormous amounts of time and money into your product. If you're going to fail, fail fast, and fail inexpensively.

If you are fortunate enough to be making sales, then you will be on the road to even more feedback. Your users will actually tell you exactly what they'd like your product to do for them! They will request extra features, and complain about elements of your product that they don't like. You can utilize all of this feedback to refine your product, and come out with something that they love. This is the optimal path, and it can be reached relatively quickly. Your goal for feedback should be to use it to gauge your market, and refine your product accordingly. Focus on working off of feedback, rather than simply using it to validate your idea/product.

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5 Business Myths you shouldn't believe

Jason — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:01:55 +0000

The internet is saturated with advice for entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, a lot of the advice is a waste of time. Here are 5 pieces of 'advice' you should ignore when you start your own business.

1. You need a business plan to be successful
For the vast majority of startups, a business plan will become irrelevant after only a few weeks. Why? Because you really don't know exactly how customers will embrace your product. Business plans are based upon assumptions (aka- guesses), which will inevitably need to be changed. On top of these assumptions, more assumptions are drawn, and on it goes. Sure, venture capitalists will want to see your business plan before investing in your idea, but your plan is a formality in their decision. They will invest in you, as in you the person first. Next, they will invest in your idea. They will not invest in your business plan, no matter how elegant it seems. Does this mean you should avoid planning before starting a business? Of course not (unless you enjoy the sensation of failure). What it means is, make sure you are solving an important problem for a certain segment of the market. Next, make sure you know exactly who you are going to sell your product to. And lastly, make sure that you can do it while making a profit. These are all going to be guesses; just make sure they are educated guesses. They're going to change, so don't waste your time amalgamating them into a fancy business plan document

2. If you have an original idea, you should keep it a secret, or someone might steal it
Almost no idea is original anymore. The chances of your business offering something that is truly unique, are very slim. On top of that, it will take thousands of hours of effort to make any 'idea' into a successful business; a passerby that happens to hear your idea is not going to put the time into it. Think about it; it's hard enough keeping yourself motivated when you start your own business, and it's your idea! In fact, most of the time, it is actually beneficial to discuss your business idea with others. You can get feedback immediately (some of which might be useful), and they might be able to key you in on key competitors you might not have thought of

3. You can be successful by relying exclusively on Google Adwords to bring traffic
Despite the claims of hundreds of 'get rich overnight' websites, you cannot build a sustainable business purely with Google Adwords. Why? First, the CPC estimates you begin with WILL change as you go along. Sometimes they will get cheaper for each keyword. Most of the time, they will increase. The CPC average is dependent on the performance of you advertisement. If you can keep a solid click-through-rate, you can keep the CPC costs down. But if you can't, they will rise exponentially. If you decided on the price of your product by factoring in your expected CPC costs and these CPC costs go up, your product might become unprofitable very quickly. On top of your CPC costs rising because of your ad performance, they can also increase if more competitors decide to bid on them. In light of this, you need organic search traffic to be your primary means of acquiring visitors

4. E-Books are a great way to make money
Information products have a fantastic advantage; they can be reproduced for free, and there is no inventory to ship out. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that most people are going to want your information product, unless you are an expert. By expert, I don't mean the guy that knows the most about a certain subject in your family. You have to have tangible credibility. What is tangible credibility? It's university degrees, certifications, citations, and media appearances. If you are a certified expert, you can sell information products, and have a decent shot at success. If you are posing as an expert, you will probably fail. You can find certified experts for virtually any type of subject matter online; it takes less than 2 minutes to locate them. With that in mind, why would somebody buy from you, when they can purchase from an expert with far more credibility? If you are serious about selling information products, make sure that you first become an expert with tangible credibility (Tim Ferriss's 4 hour work week book has a good amount of advice on how to become an 'expert')

5. You can make money with a blog by selling banner ads
A blog needs to pull in thousands of people per day to make any significant money on banner ads. Why? Because only a tiny fraction of your users are going to click the ads on your website. And it gets worse; when they do click them (hallelujah), you're only going to be making a tiny amount of money. The business model of strictly relying on a blog to make money is simply not feasible for the vast majority of entrepreneurs. Of course, there are bloggers out there that make decent money; but they all have thousands of people each day pouring into their website. If you are considering a new blog as your business' primary source of revenue, you need to go back to the drawing board. Don't start your own business on the premise that a blog will make you a quick income.
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5 Home business ideas that actually work

Jason — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 21:41:06 +0000

Starting a successful home business is far from easy. Most will never turn a profit, but these 5 have a significantly better chance of success than others.

1. Fundraising Coordiation
Fundraisers have become big business. At their core, they are no different than any of the other home business ideas on this page; but they have some of the largest growth potential of any home business idea. As a coordinator, you would provide all necessary forms and supplies (chocolate bars, prizes, etc) to your clients (whether they are charities, amateur sports teams, etc). You supply them with items that you buy from a wholesale distributor, and they mark them up accordingly. They pay you to set everything up, deliver all supplies, and track the fundraiser's progress. A successful fundraiser can lead to residual sales, because most organizations will require your services multiple times throughout the year. You would market your business primarily through direct marketing in the early stages, because the Adwords pricing on fundraiser-related searches is very high (as mentioned, it has become big business). This is a simple business model, and a good one to start if you have a preexisting relationship with anyone at a large organization

2. Remote ESL (English) classes
There is a screaming need for those that can teach English to students at local universities. This business requires few skills (you obviously speak English if you are reading this), and no office space. You can conduct your classes over Skype online, and never leave your office. How do you market it? Easy. Put up fliers at all the local universities in your city. Throw up an add on Craigslist. This is very similar to tutoring any other subject, but you will have the added benefit of conducting the classes remote. Many students do not have cars, and this will make it much easier on them. The investment (Read: risk) to you is only a few hours of time (to drive to the universities), and a few bucks (just for the fliers that you need to print off). Be sure to get as many referrals as possible from each student

3. Virtual Assistant
As a virtual assistant, you will help keep your client organized. This may involve booking appointments, sending out emails, or organizing their schedule. This can be done entirely from home, and once you have the hang of it, you can serve multiple clients simultaneously. Use Adwords, word of mouth, and cold calling to develop a clientele. The goals for this business will be generating income at first; building up a clientele second; and outsourcing this to others third. If you reach the third goal, you will be operating a low overhead business, that is flexible enough to be distributed across continents. You will require no office infrastructure, other than a required computer for each assistant (and appropriate software)

4. Selling products that you have personally created
If you are starting a business from scratch, the odds are very slim that you'll have any significant traffic to your website. With this in mind, you won't be able to make any short-term profits as a blogger, or through affiliate sales (you just won't have enough visitors to make it work). Knowing this, you are much better off selling your own product; it could be jewelery you made, hand-knit scarves, anything really. It needs to be unique (like any other business product), and it needs to solve a problem. You need to have a customer in mind before you embark on building the product. Once you have determined your customer (and the general viability of your product), it's time to begin. You can use Adwords to bring people through your website in the early stages, and you can also sell your product directly to local stores in your area. Don't be afraid to adapt your product, based on feedback from your customers

5. Employee Rewards Provider
This is a slightly more challenging business, but one that is poised for large growth in the near future. As a provider of employee rewards, you would be in charge of providing incentives and recognition to a company's employees. Companies will pay you to provide prizes, small trips, and other general recognition to their employees because it will increase employee performance. Your job is to locate appropriate rewards, buy them at a discount (find a wholesaler that you can partner with), and organize a rewards system that is applicable to each company you work with. You would find most of your clients through direct marketing in the early stages, but Adwords can also be used to supplement your clientele

Unlike other home business lists, these businesses all have a good chance of working for you. If you are willing to put in the time and effort, you can turn any of the 5 above into successful businesses from your home.

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Split Testing: Learn it in 5 minutes

Jason — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:09:40 +0000

Split Testing is a must-know website optimization technique that will get you more conversions. Read this, and in 5 minutes you'll be a pro.

What is split testing?
Split testing serves different 'variations' of your website to visitors, and lets you track how successful each variation is. Think of split testing as a controlled experiment, where your users will provide all the data for you. Free software will take care of all the technical work; we'll get to that in a bit. First, let's cover the basics.

There are 2 different flavors of split testing. Each has their own benefits and drawbacks. Here they are in a nutshell

A/B Testing
A/B testing is the vanilla of split testing flavors. It tastes OK, it does the job, but it won't knock your socks off with large amounts of data (which can be a good thing).

Use this method when you don't have a lot of visitors coming in, or if you only want to test 2 different variations of your page at a time. Let's use an extremely basic example to demonstrate. Suppose you have 2 different logos, and you want to see which one leads to more conversions. You would define each 'variation' of your page within the split testing software, then you would serve each of the variations equally (each variation would be shown to 50% of visitors). After a few hundred (or thousand) visitors have used your site, you will be able to compare which logo was more effective. You can disregard the poorer performing logo, and work off the better one.

A/B testing can be used to test logos, headlines, closing sales statements, offers, etc. Pretty much anything you can think of can be tested. The results show up within the free software. This is the simplest form of split testing.

The big thing to know with split testing is that you can only test different variations of a webpage. Multivariate testing is the other technique we will examine, and it allows you to test different variations at an elemental level.

To illustrate this difference, we could test 2 different pages. On page 1, we have a blue logo, with a very comedic headline. On page 2, we have a black logo, with a very serious headline. Let's suppose that page 2 outperformed page 1. With A/B testing, we wouldn't know exactly why page 2 outperformed page 1: was it because of the black logo, or the serious headline? Or both? This is where multivariate testing comes in.

Multivariate Testing
If A/B testing is vanilla, multivariate would be an organic fruit sherbet. It would take a lot more work, but it will provide you with a more complex dessert; perhaps something for those with finer palettes.

Multivariate testing is only really practical if you have a lot of visitors coming into your website. It basically extends split A/B testing to allow for more than 2 different variations at an elemental level. The testing software will then serve different versions of your page, with each element being 'scrambled'. Here's a simple illustration:

MyTestWebpage

Headline (1 of 3 will be served)
This is my first test headline
This is my second headline
This is my third headline

Closing Statement (1 of 2 will be served)
This is my first closing statement
This is my second closing statement

Price (1 of 3 will be served)
This is my first price
This is my second price
This is my third price

This MyTestWebpage shown above has 18 different combinations to be served up! You could use headline 1, with closing statement 2, with price 3; or 17 other combinations! Conversely, A/B testing will only have 2 at a time. This is important because to get any meaningful results, you'll want to see how each variation performs at least a hundred times. With A/B testing, that means you'll need about 200 visitors. With multivariate testing (for the MyTestWebpage example above), you'd need about 1700 visitors! A very big difference.

Free Software you'll need
Google provides free split testing software called Google Optimizer; it's easy to install into your site, and it's very easy to use. Installation and setup instructions can be found here.

Setting up an A/B experiment video
Here is a video that displays exactly how to set up an A/B experiment:

Setting up a multivariate experiment
Here is a video that shows how to set up a multivariate experiment:

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Business Logo: How to get a good one free/cheap

Jason — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 19:52:07 +0000

A good business logo doesn't need to cost you an arm and a leg. Here's how to get a good one without spending much time or money.

1. Build it yourself (free)
If you are somewhat tech savvy, this might be the best way to go. You can build a logo yourself in less than an hour using this method. First, download a free program called GIMP by clicking here. GIMP is a free program that you can use to create simple (but effective) logos. Next, watch this YouTube video and just copy what they do.

2. Outsource it, and pay someone to build it for you (cheaply)
There are several companies that you can outsource your logo design to. ELance has an army of logo designers that you can hire without spending more than $50. Simply put your specs together, state what you're willing to pay (less than $50), and decide on one of the bidders (you can view their portfolios to decide which is the best fit for your job). There are other companies that will perform the same services at cheap rates too, and still provide quality work. Here's a few sites to consider:

Elance.com
Guru.com
Freelancer.com

I have intentionally neglected to mention paying local companies in your area to perform logo design services because they will charge you a few hundred dollars. As any entrepreneur knows, cash needs to be reserved, not spent. You can get the same quality of work from one of the websites listed above, and spend a fraction of what you would with a local company.

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3 Tips: How to be a resilient entrepreneur

Jason — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 03:51:58 +0000

Being an entrepreneur demands resiliency. Here's 5 ways you can toughen up your skin while you fight the good fight.

1. Ignore cynics
When you attempt anything worthwhile in life, you will be met by cynics. IGNORE THEM! 100% of them have not accomplished what you are setting out to do. If they are actually successful entrepreneurs then maybe you should listen to them. But are they? I guarantee you that none of them are. Shrugging off cynics is a key characteristic of an entrepreneur

2. Exercise: How to ignore cynics
If you were walking down the street and a sketchy weirdo called you crazy, would you listen to him? No. You'd probably look at him like he was a moron, and then you'd walk the other way. You need to apply this same principle to meeting cynics when they hear about your business. Don't even think twice about their opinions, and just shrug them off

3. Realize that you are unshackled
Even when you are struggling to pull in a single visitor or lead, realize that you are still 100x better off than the guy that wakes up and drives to his 9-5 "safe" job. This guy can never achieve what you can. In fact, he can't even get his mind around what it would take to try. So you are unshackled; free to partake in the game. That's more than half the battle. It is completely inevitable that you will succeed as an entrepreneur if you continue to learn, and exercise patience. Don't get upset if you are not getting immediate results, and remember that by simple logic, you will succeed eventually if you work hard and continue to learn from your mistakes. A free mind is another key entrepreneur characteristic

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How to come up with a new product for your startup

Jason — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:52:25 +0000

Deciding what you are actually going to build is arguably the most important choice an entrepreneur faces. Here are some things to keep in mind before you begin on your business idea.

1. Make sure your product solves a need
Randy Komisar, author of the Monk and the Riddle says it best. Some people create a jumping dog, without ever asking if anyone wants to buy a jumping dog. The morale here is that you need to make sure that people have a definitive need for your product. It has to solve an important problem to them. This is the first question you must ask yourself, once you have decided on a product

2. Nobody will buy a product that is simply "cool"
Certain entrepreneurs (especially tech savvy ones) love to try and use a new technology to build something. For example, you know how mapping software works, so why not build a product that lets you design a path from one city to another, which will always pass a fancy hotel every 50 miles. Well, that's pretty neat, but nobody is going to pay you a dime for it (other than the miniscule demographic of die hard hotel tour groups). Try to find a problem that you can solve without the technology mattering. In reality, customers don't care which technologies are being used. They only care that their problem gets solved. Look at other small business ideas that have been successful: most of them are not profitable because of 'flashy' products

3. Make sure you can actually build it
A flying skateboard is a great idea that a lot of people would pay money for. But obviously I can't build it. Don't waste time on "flying skateboard ideas". An equally stupid idea (for me) would be attempting to build a mapping application that connects to Twitter and relays GPS coordinates to all my friends within a certain radius. This is a more realistic idea, but I can't build it either, so it's worthless. Be certain that you can actually build your product before you invest time into it. Look at other small business ideas that have become successful, and you'll realize they all have something in common: they all exist. Make sure you are working on something that can actually be built

4. Make sure it does at least one thing that's unique
A great way to pass this test is by asking the question: Can my product say that it's the only product to offer _____, or to perform ______? If yes, then you've found a winner. If not, try to reposition it, or create an advantage that is unique

5. Can you name at least one person that will buy it
Excluding yourself (or your grandma), will anyone else actually buy this product? You should be able to name at least one person that will definitely buy it. If you can't think of anyone, then that's an indicator that you don't know your market (or even have a market for that matter)

Make sure you can pass all 5 of these steps before investing your time in a new startup. As an entrepreneur, it's vital that you conserve money and time. Avoiding a bad idea will save you a lot of both.

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