Tag Archives: entrepreneur

Finding A Product To Sell Online – Don’t Marry It, Test It

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Just because a product sells like gangbusters on someone else’s site, don’t assume it will sell on yours. Your product has to fit in with your overall expertise and what your site is about in order for people to go there and look for it, much less buy it.

Even if a product fits your site and its personality like a hand in a glove, don’t assume it will sell. The pricing may not be right, the market may be saturated, the stars may not line up right. Who knows why some things sell on any particular site and others don’t? You can’t be clairvoyant: you’re not a mind reader, you’re a web marketer. Everyone has 20/20 hind sight. That’s why the best plan is to just put up a product and test it out. It either sells or it doesn’t. Sometimes you can tweak it…tweak the price, tweak the offer. But often people just aren’t interested in buying that product from your site and that’s all you really need to know. And there’s a very simple way to figure this out.
Whether you wish to sell ads related to your content, or join an affiliate marketing program or sell your own products on your site or on Amazon or eBay, there are a lot of moving parts to get right on a website and you will need to make a lot of right choices along the way. The way to do this is by testing: testing ad placement and color, testing content, testing product categories, testing various suppliers and vendors, testing affiliate marketing programs to see which ones work for you.

Those who take the time to test everything they are doing are the ones who eventually become successful in whichever field they choose.

I can’t begin to tell you how many things I’ve tested. I’ve tested travel, which I thought might be convenient for business customers: zero. I’ve tested business ebooks: nothing. I’ve tested many, many products, all of which came to nada, nothing. Even in the two core revenue producers on the AdvancingWomen.com site, advertising and employment recruiting, I’ve been through a dozen morphing and transfiguration experiments, starting with Doubleclick Ads, from the day they were born, to some new European ad company which sweet talked me into believing they were going to take the Net by storm, but all they did was truly anemic revenues and give me one more learning experience. All this was before I morphed my way into a successful combination of Google ads, text ads sold from my site, and some proprietary ad networks. It just took time and testing.

Same with a Job Board or employment recruiting facet of our site at Careers.AdvancingWomen.com. I was a part of every one of what seemed like a half dozen permutations of what eventually became CareerBuilder.com. That was ok for pocket change. What I began to realize was that big job boards who wanted you as an affiliate wanted the demograhic you had captured but in no way wanted to promote your site, and why should they, as they would be creating their own competition? Basically they were getting the benefit of your traffic and assuring that you didn’t compete with them or join another competing job board like Monster.com. It worked pretty well for them, but not necessarily so well for you. Ultimately, I was able to start Careers.AdvancingWomen.com , our own job board which guaranteed a.) I would be building my own brand and therefore an asset I could invest in and b.) I would not be giving up 50% of the revenue up front. It just took a lot of testing to arrive at a successsful combination of revenue streams to support the business.

There are many product testing examples as well. Mom-and-pop team Cheryl and Gary Casper started small, like many do on eBay, first looting their own garage, even snatching up VHS copies of their daughter’s Cinderella and Sleeping beauty then moving on to sell their neighbor’s cast offs.

As they learned about online auctions and particularly the eBay environment, the Caspers moved on up the selling food chain. They now sell $15,000 to $20,000 a month in goods on eBay.

How did they do it? Trial and error.

After their home started overflowing with neighbor’s cast off products, the Caspers turned to drop-shippers–companies that charge others to sell their products then ship directly to buyers. Although this looked good at first – removing the risk of buying the merchandise, the inconvenience of storing it and the hassle of shipping it—there were definite drawbacks. The Caspers were selling about 40 TVs a week but about half of those arrived damaged at the customer’s home. The Caspers needed more control over the quality of the product which was shipped to the customer. They also set out to identify a product category which was less crowded and more profitable than electronics on eBay.

The couple used eBay itself as a research tool, and began going to Chamber of Commerce meetings to find people or companies with products to sell. They discarded many possible products including Star Wars light sabers and gumball machines.

Ultimately the Caspers decided on auto floor mats, an item with as much as 75 percent profit margins, even after paying the dealer. The Caspers put as many as 50 mats up on eBay, at $16 to $125 each. Once or twice a week, They buy the mats they’ve sold from a Houston-based auto surplus company.

“If I only wanted to make a few hundred dollars a day, I’d be done by noon,” says Cheryl.

So, the best advice is probably to use your common sense to figure out what would be a good product or service for your site to offer. Don’t spend an excessive amount of time trying to ponder all the variables. Just put it up. If it makes money, keep it, if it doesn’t drop it. That’s the benefit of testing. Oh, and if it makes money, expand it. That’s the road to success.

Biz On The Net: Find Your Passion & Sell That

Selling on the Internet definitely is a growth trend. The key is simply finding something you like to do – preferably something you have a passion for – that is suitable for an online business, and then transfer all your skills and industry contacts to the net.

Many women and men as well have found their passion selling what they love on the Net.

In 1999, Sarah Davis started selling women’s consignment designer clothing and purses on the Internet while attending law school. Today, she works out of her house in San Antonio selling more than $25,000 worth of Louis Vuitton handbags each month as a platinum seller on auction site eBay.

In August of 2000, In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Lynne Bingham, who owned a children’s clothing story called Lullaby Landing decided she wanted to reach more customers. So, Lynne sold her brick and mortar store, and built a web site with the assistance of Yahoo! Small Business. In January 2001, she launched The Stork Delivers — an online boutique specializing in chic baby gift baskets and other baby accessories.

Her web site’s sales tripled in just over two years, and she received several prestigious awards, including Yahoo! Top Merchant Award, Forbes Magazine Award, and the Golden Web Award. She quickly built up an impressive corporate client list, comprised of numerous Fortune 500 companies. Lynne is now able to work entirely from home. “Being able to have a career/profession from home gives me even more of a chance to successfully tackle the juggling act,” says Lynne, who has a son and daughter.

Joan Shelley, founder of the Oconomowoc, Wisconsin-based Knob Gallery — an online retailer of kitchen cabinet hardware, door hardware, and bathroom accessories is the mother of 8 children, ages 9 to 23, all of whom play an integral role in the business which features over 150,000 unique knobs, drawer pulls and other decorative hardware items. Knob Gallery’s sales grew by over 600 percent in the three years to about $1.5 million and have continued to soar.

You don’t even have to have a business or an area of expertise if you have a passion for something or someplace and want to share it with others.

Nori Evoy, at the age of 15 tapped into her love of Aruba to create Anguilla Beaches, a site she uses to generate substantial referral and finder’s fees by steering visitors to favorite spots or books to tell them more about this island. Now almost 19, Nori has generated more than her college tuition in income from the site. And Nori, incidentally, is not a techie. She relied on a pre- designed program to create her site and monetize it.

Patience and attention to detail are definitely part of this game. The good news is that if there are chores you don’t like and just don’t want to do – like managing your mailing list – you can hire a college student or even a high school student to do it for you once a month. At some point you may be able to get an intern to do it for nothing, just to learn the business.

Be prepared to take some time to develop a following of people who are attracted to what you are offering. To do this and to develop an income stream from your own business you may have to test many tools and products for your site and gradually build on your base. This could take six months to a year or more, depending on your energy and focus, the state of the economy and your specific industry and some other variables. In the end, however, if you stick with it, you can create your own successful personal business which can support you and your family. It will be an asset you own and someday can sell if you choose, although, as a steady source of income, it certainly might beat a rent house, in that it won’t need plumbing or repairs and you don’t have to get up in the middle of the night to take care of a tenant whose water line has broken or heat has gone off in the middle of a January snow storm.

Perks – You get to work from the comfort of your home, be your own boss and decide when you need to take off to put family first. The asset you are building will work for you, even when you’re sleeping, taking your kids to school, running errands or on vacation. In fact, you can work from anywhere. You can decide to winter in the sun and summer in the mountains if you want. More important, you are building your nest egg for a secure future

Potential – Like the global growth of the Internet the potential for growing your online business is huge.

How about you? Ever sold on the Net? Would you like to? Tell us about it. We’d like to hear from you.

Key Strategies For Successful Partnerships

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Victoria Colligan, co-founder and president of Ladies Who Launch on the Donny Deutsch Show discussing partnerships, how to consider and how to move on from partners and other advice for callers.

What did you think of Victoria’s advice? Do you agree? Do have experiences you’d like to share? Please write to us, we’d like to hear your thoughts

Art Of The Incremental: Start With Your Core Competency

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I’m all about the art of the incremental. For one thing, that’s what bootstrapping is and I am inveterate bootstrapper. I recommend it to you as well.

Entrepreneurs have been doing this for centuries: starting from where they are with what they’ve got and seeing what works. This is a time- tested process: if you want to start a business you do two things:

1. Analyze the true nature of your unique assets and core competencies to figure out how they can become a basis for a business.

2. Try small, low stakes testing in the actual marketplace to determine what actually works. Do more of what works and cut the losers. Keep doing low stakes testing and raise the ante on the winners. ( Didn’t I tell you my very successful father insisted I learn to play poker because it was like the game of business? It’s not about the cards you are dealt but how you place your bets. You fold on bad cards and quietly build the pot on the sure winning hands.)

As you practice the art of the incremental , you will be learning your business from the ground up and you will soon learn when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em. But, my advice, is to start small and build gradually

Author Diane Helbig has some helpful thoughts on this as well in Keep Your Message Simple | Small Business Trends. She says:

“No doubt you’ve heard the term ‘core competency.’ It refers to that which a company or person does best.

The best way to build a business is to start out offering only what you do best.

Why? For a couple of reasons:

It gives you one thing to focus on; to build a marketing message around.
It helps you define your target market – those people who need that thing.
It helps others land on who you are and what you offer.

In short, it provides clarity. It keeps you and your prospects from getting confused.

Too often small business owners try to offer everything under the sun. They think there’s value in being a one-stop shop and they’re afraid that if they don’t offer more things they’ll miss out on business.

Set yourself up for success by starting out simply. Focus on the thing you do best and market that product or service to that target market. Build your business from the foundation of your core competency.

Once you’ve established your company as a solid entity, you can add products or services and develop a menu of offerings. Be sure to add things that make sense – things that go along with your core product or service.”

How will you know what products or services to offer? Unless your customers have been asking for a particular product or service from you, you probably won’t know. You will have to rely on small scale testing. As someone once put it, “Starve the problems; feed the opportunities.” Or, take a close look, then, as my father would say, “Know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.”

Let us hear from you. Tell us your start up experiences. Have you learned “the art of the incremental”? How did you do it?”

How to Start an Online Business for $100 – Ramp Up As Needed Or Just For Surges

PC World – Business Center: How to Start an Online Business for $100.

These challenging economic times may be pushing you ever closer to the idea of launching your own business. Whatever your reasons……whether it’s a life long dream, or a type of insurance against massive slow down in your day job, or you’ve been pink slipped out of the 9 to 5 work force and have no choice…. starting your own business has never been easier or less expensive.

How to Start an Online Business for $100, lays out a plan, with specifics, step by step, just how to do this, covering just about every aspect that you need to consider. Having “been there, done that”, many, many times, as a serial entrepreneur, I think they make very good points. In the few instances I have a different take, I will point them out to you:

“Starting your own business doesn’t have to mean spending thousands of dollars on setup costs before you ever open your doors. Don’t get suckered into spending loads of money on services that you don’t need or that have far cheaper alternatives. Seriously: With $100, you can obtain everything you require to start just about any business online, with only minimal need to get up from your desk. Here’s how to do it.

Find an Affordable Web Host

The Web site for your new business has to reside somewhere. How do you pick a Web host that won’t leave you high and dry?

Most hosting plans for small companies offer similar features: basically unlimited storage space, support for common databases and publishing systems, and anywhere from a few gigabytes to 2 terabytes of data transfer per month. Expect to pay between $5 and $15 a month for the service, with a one- or two-year up-front contract.

Get Logos and Design Work

Numerous Web sites, such as Logo Ease and LogoMaker, will design a free logo for you based on options you set via a Web interface. The quality varies, but generally you can get the logo for free for online use. The services make money if you want to download the logo in EPS format, which is more suitable for printing on T-shirts and coffee mugs. A Web search for “free logo” will turn up dozens of additional alternatives.

Another, possibly better, approach is to seek out an independent designer to work on your logo. If you don’t need anything fancy, you can find someone to do the job for $50 or less through a simple Craigslist ad. The advantage is that you get to work with a live person (with genuine artistic skills) to create something unique for you rather than a cold, computer-generated logo. ( My advice: Later, when your business is roaring and cash is pouring in, you can splurge on a big time designer for your logo, which might cost a couple of thousand dollars. That’s what I did. I started out using a Matisse graphic of people holding hands around the globe since there were no online logo makers in 1995,1996. In 2001, I finally was able to go big time working alongside Lara August, branding guru and Creative Director of Robot Creative, an award-winning creative marketing firm in San Antonio, Texas to create our present brand.)

Build an E-Commerce Site on the Cheap

If you’re planning to sell a lot of physical goods, you’ll need a service that can handle e-commerce transactions, process credit cards, and provide security for both. Setting all of this up on your own server is an expensive, time-consuming task laden with security risks. ( Forget about it!) It’s best to outsource the functions to a hosted service targeted at merchants. Such services can be surprisingly affordable. Yahoo’s popular Merchant Solutions start at $40 a month. E-commerce sites at Netfirms start at a mere $15 a month. You can customize both extensively to match your desired look and feel.

Find a Big Sales Partner

Thousands of merchants use Amazon to promote their goods, giving Amazon a cut when items sell. The big advantage: You don’t need a Web site at all to sell there. You can sell just about anything that Amazon stocks by registering as a merchant, finding the product page for the item you’re selling, and clicking Sell yours here. Merchants must pay $40 a month, plus a sliding scale of closing fees (6 to 20 percent). Individual sellers can sign up to sell with no monthly fees but must pay an extra 99 cent closing fee.

You’ll find similar services (though less of a selection) at Half.com (part of eBay), and of course you can always try your hand at dealing on eBay itself, which is still a popular venue for selling new and used merchandise, though one drowning in noise.

Think SEO, All the Time

Don’t underestimate the value of optimizing your Web site for Google. But you don’t need to pay an expert thousands of dollars to optimize your site for you: Check out the expert advice from SEOmoz and other search engine optimization writers to learn the basics of SEO, and instill your site with good SEO habits from day one. It takes time for the engines to get to know your site, so be patient. (Just make sure you’ve submitted your URL to all of them!) ( My advice: If you use WordPress as a content management system you can get a free SEO plug in with the click of a mouse which will automate the entire process for you, so you won’t have to learn all the tech stuff, which is not so much hard as detailed and complicated. Keep it simple.)

Get Bonus Income With Google AdSense

Unless you’re selling physical merchandise, try adding Google AdSense ads to your site. You might pull in only a few dollars a month while your site is small, but that’s more than nothing–plus, it opens the door for bigger ad opportunities down the road. (Me: Besides, it gets you on Google’s radar.)

Constantly Promote Your Business

How do one-person businesses get big? They’re always promoting themselves–always. Add your URL to your e-mail signature. Create a Facebook group for your business. Write a about your product or industry.

Managing Your Growth, Scaling Up

Set Up a Switchboard

If you’re expecting a lot of incoming phone calls, an answering service might be worth the investment: You’ll seem more professional to customers, and you won’t be roused from bed at the crack of dawn by callers who don’t understand what time zones are.

You can have a live answering service (similar to the one your doctor uses) for $20 a month–or less, if you have minimal incoming calls. Another option is to do it virtually: For about $10 a month, you can get an 800-number-based system such as RingCentral that answers calls with an automated greeting, routing calls to you (or other employees or contractors) or to voice mail depending on button presses.

For a Little More: Get a Virtual Office

The world doesn’t need to know you’re working in your basement, so many business owners turn to a P.O. box for the official address of their company. A bare P.O. box, however, doesn’t seem all that professional, and you can’t receive UPS or FedEx shipments there.

Another option is a virtual mailbox service, such as that of Regus. With a virtual mailbox, you get a physical mailing address and someone who will sign for packages from other carriers. The catch is that people sending you mail still have to put a PMB code on the envelope, though it’s less conspicuous than with a regular post office box. You pick up the mail once a week, or the service forwards it to you at cost. The plans cost $100 to $150 per month.

You can step up from there to a more serious arrangement: A virtual office setup gets you not just mail service but a live receptionist who answers the phone however you like, plus access to a physical space with offices, conference rooms, and even videoconferencing facilities. Fees can range from $250 to $325 a month.

These costs are admittedly beyond our $100 budget, so consider whether you really need them before signing a contract. With so much business conducted online and via phone, you may never deal with visitors at all. ( My advice: Skip it. Should you ever need a conference room, you can rent one from an office company like Regus, or borrow one from a fellow entrepreneur in off hours. Most likely, in an online business you would be doing teleconferences or conferences online anyway, from your own computer.)

For a Little More: Offload Fulfillment and Shipping

Selling physical goods online often means long hours spent in your garage packing up orders to ship to buyers, and then standing in long lines at the post office to mail it all off. Another option exists, thanks to the wonders of e-fulfillment: You pay someone else to do all the inventory handling and order shipping for you. Fees can be pricey unless you have the volume to mandate it: Efulfillment Service costs $70 a month flat, along with $1.85 per order processed and $0.25 per cubic foot per month for inventory stored, plus actual shipping fees.

Alternatively, you could hire a student or other temporary help to do the work for you a few days a week, but you’ll still have to find somewhere else to park your car.

Behind The Scenes Technicalities

I think it’s important to know how complete this piece is, in case you want to go back to it for things you’re not contemplating now and use it for a reference. It also goes into some nuts and bolts things you may want to consider such as filing for an assumed name ( Jane Smith doing business as, dba, “Fashion Forward”), additional licenses you may need, depending on what business you’re in, what kind of bank account to use, and whether to incorporate — the author recommends keeping it simple, opening as a sole propriertor ship, then incorporating later, if you want. ( My advice: Just don’t forget to do it as you get successful so you will not be personally liable for issues relating to your business).

What was left out here, was where to find outsourced help, which you can find in the link below.

Now, that is really a very thorough road map of getting started for $100. If you have the burning interest, the drive and ambition that fuel an entrepreneurs rise, you will make it. We wish you the best. Write and tell us about your experiences so we can add them into our common well of shared knowledge.

Growth of Solo, Self-employed, Freelancers, Independent Contractor Businesses – How Do They Do It?
Does Your Logo Capture The Essence of Your Brand? If Not, It Should

Crunch Time – Prepare For the Business Credit Tsunami

Maria Bartiromo moderating a session at the World Economic Forum.

As we see the storm clouds gathering on the financial horizon it is a good time to brace your business for the economic fall out. I would break this down into 2 phases:
Preparation before the Tsunami
The most important advice for a business I learned long ago from a very successful entrepreneur who nearly went under several times, but each time convinced his board and investors to hang in and put in a little more money. He eventually sold his company to Pfizer. The product became Lubriderm. His advice: Never run out of cash. If you run out of cash, they take you out of the game.

So, when times get tough, as they are today, it’s a good time to get out the scalpel and make the tough choices necessary to cut costs. Here are some suggestions.

Keep overhead costs to a minimum. If you have a very expensive office and don’t have a long term lease consider scaling back or sharing office space, thereby splitting the costs. Many entrepreneurs and companies today don’t maintain an office at all and keep costs low with “virtual offices” and outsourced workers across the city or the globe.

Buy second hand. Scour estate sales, liquidations, sites like Overstock.com. Barter.

Forget support staff…. call don’t write… use your email…avoid paper.
Answer your own phone and dispense with calls in a few minutes.

Work until seven and eat a little later. You can do all your “support” chores after regular office hours.

Surviving the Tsunami Once It Washes Over You.

Swing into action the moment you start feeling the effects of the crisis and your back is against the wall. You must immediately communicate with everyone involved– whether vendors, associates or the general public —and tell them exactly what is happening and , at the same time, tell them the concrete, positive steps you are taking to correct things and restore a smooth running operation. Above all, communicate and keep communicating, particularly with your vendors who you want to keep on your side and empathetic with you. In a widespread economic shutdown where we’re all in the same boat they may be more sympathetic than you expect.
You may have to make decisions about which bills to pay and when. Remember, rent and utilities first.
You may even have to approach vendors about stretching out your payments. Don’t be timid or gloomy about approaching them. It won’t be the first time they’ve been approached about stretching out payments or working out a different payment arrangement unless this is their first day in business.

Remember: All business like all life is about change. This, too, will pass and good times will return.

Bootstrapping A Blog

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In Don’t Raise Money – Bootstrap A Niche Market Online , we talked about niche markets. Now, let’s look at bootstrapping that niche by taking that big leap and developing your own blog.

First, you will need to decide: what is your niche? You should zero in on the niche you believe you could excel in. If you are an expert or have special knowledge of some field or have a passion for something, start your blog on that. If you keep current, write well and with passion, update often and are open with your readers, you will find an audience.

My inspiration for a website topic, which later also evolved into a blog topic, was a study I was asked to do for the University of Texas at San Antonio business department. This was in 1994 and they had a lot of very rough, raw material ( like clippings from newspapers) which suggested men make more money than women, even when they own their own business. The term “glass ceiling” had only recently become part of America’s vocabulary and the phenomenon was just beginning to be explored.

It was at this time, in December of 1994, that Netscape introduced the graphical browser and opened up the rush to the Net.

I decided to combine my interest in writing about “leveling the playing field”, with my entrepreneurial drive to launch yet another business on the cutting edge of the newest frontier, which, in this instance was the Net. I knew I had the interest and the passion to sustain it.

So the question is, “What turns you on? What sets you on fire or gets your adrenalin pumped?” That will be your niche.

Step One: Carve out your niche and pick a catchy title that captures the essence of your blog. . Do some brainstorming and toss it around with your friends. Take a look at Ajaxwhois.com, a domain name finding software, to jump start your naming process.

Select A Blog Type

There are many different choices of blog types from journal blogs, to collaborative and topical blogs ( Chris Brogan‘s new group blog, OMGPittsburgh.com is both collaborative and topical ) and compilation of link blogs ( Alltop StartUp News is both a compilation of links and a topical blog although the startup business topic is very broad.) There are also photoblogs, which can be successful if you are good and prolific photographer and are articulate about the process and results. But whatever kind of blog you decide to develop, successful blogs find a niche and stick with it.

Marketability

The next consideration is to make sure the subject of your blog is marketable. Is there a large enough audience out there who might want to buy something from your site to assure you a cash flow, and ultimately, one which will sustain you?

There are a number of ways to generate revenue from your site but the results of each them will depend on how much traffic you are able to generate so….

First Goal: Generating Traffic ie. Building An Audience

The Process

Keep up to date and listen in to what’s going on, particularly on the Net, in your niche.

How to Write a Famous Blog offers the following advice:

“Look around the Internet for blogs you love. Read and post to them religiously. Leave a note that actually has something to do with their site so that they know you actually took the time for pay attention to the material posted; do not expect anything back in return. Just commenting will cause others to be more likely to visit your and do the same. Often when you make comments to sites a link to your own personal site will already be included with your comment, unless you are posting from one hosting site to the next. If you’re at ITW and you read a blog on Myspace then it would be appropriate to include such a link.
Build a network with other people in the blogosphere – make friends online. This is the best way to get readers and a great way to meet people you would otherwise never know.”

Gather your audience or your targeted demographic the particular people who are likely to be most interested in what you are writing about

“A good way to make a popular blog is to make other blogs popular. That is, visit, read, and thoughtfully comment on other people’s blogs. On most blogger sites, a link to your own blog will be automatically included in your comment. So the more blogs you post on, the more people will be driven to visit your blog. Of course, don’t just go on and post one-word spam, because that might keep people away.
Linking to other established or authority websites is also a good way to network and make yourself known in your niche, and other bloggers to share the “link love” with people who link to their site.”

Ways To Monetize Your Site

Whatever product or service you choose to sell, it should be tightly tied in with your theme or niche. That is how you are identified in search engines and links throughout the Net and why people are coming to visit your site. AdvancingWomen.com, for example, which focuses on women in business and careers, could probably not sell a single Red Sox baseball cap from its site. Not that there may not be women out there who are afficionadas of AdvancingWomen.com and also would like a Red Sox baseball cap, but that is not where they go to look for it. So stick to your niche when selling.

What AdvancingWomen.com can and does sell, however, and you can as well, is…

Advertising related to your demographic.

Google Adsense allows you to open an account and include their automated ad delivery which will be match your content. You also can find other ad delivery systems through Google.com, if you’re interested.

Product or Services related to your demographic. You can also Google for these. Bear in mind, you can select almost any product under the sun and sell as an affiliate through Amazon.com. You can also open your own storefront on Amazon.com.

Identifying a Well Matched Product Or Service For Your Demographic

To take a photoblog as an example, iStockphoto.com, the internet’s original member-generated image and design community, has changed the economic landscape of buying and selling photos online, ( see Crowdsourcing for details of this phenomenon). So you should take their pricing into consideration, when deciding what to sell from your site. You may want to sell camera equipment or other related items which have the advantage, for you, of being higher ticket items and therefore more profitable for you.

You can also identify various vendors like CafePress.com which allow you to sell personalized T-shirts, buttons, bags and other items.

As your audience grows, your ability to sell will grow and so will the number of vendors approaching you to sell their items. Be patient. Write well. And write every day. Success will follow.

Bootstrapping A Green Business

The Future: Hot, Flat, Crowded…… And Full Of Opportunity For A Green Business

Thomas Friedman, one of my very favorite authors, who wrote the game changing The World is Flat has written a new book Hot, Flat, and Crowded, which takes a broad view of conditions around the globe and points us to the future. In this instance, the sum of all Friedman says points us to the conclusion that, if we’re smart and capable, the best investment for someone starting out, and one with an unlimited upside and potential for growth, is a big investment in anything to do with clean technology and alternate energy technology.

BootStrapMe: Great bootstrap business ideas at BootStrapMe.com suggests, among 10 or so other practical ideas for bootstrapped businesses, the potential of going green with a Green business.

“Environmentally friendly businesses may be the perfect bootstrapped startup because they have a natural niche from which to build a customer base.

Consider Brilliant Earth, a business built around conflict free diamonds and renewed gold. Read more.

In this interview with Leah Edwards at Ecopreneurist, Brilliant Earth co-founder Beth Gerstein explains how the company was founded with little capital investment.

Additional thoughts on bootstrapping environmentally responsible of other ethically responsible products:
• Focus on selling. Many products from free range non-factory farmed meats to fair trade products are already available somewhere in the world. Focus your efforts on connecting buyers with sellers as Brilliant Earth did rather than on capital-intense production.
• Educate don’t advertise. Customers for ethically or environmentally responsible products will seek out and even pay extra for what they value as long as they know where to look and new customers can be developed simply by educating them about that value.
• Cash first is key. Finding customers first instead of purchasing inventory was a major part of Gerstein and Grossberg’s business model and a major departure from the industry they were entering, but the approach replaced costly risk with hard work.
• Raise awareness. Peter Thum, founder of ethos water links , which was bought by Starbucks in 2005, found that donating portions of his company’s proceeds to clean-water initiatives in impoverished communities worldwide was a natural selling point.
• Seek volunteers. Your higher ethical values may attract those passionate about your product, something Shelli Styles founder of Strappity-do-da, a company helping to raise women out of poverty in Columbia, found gave her a volunteer sales force in the early days.”

If any of this sounds like your cup of organic tea, then go for it! We wish you the best. And don’t forget to write and tell us how you’re doing.

Bootstrapping – What’s That?

Image by Angela Radulescu via Flickr

Starting Your Business: It All Boils Down To Making Money and Saving Money – Entrepreneurialism - AdvancingWomen.com

Bootstrapping in the context of business start-ups refers to the use of creative financing approaches such as leveraging personal savings, credit-card debt, loans from friends and family, bartering, and other means to launch a business. Some business founders use bootstrapping because they have no other choice. Just about anyone who has approached a bank has learned that “only established businesses need apply.” Bankers typically look for cash flow, assets, an established customer base, and a successful track record on the part of the business that is seeking a start-up loan. Obviously, this is a short list that is impossible to fulfill when you are just getting started.

Bootstrappers develop their knowledge and personal skill-sets and use their abilities as a substitute for cash. There’s also a certain satisfaction that comes from becoming more self-sufficient. After being confronted with a contractor’s very expensive building renovation estimate to convert a retail space and make it suitable for a bookstore, one start-up entrepreneur and her husband reacted by visiting a local home improvement store. A few home improvement books, a sledge hammer, and a reciprocating saw allowed these nascent entrepreneurs to save thousands, and she said it was actually fun knocking down walls! “It’s a great stress reducer.”

The entrepreneurial couple also acquired a set of simple plans for bookcases, courtesy of the book distributor who would become the store’s supplier, and built 100 bookcases themselves in production-line fashion for $40.00 each, as compared to an original estimate of over $200.00 each. Then the book distributor stocked their store and provided generous repayment terms. The savings the couple amassed through techniques such as those above allowed them to whittle down what had been a two hundred thousand dollar start-up estimate to the cost of a typical mid-priced car, an amount they could afford as a result of several years of saving to start their business.

Simply put, there are only two basic methods employed by bootstrappers: 1) finding ways to gain control of resources, and 2) using what they can get their hands on effectively. In other words, it all boils down to making money and saving money (inflows and outflows). There are some important considerations in choosing a business model that is amenable to bootstrapping. Start-up entrepreneurs without capital should think seriously about selecting a business that entails compensation prior to the delivery of a product or service. For example, consulting, mail order, or a niche oriented Internet business; all of these examples do not require a significant infrastructure or capital outlay. Other options could be an agency or brokerage-type business: if you can connect a party who needs to sell, with a party who needs to buy, with a profit margin for you as a go-between, you just might have a viable business model.

By trading on skills, bootstrappers can also band together to stretch limited dollars. For example, cohabitation could create a very logical arrangement: a desktop publisher, a photographer, a publicist, and a small ad agency might do well by sharing an office space. The possibilities are virtually endless for a creative thinker.

Author, Dr. Robert Lahm is the founder of several businesses and Web sites, an entrepreneurship professor, a public speaker, and a writer EntrepreneurshipClearinghouse.com.

Don’t Raise Money – Bootstrap A Niche Market Online

This is the third in a series on financing your business. But this time we’ll discuss starting small, counting your pennies, inching your way up, (commonly called “boot strapping”, pulling yourself up by your boot straps) until you are making a profit.

Entrepreneur Martha Stewart Image via Wikipedia

One way to do this, with low barriers to entry, ie. not much money to start, is to launch an online business in a niche market. Many entrepreneurs are willing to risk their careers and their homes and work until they drop in order to own their own business. The problem is there are a lot of really big players with billion dollar pocket books chasing the same markets. What to do? One answer is to think small, or at least smaller. Consider a “niche” market.

Defining Your Niche

First you have to discover what your niche should be. One way to approach this is to zero in on what niche you would excel in, which would make the most of your own special knowledge and talents. Just as Martha Stewart started by baking and catering out of her home kitchen and with a flair for elegant living, not to mention superhuman drive and perfectionism, and Debra Fields’ had her cookie recipe, you probably have your own unique talents, interests and aptitudes,if you look deep enough. It may be found in your ability with graphics, or your talent for getting an office organized or inspiring people to join your project. Being smart about specific,marketable things has value; it is “the raw material from which financial results are produced”. Taking a hard,objective look at yourself, assembling a knowledge and skills inventory, allows you to find your particular niche, something you do better even than others in your same field. It is a way of narrowing and refining your niche so you can focus on only those things you do best and know more about than those around you. This should tell you also what niche market you should target.

Sometimes this happens in a more evolutionary way. You set up a dot com on the Net to sell books and the next thing you know, Amazon.com turns into Godzilla, about to stamp you under his giant foot. Do you stand there, stare Amazon.com in the eye and go head to head in combat? You do no such thing. You think through your best niche and move a step in that direction. Let’s say you start marketing rare old books. If Amazon.com moves in that direction, you start marketing rare old books on Texana, a quite profitable business, believe it or not. In other words, you keep moving another step away from the center of the market. And eventually you’ll find a niche which is too small for Amazon.com but may be specialized enough so that it requires considerable expertise for entry. And that’s what you have to dig deep into yourself to find… the area you can execute better than most people, a market too small for the giants, but extremely profitable, perhaps because you have the field almost to yourself.

Using the niche concept, you have positioned yourself for success. Build a reputation and the giants may even send people your way for products they don’t stock.

And there are other benefits in a niche market business model:

Financing

You won”t need as much money.

After you’ve exhausted the savings you’ve set aside to sustain you in the beginning, hit on your family and friends first, just not too much. You want to be able to look your mother or your sister in th eye when you go other to holiday dinners.

Don’t try to play with the big boys too soon. Prove up one part of your plan at a time. Start small, keep building, look good before you go to your bank or your first real investor.

(See
Start Your Own Small Business Using More Ingenuity, Less Cash

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Tag Archives: entrepreneur

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Art Of The Incremental: Start With Your Core Competency

Crunch Time – Prepare For the Business Credit Tsunami

Bootstrapping A Green Business

Bootstrapping – What’s That?

Don’t Raise Money – Bootstrap A Niche Market Online

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