Tag Archives: start up business

What It Means To Take Charge Of Your Work Life

Economy of American Samoa
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You may wonder why I write so much about bootstrapping and entrepreneuring?

I’m passionate about jobs and careers as well.  But I think we can all agree, jobs are dependent on someone giving you one.  And also, keeping you in it.  What I want you to realize is that you can create a job for yourself that no one can take away from you.  You can start your own business and employ yourself.

We all have to agree the job news is bleak and appears to be darkening:

New York based Employment Trends Index reports:“The U.S. economy has lost 1.9 million job and the declines in the index suggest job losses could very well surpass 3 million by mid-2009.” Business Journal adds “The report comes on the heels of Friday’s report from the Labor Department that said the economy shed 533,000 jobs in November — the largest monthly decline since December 1974. That brought the year’s total job losses to 1.9 million.” Economists also predict a decline in job pay.

Given the state of the economy, we all know some things we should be doing or trying to do: paying down our credit card debt; building a cash cushion. Although, for some of us, stretched like a rubber band to the breaking point as it is, that may be easier said than done.

But there are other alternatives:  I’ve heard of some people taking on other, easier to get 2nd, part time jobs like delivery services or even throwing newspapers ( make that last a really short term fix as newspapers themselves are shrinking daily.)

Now, however, might be the perfect moment to start your own business.  It can be after hours, after your day job, to start out.  Think of it as a life raft, in case your boat ( your main day job) sinks.

We wrote about this cross roads before in A Fork In The Road: Career Path Or Entrepreneurship. One of the things we mentioned was how this could be such a wrenching decision, as you would be giving up so much security.  Forget that.  At this moment, everyone’s job outside of civil service, possibly teaching and a few other fields is about as stable as a slinky, headed down 5 flights of stairs…. you never know where it might land up, or when it will either cascade or fall to the bottom.  So there really may not be much holding you back from starting up a 2nd revenue producing machine, in the form of your own business.

We’ve already reviewed with you how you can do this.  I’ve done it.  Many times.  So can you.

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

Start Your Own Small Business Using More Ingenuity, Less Cash

But, what I would like you to take away from this is that you have the power to create your own work situation, one that no one can take away from you.  You can do this in a way that you have several streams of income. ( This blog for example, and the website it’s on, have income from advertising, from a job board and from advising other companies and associations about setting up their websites and online businesses and helping them execute on them.)  That way, for example, if jobs are down, ads may be maintaining steady.  If both are down, and you’ve established an expertise, you can sell that as a service.  A going website has many potential ways to produce revenue.  And so does a going business.  You may have to take off the blinders, use your imagination and ingenuity, shift with the times and sell apple butter instead of apples, but that’s part of life as well as business.  At least you will have a platform from which to maintain your revenues, in one form or another.

Think about it.  Think of it as a life raft which you can build in your after hours time. You may need it sooner than you hope.

If you have work survival stories you’ve like to share, we’d love to hear them. Comment, please.

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BootStrapMe: Tips for the serious bootstrapper

A pair of boots with one bootstrap visible.

BootStrapMe: Tips for the serious bootstrapper.

Just in case you’re not familiar with the term, Wikipedia to the rescue: bootstrapping or booting which began as a leather strap evolved into a group of metaphors that share a common meaning, to better oneself by one’s own unaided efforts, or a series of self-sustaining processes that proceed without external help.

Sound familiar?  If it sounds very familiar, you may be a bootstrapper.  I have bootstrapped a number of businesses so it’s a very familiar term to me.

Shawn Hessinger, who is a bootstrapper himself, is also a blogger and journalist who spent years covering business issues. Then he decided to dive off the deep end, become an entrepreneur and blog about his adventures. He shares some hard won knowledge, which might be helpful to you, if you are considering bootstrapping or are already in the thick of it.

“Once the wave of exuberance over starting a new bootstrap business passes giving way to a lot of hard work accompanied by occasional disappointment, it’s time to take some serious stock…

• Take criticism seriously. Though it’s the part that NOBODY wants to deal with, the fact is criticism can be your best friend, if you learn to read it correctly. Learn to draw inspiration from your customers’ complaints to build a better product by knowing the difference between things you can change, things you can’t and what requests are just unreasonable.

• Treat your startup like a job. You would think this would be obvious to anyone. But, if the reason you became an entrepreneur is so you wouldn’t have to do it, it’s time for some unpleasant facts. Behind all the supposed glamour that comes with owning your own business, there’s just a lot of plain old fashioned effort. Think of it this way. The only difference between work you do for your startup and what you do for an employer is the person who owns what is built by that labor in the end.

• Reinvent yourself daily. There will be things that don’t work and paths that lead to no where. The benefit of bootstrapping is that while you have no money, you also have no constraints. With no one looking over your shoulder to tell you, ‘That’s not how you do it,’ finding the right equation may be easier.

• Focus on problem solving. Most business goals can be better seen as a series of challenges to overcome or problems to be solved than as the pursuit of a single and constant goal. Break your startup into challenges and set priorities for what must be done. With each problem you solve you will find others arising. Keep the process going and you will slowly inch toward your goal…often almost without realizing.

• Never give up. Never surrender. … There are days you will feel like throwing in the towel. Remember, very few things are an immediate success. Persistence is key in the end.”

To read this entire post or more of Shawn’s blogging, go to BootStrapMe: Tips for the serious bootstrapper.

You may also want to consider these suggestions by

Esther Dyson,  who gave some advice to Bambi Francisco CEO, co-founder , Vator TV, Inc. (Owner) in Esther Dyson: Feign smarts by listening more

Dyson is “widely regarded as an Internet/high-tech luminary, thought leader, and respectable investor, having put money in some of the hottest startups, such as Flickr and del.icio.us (both part of Yahoo), and more recently 23andMe, which is backed by Google.

In this “Lessons learned” segment, Esther offers her advice to entrepreneurs and lessons learned to investors.

Her first is to listen. “Whatever the context, people will think you’re smarter,” she said.

The second is to be focused and not be distracted. “More companies die of indigestion,” she said. “Pick one opportunity and do it well, rather than do five or six things badly… opportunities will always be there.”

The third one is “always make new mistakes.”

Hopefully, we can all focus in, listen to Dyson, and try to only make new mistakes

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Bootstrapping A Blog

Image representing Blogger as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

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.


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Is Your Business Fundable Or Is It Viable – There’s A Difference

Ok.  I’m going to offer a mini-series today on raising money for your business.  I’m not going to do it alone. I’m going to call on some experts to come into the room and help explain this.  I understand some of this may be a bit esoteric if you’re not out there trying to raise money from venture capitalists.  But I think it is extremely helpful anyway, because anyone who goes into business will need to raise money and keep raising it for a good while until you pass that magic threshold when the business is self sustaining.  So, here’s Guy Kawasaki ( and if you’re short on time, I suggest you at least watch the first video where Guy sums up 5 main points.)

How to Change the World: The Art of Raising Venture Capital – Guy Kawasaki

Guy says “These videos are my recent attempt to explain the art of raising venture capital. They are part of the Montgomery & Hansen online learning site and conference. For example, to learn about financing agreements and the term-sheet process, click here.

Click on these links for up-to-date information about venture capital, startups, and pitching.

For more go to:

The Cold, Hard Facts About Business Plans, Elevator Pitches And VC Presentations
Family, Fools and Friends, Seed Stage, Angels and VCs – Where the Money Comes From

Or buy Amazon.com: Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition: Guy Kawasaki: Books.

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Tips for Incubating your Small Business Idea While Still Working Full-Time

Tips for Incubating your Small Business Idea While Still Working Full-Time

Have you considered starting a business while still employed?

My Shanghai-born friend, Annie, says the Chinese have a term for this: “riding in the big boat while carrying the little boat.”

Some entrepreneurs only launch their business officially once they leave employment. However, they incubate the business concept while employed.

Other times, they actually launch the business and run it on the side while still employed. They may continue to run it as a side business for a period of months or even years. Only later do they leave their jobs.

No matter how you do it, I’ve got 6 practical tips for starting a business while you’re still employed:

1. Consider Your Employer Your Banker
I am a huge fan of bootstrapping a business, i.e., using personal money to fund growth. One form of using personal funds is to set aside a portion of your salary to fund your business. That means you need to protect your funding source — your job — until you are ready to cut the cord.

2. Write a Business Plan
Sure, much of your plan will turn out to be incorrect (same goes for most startup business plans). But it’s not the plan that’s important … it’s the planning.

3. Get your Spouse’s Buy-In
Your husband or wife needs to be committed to your startup. If it isn’t a shared dream, or if your spouse is resentful of the time you are spending away from family, you’re adding stress on your relationship.

4. Choose the Right Business
If you are planning on running your business on the side for several months or years while still employed – it’s especially important to start the right kind of business. You’ll need a business where you can set your own hours. You may also need a business that allows you to hire outside service providers or contractors who are literally working on your business while you are at your job.
5. Set Aside Dedicated Schedule for Your Startup
In my experience, the biggest challenge you will have during the incubation is sticking with it and finding time. I’ve known budding entrepreneurs speak about going home to “start the second shift.” That’s exactly how you have to think of it. Commit to spending X hours per weekday and/or on weekends on your business. Stick to a regular schedule – it makes it easier.
6. Turn Your Employer Into Your First Customer
Think of your employer as your first big sales target (assuming your product or service is relevant to your employer). Many a business has gotten off to a great start when the owner’s former employer became the first customer.

Now – off to your startup, and good luck!

By Anita Campbell, writer, speaker and radio talk show host who closely follows trends in the small business market at her site, Small Business Trends.

Plan B for Fund Raising – Guy Kawasaki

Plan B for Fund Raising – Guy Kawasaki, serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist

AdvancingWomen believes, for most people, this is how you actually get it done..how you are actually able to put the odds and momentum on your side and get your business launched.

  • Step 1: You dig, scratch, and claw yourself to $100,000 of funds from your friends and family. Maybe you work as a YCombinator company. You take no salary. You live with your parents, and you keep your day job at Microsoft. You hope your spouse doesn’t get laid off. You have no office, but work virtually and meet your co-founders at Starbucks if you have to. Everything you use is Open Source or shareware.
  • Step 2: Rather than trying to boil the ocean (”the mobile sector”), you boil a tea kettle. Rather than paying to attend high-end conferences, you hang out in the lobbies of the hotels where the events are and meet the same people for free. Rather than hiring a PR firm, you suck up to bloggers and hope they cover your product. Rather than buying booth space, you get on Twitter and use it to gain a reputation for your product.
  • Step 3: You’re late with your product too (because everyone is late), but you’re not burning $250,000/month, and you don’t have to tell increasingly greater lies at monthly board meetings. Finally, you release your prototype. TechCrunch covers your release because you wrote Mike Arrington a compelling one-paragraph message that you sent on a Friday afternoon because you know he reads email on weekends.
  • Step 4: This is where the miracle occurs–lo and behold, people like your product. (Truly, miracles have to occur whether you’re bootstrapping or venture-capital funded. It’s just that if you’re bootstrapping, there’s more time for the miracle to happen, and a smaller miracle suffices.) Month to month, you’re showing 10-15% growth, and monetization, praise God, has started.
  • Step 5: Now you have options. First, you can contact venture capitalists with a company that’s already shipping to raise capital to expand your business. This is a very different discussion than raising capital to build a product. Second, you can continue to bootstrap and grow by using your cash flow. Three, you can pick up the phone and agree to meet with Google, Yahoo!, Fox Interactive, or any other company that has noticed you.

Many readers of this blog are not tech entrepreneurs, but the merits of Plan B are the same for almost any type of business. You can try Plan A as long as you realize that the hard work begins after you raise venture capital, and you will need a bigger, faster miracle to make everyone happy. Or, you can just believe me: “Plan B, don’t leave home without it.”

If anyone know this process from both sides, as an entrepreur who’s started many sucessful companies and as a funder who listens to hundreds of business plans, it’s Guy Kawasaki.  And most important, you can trust him.  He’s on your side.

3 Startup Lessons I Know Now, But Wish I’d Known Then | Small Business Trends

3 Startup Lessons I Know Now, But Wish I’d Known Then | Small Business Trends.

By Anita Campbell

After you’ve been in business a few years you look back.  Suddenly everything is so obvious.  Too bad all those things that seem so clear now, were not so clear then, when you were living through the early years of your startup.

The longer I stay in business, the more I realize what I DON’T know.  But let me share 3 lessons that could have saved me a lot of expense and time:

(1)  Offer smaller-ticket items that sell quickly. Consultants and service providers often make this mistake.  They offer services that cost thousands of dollars, require a huge commitment from customers, and lengthen the sales cycle.  Then their cash flow suffers.  Instead, make it easy for customers to buy or hire you for something that doesn’t require a huge commitment.  You need to prime the pump at first!

Along those lines, here are some techniques that will help you do that — for both service providers and product companies:

  • Offer at least one smaller service that costs $100 to $300 – Prospective customers will want to “try you out.”  They are testing you to see if they like working with you, how well you perform, etc.   When you offer small ticket items, you give them that option to try you without a big risk.
  • Publicize firm prices – .
  • Systematize your business — One of the reasons I was unable to set firm prices is that I did not have my processes systematized.  Every service, every deliverable was a “new adventure. ” And it should not have been. I should have been able to say that to do X  project I would follow a defined set of steps that would take X hours.  I strongly recommend writing down the steps that you do for each service you offer.  Only then can you analyze and establish systems. ( AdvancingWomen.com is a firm believer in a systems approach for business.  There is a saying that it takes a genius to figure out the first time what anyone can do later with a clear plan and system to guide them. Spend your energy figuring out the system not dealing with improvized solutions to moment by moment problems.  Save yourself the the big events…big sales, big crises, big deals.)
  • Create one free or loss leader product –(That’s how the big boys do it.)

(2) Don’t waste money on expensive marketing UNTIL you’ve figured out your offering and your brand. Notice I didn’t say “Don’t waste money on marketing” period.  I think marketing is crucially important.  But first things first.  Figure out what business you are in first.

A startup is like a maze.  You go down one path, only to be met by a dead end.  So you backtrack until you find an open path.   It’s only after we get some initial successes and customer feedback that we learn what we really should be offering, and what customers value from us.

So think in terms of “starter marketing” at first — here are examples:

  • Brochures and business cards – Instead of printing thousands of dollars worth of brochures and business cards, create them on your desktop computer using templates you can find on the Web, or in programs like PowerPoint, Word or Publisher.  Pint small runs on a good quality printer.  Or,  go to Staples, OfficeMax or Kinko’s to get short runs printed.
  • Logos — Instead of spending tons of money on a logo, use text at first.  Or commission a “starter” logo.  Don’t spend more than a few hundred dollars at first.  You can always overhaul it later.
  • Website – Instead of building an expensive $10,000 website from the get go, get yourself a domain name and start a blog at the domain.  Bolt on a few pages about your business.  Six months after you get the blog going, you can better figure out what you really need and can invest in a kick-butt, professional website.  The process of working with a Web designer will go smoother later on, too –  clearer needs, less wasted time.

(3)  Integrate technology deeply into your business. A while back a study came out (that I can no longer find), showing that a higher percentage of successful small business owners were geeks and early adopters.  As I recall it showed that these successful small business owners devoted time to learning about technology, and saw technology as a key competitive advantage.

Yada yada yada — I know, you’ve heard it before about embracing technology.  Well, let me offer three specific ways I wish I had embraced technology much earlier in my business career:

  • Taken a class in programming — I wish early on I had taken a class to learn some — any — programming language.  Not so I could program, but so that I could (1) communicate better with programmers and (2) understand the limits — and possibilities — of software.  You can’t run a business today without using software, so you’re better off knowing a little something about what’s under the hood.
  • Replaced lingering fears or resistance to new technology with action – Sometimes we build up in our minds an unreasonable fear or resistance to technology.  We won’t upgrade because we “heard” something was confusing.  Or we resist trying something new because we fear it will take too much time to implement.  Been there, done that.   Don’t spend mindshare worrying about such stuff.  Jump right in and act.  Every time you catch yourself thinking something fearful, replace it with a technology action step.  Worrying is not doing.  Do.
  • Jumped in with baby steps – I’m a big fan of incrementalism.  Start small.  Build step by step.  I only wish I had  done more of that when it comes to technology, instead of holding off the big projects. Examples:  Improve one page of your website, rather than waiting 6 months until you find the time and money to re-do the entire site.  Or go to electronic billing — don’t hold off thinking that you should automate your entire payables and receivables process.  It may be years before you can get to such a large project.  Meanwhile, you’ll benefit from the smaller steps you take.

AdvancingWomen.com agrees.  The more you understand how technology overlays your business, the more you use it to make tasks easier, less expensive, and to reach more people the more successful and profitable your business will be.

Create a Life Plan: 10 Steps to Open for Business

Create a Life Plan: Step 10 Steps to Open for Business.

Here are the steps, which are meticulously detailed, with videos, by following the links: