• Pick 3 blogs you like.
• Post 3 things you like about each one (on the 1st day of every month.)
• Post 1 tip for each one.
• Contact Easton Ellsworth to let him know you’ve participated – since Blogtipping is his baby.

In January I asked you to suggest some of the best entrepreneurship blogs. Just to be safe, I asked twice. There were plenty of great submissions, but digging around I decided to highlight 3 that you might not have noticed, but are worth a second look.

Blog #1: Ready Fire Aim (feed) by Bill D’Alessandro

• I love the look of Bill’s blog – ultra clean and simple. The “handwritten” font at the top is a nice, personal touch.
• Bill provides a nice balance of entrepreneur and technology content, although I’d love to see more entrepreneurial-related stuff to what he’s doing with Groupvine.
• The del.icio.us links at the bottom are a nice touch. I don’t typically notice these on other blogs, but at least two of those posts caught my eye.

Tip: I guess I already made my tip – write more, and write more about what you’re learning as an entrepreneur.

Blog #2: Startup Princess (feed) by Kelly Anderson

• Most posts are short and to the point. It’s a good approach for Kelly’s audience, and it means there’s little time wasted reading her blog. Plus, Kelly’s tapping into a big network of women entrepreneurs to bring you their ideas and advice as well.
• Kelly has a refreshing style that adds some brevity and fun to the lessons she’s sharing.
• Kelly focuses on actionable things you can do to help your business. Here are a couple examples: Risk Calculations and Medidate, Get Inspired and Record Your Entrepreneur Experiences.

Tip: Put a feed link front and center at the top of the sidebars. Use of the big orange buttons that you see on so many sites. This is going to help people and encourage them to subscribe.

Blog #3: Diary of a Startup (feed)

• They’re out there networking and making connections – using the Web to draw attention and benefit others. Things like interviews and hosting carnivals are a great way to generate some buzz and contribute to the community.
• Lots of practical advice and guidance from people living the startup life.
• A simple, clean design that focuses on the content and not much else.

Tip: Who are you guys? Why isn’t there an ABOUT page? And a generic CONTACT email hurts my feelings somehow. I want to contact people, not generic email inboxes. My only other tip would be to blog more often (we want more content!) and throw in some shorter posts.

That’s it for this edition of blogtipping about entrepreneurship…I hope you enjoy these blogs, participate on them and keep on coming back!

Don’t forget how much I love your attention! If you like what you’re seeing, please subscribe to the feed via RSS or email.

Post from: EveryJoe

Blogtipping My Way Around the World of Entrepreneurship Blogs

The combination and mix of writing is what makes the Carnival so interesting.

A couple notes:

1. Please continue to support the Carnival by linking to this post (especially if your article appears below) or link to the index page of Carnivals where I list them all. Each week I get quite a few new submissions, which means people are posting about it and taking notice.
2. Next week (February 7th), the Carnival of Entrepreneurs hits the road and visits Laura at The Dragon Slayer’s Guide to Life. Laura’s site is not about Dungeons & Dragons; she’s a life coach and entrepreneur and has been featured in the Carnival a few times. To submit for next week’s Carnival, visit the blog carnival page. Submissions should end up going directly to Laura.

Without further ado…

Carnival of Highlights

• John Ingrisano has 10 Ways to Beat Business Burnout. There are some great tips in there, things we probably know but don’t focus on or implement. No business in the bedroom, eh? My personal favorites: #2, #5, #8 and #9 (this one is a home run for me.)
• Charles Greene is tired of people empowering themselves when they’re incompetent. Using Americal Idol as an example, and explaining why we all love it (I don’t watch it, honestly) and why it works as a business, Charles breaks down the “I believe in myself” mumbo jumbo. What do you think?
• Jeffrey Tsai recounts the story of his father, the entrepreneur. Jeffrey’s dad worked very, very hard to achieve the success he has, but the result is a son that treats him like a stranger, and a difficult (albeit comfortable from a “possessions” perspective”) life. Jeffrey – entrepreneurs DO work hard, but it’s not just about working hard and never seeing your family. I recently heard Guy Kawasaki speak and he flat out said, “I chose my family over work.” And he’s insanely successful. It is possible.

Practical Advice and Ways to Succeed for Every Entrepreneur

• Robert looks at some ideas on building a web startup on a budget. Specifically, a low budget. It’s a good reminder of how it is possible to start a business with minimal investment. There’s a great tip on how to use lawyers in there too!
• GP reminds us that it’s the small things in life and business that often make a difference. Free WiFi at a B2B is a great way of standing out from the crowd. I can’t stand it when a hotel doesn’t offer free WiFi, it’s just plain silly.
• Mike Buckley tells us that Houdini was the best marketer ever. He knew his audience, leveraged local media and was always working on new, more extravagant tricks. We could learn a lot from Houdini – about magic, and business.
• Wayne Hulbert presents Facing Disappointment: When Plans Go Astray. Like failures or speedbumps or whatever you want to call them, disappointments will happen in business. Quite frequently in fact. How you handle those disappointments and learn from them will seriously determine future success.
• Emmanuel Olawutosin reminds us that starting a business means knowing how to manage it. Entrepreneurs are very often “idea people” – which is great. But often success or failure is in the details, in the operations, in the management.
• Michelle Cramer asks Are You Using Your Business Cards? They’re a great networking tool, designed properly and used frequently, so don’t forget them in your desk drawer.
• Stephanie is turning one idea into three with a 3-part series on interviews. Entrepreneurs are not going out and doing job interviews, but if you’re out there getting service contracts, you’re basically doing an interview. Sales can be considered an interview as well, so there’s a lot of value in understanding how to do a good interview.

A Pinch of Inspiration Please

• Alexander Tretjakov presents Balance Your Life With a Feng Shui Cleanse. De-clutter. Let go. And gain some balance. I’m all for it.
• Wendy Piersall asks Why Do Entrepreneurs Need Inspiration? It’s a good reminder that entrepreneurs can’t stay motivated 100% of the time, we need a kick in the pants every so often, and it’s important too.
• Craig Harper is talking about his own personal failures in business and there’s some great lessons and examples in there of what it takes to succeed. Here’s the last line of his post, “Show me a person who’s never failed and I’ll show you a person who’s never done anything.”
• John Peter feels that too few people take the risks to succeed. John sees that a lot of people want to make more money and do more things, they think up ideas, plan, and even start organizing things but they don’t follow through. And that’s the difference between the people that succeed and those that don’t.
• Debra Moorehead asks What Would Your Future Self Be Doing Right Now? Imagine your future self as a way of getting things done today and succeeding. Hhhm…my future self is doing a lot of very interesting things. Many of them involve vacationing on a Caribbean island. No, wait…Hawaii. Anyone have a house in Hawaii my future self could use?
• Alan offers up The Path of the Rebel and includes 10 ways to look at things that are completely opposite of what the masses might be thinking. Entrepreneurs are typically considered rebels (and occasionally miscreants) so this is right up our alley.

More Food For Thought

• Daniel Scocco wonders if the porn industry will affect innovation when it comes to Sony’s Blu-Ray and Toshiba’s HD-DVD formats. The porn industry is recognized as a leader in technology – influencing the up-take of VHS and certainly of many Web-related technologies as well.
• Nickel presents Renting a Post Office Box, which might be a good idea for your business, and it’s not terribly expensive either.
• Sagar Satapathy says To Win Customers, You Need Cross-Channel Retail Environment. The idea behind a cross-channel retail environment is to meet the growing demands of customers who want to shop anywhere (retail store, online, etc.) and manage their purchases through any of the options. A good example – buy something online, and pick it up in the store. Retail outlets are still dealing with the challenges involved.
• Matthew Paulson asks Does Your Hourly Wage Really Matter? It’s an interesting analysis, but I would say this — it does. At the end of the day you want the highest hourly wage possible. While I agree with Matthew when he says, “don’t just quit the low-paying job cause you’d probably spend that time sitting around watching TV,” I think the point isn’t to quit the low-paying gig, but to find one that’s better paying. One of the worst things an entrepreneur can do is de-value his/her time.
• Vihar Sheth is inspired by companies going green and getting rich. He’s referring to a recent Business 2.0 article about 8 companies tackling 8 environmentally-related problems and profiting as well. Socially-conscious enterprises that can make money as well will be huge parts of our global economy over the next few years.

The Wacky Web and Ways to Succeed

• Corey reminds us that it’s not easy to make money blogging but it is possible. Great content, catchy post titles and marketing will help.
• Chris has four suggestions for your contact form lead responses via email. When you’re sending email to a lead, don’t waste the opportunity. I particularly like the idea of upselling.
• Tom points out that Hilary Clinton is using Yahoo Answers in her campaign. This is interesting on a few levels – politics are certainly changing with the Internet, and there are lessons here for how businesses can leverage the Internet as well.
• Jeff Burkey introduces us to a new tool called Ziggs.com. Jeff describes it as MySpace meets Microsoft Outlook for grownups. It’s another social network that’s looking to connect people through their work and play.

Conclusion

That’s it for another great Carnival. Take a look, click around, read, participate and enjoy!

Next week’s Carnival is on February 7th…see you there!

Post from: EveryJoe

The 8th Carnival of Entrepreneurs

I’ve admired Ian’s work for years – he’s active in the software development community and outspoken on how he believes software companies should be built to succeed.

I hope you’ll all find the interview interesting. We jump around quite a bit – from software development to marketing to entrepreneurship. For those of you developing software applications, this is going to be of particular interest.

Interview Highlights

• You should notice how much of Ian’s time is spent not coding. He’s not just creative when it comes to building HelpSpot, he’s also got his eye on how to market, promote and generate buzz.
• Ian suggests some great resources for people developing their own software products.
• Ian’s very open with what he’s trying to accomplish, his successes and his current frustrations and challenges.

And Now – The Interview!

1. Please give us some quick background on what you do. How did you get into starting your own business? What were you doing before?

For some time I’d been considering starting my own business. Before UserScape I had worked at a startup called Active Learning Technologies, which was eventually sold to Pearson Education. That gave me a taste of startup life and got me really thinking about starting my own someday. After Pearson I worked at a small college in upstate New York, where their mainframe based help desk application started me thinking in the direction of a help desk application.

2. You run what’s called a MicroISV. How do you define that? What do you see as the pros and cons of running a MicroISV?

Well a MicroISV would generally be defined as a one person startup who’s self funded and normally working from home. I think it’s important to realize that a MicroISV is really more of a current state rather than a permanent label. At some point successful MicroISV’s will become something else as the business grows and evolves.

In general the pros of starting out in this format are many. First, being self funded means you don’t need to answer to anyone but yourself. You can take the company in any direction you see fit. The emphasis on low startup costs also make becoming profitable much easier. For instance, my product was profitable in its first month. This trait also greatly increases your likelihood of success since you can become profitable much more quickly than a traditional startup.

On the downside, it’s all on you. You’re not going to start out with a team of people to help design, develop and support the product. You need to do all that on your own. Personally I find it very rewarding, but it’s not for everyone.

3. Do you think there are any differences between MicroISV owners and other entrepreneurs?

For the most part no, but I do think MicroISV owners are sometimes more willing to think smaller. What I mean is that I’m happy making a solid living. I don’t have to be famous, I don’t need to someday have a staff of 50 to feel like the business was a success. Not that all entrepreneurs feel this way, but when I have the opportunity to interact with other entrepreneurs I find they’re often very focused on venture funding, building out the business, having midtown office space and so on. Most MicroISVs are very happy if they can replace their day jobs, make more money than they were before, and improved their quality of life.

4. What are some of the best resources out there for people who want to start MicroISVs, or are already running one?

I’d definitely recommend Bob Walsh’s book, Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality. There’s a ton of useful information in there along with many interviews of MicroISVs (myself included.)

Other great resources include the Business of Software Forum, OISV Forums and Planet MicroISV.

5. What are your top 5 pieces of advice to people who want to start MicroISVs?

I wrote an article on this some time back. A short summary of that article is:

1. Pick a large, but fragmented market. You want a big market with lots of money out there, but without one dominant player. You don’t want to go up against Microsoft, Google or Yahoo. The upside of this is that there are lots of little niches for you to fit into. It also gives you an advantage because there’s no gold standard. Potential customers who are evaluating your product don’t have a gold standard product to compare it against and that’s in your favor, especially in the beginning.
2. If possible go B2B instead of B2C. B2B generally will let you charge higher prices and allow you to focus on fewer but more valuable customers.
3. Keep your pricing really simple. You should be able to explain it in a single sentence.
4. If possible make your first product something you can use yourself. Eat your own dog food. With the limited time a MicroISV has, if you’re in your product all day it allows you to keep in close touch with it without dedicating time specifically for that purpose.
5. Blog blog blog. I started my blog right when I first started coding, 8 months before release. Doing so built up a large community of like-minded individuals who helped me spread the word about HelpSpot. It also helped me gain a very good search engine position on keywords early on which is a huge success factor with a small company that can’t afford to do large scale advertising. In my niche it was especially important because help desk related keywords are commonly $5 – $20 per CLICK for a front page listing.

6. What are the best ways to market a MicroISV or small business on a low budget? I saw your Mini-Site idea which I think is very interesting – I’d appreciate your thoughts on that, how you came up with the idea, etc.

I’d emphasize again the idea of starting a high quality blog. That’s far and away going to be the best bang for the buck, along with some great side benefits. Having a blog builds a community around yourself and your product and both can benefit you greatly if you take the time to listen.

Of course being a small business with limited funds means you also need to be creative. There might not be a lot of time for creative advertising at first, but as the business evolves some time will generally open up. Personally I have a few initiatives I’ve been working on with some success.

First is the mini-site idea you mention. I noticed that a great deal of my sales were coming off of searches for open source help desk software. I realized that in fact many people were just using that as a starting place because they didn’t know what else to look for. They actually didn’t mind purchasing software, it was just a jumping off point in their search. I also noticed that most of the results of this search were spam blogs and other worthless sites. So I saw an opportunity here where both my product and the open source community could benefit. I’m a big fan of open source, HelpSpot is built on top of open source technology. I put aside a few days and came up with www.opensourcehelpdesklist.com. It’s a site that cleanly lists the major open source help desk products. At the same time there’s an ad for HelpSpot which notes that the site is sponsored by HelpSpot and to give it some consideration. It’s really worked out well. After about 3 months it’s generated $7,000 in HelpSpot sales and sent thousands of visitors to various open source projects.

Another project I just started with a partner is www.helpdesktalk.com. This is a blog site about the help desk industry. I noticed there was a lack of information sources on the help desk community so this is an attempt to change that. Most help desk articles and information are buried within larger IT websites. Help Desk Talk is focused on putting help desk content in the spotlight. It’s too early to know what will happen with it, but there’s been positive feedback so far.

7. What was your biggest surprise in starting and running your business?

I suppose I should have been prepared for this, but the biggest surprise is how much of a life changing event it is. It truly consumes your life, especially as a MicroISV working from home. You’re working all the time and the rest of your life is structured around working. It is a very large sacrifice, but one which is very fulfilling and ultimately worthwhile.

8. What’s your biggest struggle/challenge still?

Right now it’s the idea of trying to reach the next tier of customers. HelpSpot has been very successful with companies who are “web savvy”. Now I’m trying to figure out the best ways to reach those old school companies who get all their product information from conferences and trade publications.

9. Why did you pick help desk software for your first product?

The initial spark was my previous higher education job I mentioned above. However, I didn’t move forward until I did a ton of research. Along the way I came up with my little set of rules I laid out in the previous question. Once I was convinced help desk software met the criteria and that I would have an above average chance of success I took the plunge.

10. What software markets do you see out there that are ripe for improvement?

A few areas I’d be interested in are Live Chat (I almost launched a second product in this area), Niche CRM solutions, simple non-hosted project management. That last one in particular has lots of room. Pretty much all the non-hosted project management applications out there are bad. I’ve been looking for a solution over the past month and I don’t like any of them. I have no need or reason to put my private data on somebody else’s server, I want my data on my servers and there are a lot of other IT shops and businesses who feel the same way. I think a modern web based (not hosted) project management application would do very well.

Conclusion

Thanks go out to Ian Landsman for his willingness to share his time with us. It’s greatly appreciated!

If any of you are in the market for help desk software go ahead and take a look at HelpSpot — there’s a 45-day free trial. Ian also blogs at Ian Landsman: Starting From Scratch. His openness and honesty are refreshing.

Post from: EveryJoe

Ian Landsman Knows How To Build a Small Software Company

Recently a friend of mine, Paul McEnany went into a Kohl’s department store in Dallas, Texas and was shocked at the condition of the store. He snapped some pictures and wrote a fairly blunt but meaningful post about it.

A few other bloggers, including Christina Kerley at CK’s Blog got wind of the situation and started writing about it as well. CK encouraged Paul to call Kohl’s and complain.

He did.

After a few phone conversations, he received a voice message response from a Kohl’s representative. It consisted of your typical, boring response. Paul wasn’t particularly impressed. He was hoping for more. In Kohl’s defense, they did respond, but they missed a huge opportunity.

What makes things even worse (and more amusing) is that an employee of the Kohl’s store started a blog in response to Paul’s efforts. You don’t want to miss this one. The employee rails against Kohl’s, the stupidity of management, and even calls customers “pigs.” Ouch.

So what lessons can startup companies and entrepreneurs learn?

1. Don’t underestimate the power of 1 person. Paul’s just one man. He complains online and the blogosphere does the rest. One person can, at least, cause a huge stink. Whether we see change from Kohl’s is another story.
2. Monitor the Web carefully. Kohl’s might not have found out about Paul’s original post had he not called them. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Even still they may never respond again. Why doesn’t Kohl’s have a blog? It’s so easy to monitor the Web and find out what people are saying about you. Even if you run a 1-person company, do it.
3. Responding to complaints isn’t enough, it’s HOW you do it that matters. Kohl’s responded but they took the bland, “at a distance” approach. Maybe they hoped this would go away. Clearly they were clueless as to point #1 and #2 above. They might still be clueless! What you need to remember is that it’s not just good enough to respond, the way you do it – the tone, the style, the message you give – are all important.
4. Responding quickly and effectively always wins. Kohl’s could have turned this situation on its rear by having an honest discussion with Paul about the incident. They could have provided more explanation. They could have invited Paul back to see the results of their clean-up (which incidentally took 10 days to get around to.)
5. Customer service is a differentiator. Paul walks into Kohl’s because of its proximity and the pricing, but he doesn’t become a customer just because of those things. The quality of service (including the state of the store) is a huge differentiator. Paul compares Kohl’s to stores like K-Mart and Target, recognizing the obvious competition on price but also pointing out how badly Kohl’s is failing in the image department. Startups can stand out through customer service. You might have the best product in the world but if you can’t treat customers with respect, forget about it.

And the bonus lesson: Don’t be like Kohl’s.

Post from: EveryJoe

5 Lessons Learned From Kohl’s Crappy Customer Service

Although we’re already halfway through January (where’s 2007 going?!?!) it’s still as good a time as any to look at our goals.

In fact, you should be assessing goals constantly. Goal setting isn’t a time-specific activity. You don’t have to set goals only at certain times – be it at the beginning of a new year, every quarter, every month, etc.

Steve Pavlina points out that setting goals is about improving your present day moment. In essence, you only live in the present moment. If setting a goal improves your present moment, and thinking about it later on improves that present moment, it’s a goal worth keeping.

With that mindset, why would you ever limit yourself to setting goals at a certain time of year? Why would you only do it infrequently?

Set big goals. Go for it. There’s no harm in doing so. Big goals will usually give you a more positive feeling than micro-goals because they’re more meaningful and impactful.

But break big goals into mini-goals. Many people fail to achieve their goals because they become too daunting, too unachievable, too long-term. Breaking goals into mini-goals provides you with digestible chunks that’ll be easier to handle.

It’s a combination of benefiting from the positive nature of big goals and handling the tasks at hand that need to be accomplished.

What you’ll discover is that the sum of the goal’s parts is smaller than the whole goal itself. And each mini-goal will provide more positive bang for its buck by being a part of something bigger.

This post is part of our Business Channel Theme Day on goals for 2007. Please check out the rest of the posts at Home Biz Notes.

Post from: EveryJoe

New Year’s Resolutions Are For Liars

For the past few weeks I’ve been running the Carnival here. Starting in February we’ll send it out into the wild entrepreneurial blogosphere and let others have fun with the hosting duties!

You can check out past Carnivals with the links provided in the sidebar to the far right.

Enjoy!

My Personal Highlights

• GP, a new innkeeper in Montana, gives us his thoughts on entrepreneurship. What’s so wonderful about this post is the mixture of advice, thought and story. Plus, he’s provided a recipe! How can you go wrong with that?
• Thom Singer presents 2007 Networking Tip. Read this post. Thom knows what he’s talking about. Many of you will nod in agreement, but the key is to take action from his words. Thom lays it all out for you right at the end of the post, giving us all the true meaning of networking.
• Andrew MacGill says tell me something I don’t know. Andrew questions the advice people give when they say, “Find out what your customers want.” What if they don’t know? Good question. Andrew has some answers for you.
• David Maister has excellent advice on what to do when you pass your company on to others. I recently talked about exit strategies and succession planning, so David’s post fits in beautifully.
• Bonny Albo has ten top New Year’s resolutions for entrepreneurs. It’s a great list, not overly long with lots of worthwhile resolutions for you to go after. The 6th resolution is “Take a small business or entrepreneurship course.” That’s an interesting one, not something you would typically find on such a list — how many of you do this?

Better Business Advice

• Juuso Hietalahti reminds us that just because you like coffee, doesn’t mean everyone does. The analogy holds true in many cases, including blog posts (I know exactly how Juuso feels judging his own posts vs. what people respond to), business and entrepreneurship.
• Adnan offers Seven Surefire Steps to a Scorching Sales Pitch. Aside from the wonderful alliteration, the post has some good advice for the non-salesperson. I’m far from an expert in sales, but I’d love to hear what others think!
• Kim Bayne has Five Top Tips For Starting Your Business. What an awesome blog post title! I find it very interesting that her first point is to “write a detailed business plan” because I know many people will disagree and I’m going to be tackling this subject in-depth very soon. Point #5 is critical in my mind, and the most often overlooked.
• David Lorenzo reminds us that you can’t manage time. David provides three areas of our daily lives that we need to examine, each of which we may ignore but definitely shouldn’t. And there’s a great connection with David’s item #3 and Emmanuel Olawutosin’s reason #9.
• Jack Yoest goes under the studio lights for some sales and presentation training. Jack’s got an interesting writing style. Sometimes it means you have to read something a couple times to get the flow, but there’s a lot of valuable advice in this post about sales and presentations worth checking out.
• Wayne Hulbert reminds us that every business is different and they can’t all be managed the same way.

Entrepreneurial Inspiration

• Emmanuel Olawutosin offers 10 Reasons to Start a Business in 2007. They’re all great reasons, but I particularly like #9. It made me chuckle. Go check it out.
• Brian Kim shows us how to believe we can do anything. Brian doesn’t just stick with quick quotes of inspiration, he breaks things down, forces us to think and reconstructs everything by the end. Brian wants you to take control of your beliefs. Go give it a try.
• Patricia gives us 10 Reasons NOT To Give Up on TV. Interesting. When most people find there’s nothing of value on TV, Patricia disagrees, tells us why and ties it into the entrepreneur in you.

Online Entrepreneurship and Resources

• Ryan Mapes, co-founder of Go Big Network, a network for startups and entrepreneurs, asks a question many of us are thinking about, is being paid to write a blog post ethical? Check out Ryan’s thoughts and continue the discussion, which is a worthwhile one (regardless of your opinion.)
• The Digerati Life questions where we’re going with Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. Methinks she may have coined a new term: Web 2.5. Anyone?
• Jimmy Reimer has an interview with Lucas Arnold of CommerceCubes where they talk about getting started in the Internet business of building and monetizing websites. It’s a great intro, and I always enjoy the interview format.
• Laura Young presents The Golden Retriever’s Favorite Small Business and Home Office Resources which is a great, and extensive list of resources related to entrepreneurship and business. She has an entire section for resources especially for women, which I think is important.
• Ruben offers a 3-prong triage technique based off of Steve Pavlina’s ideas in order to make money blogging. Ruben doesn’t go into a lot of detail on how he’s going to accomplish the tasks to make money from blogging, but the technique itself is worth investigating and experimenting with.
• Barbra Sundquist provides instructions on how to setup an autoresponder. Many people will tell you that an autoresponder can be very valuable off your website, landing pages, etc. to generate interest in your products and services.

More Great Posts to Help Entrepreneurs

• Erich has a fascinating article entitled What’s Your Money Type? Apparently we all have a money type which tells us a lot about ourselves. I’m not sure we all fit into such neat categories, but it’s still interesting. I’d say I’m a Striver-Coaster. I don’t live above my means and I don’t tend to show off (there’s not much to show off) but I like the “strength of will” referenced with the Strivers.
• Nate Ritter looks at The VC Money Connection, talking about two specific issues: geographic proximity between VCs and startups, and trust.
• Murad explains solution selling and how it works.
• Sagar Satapathy presents The 10 Best (and 10 Worst) Companies for Call Center Service. It’s an interesting list, and everyone – from the solopreneur to small business owner to CEO of a multinational can learn something from the companies doing it right and wrong.
• Joshua Dorkin has some advice for real estate investors and entrepreneurs – buy real estate owned properties. These are properties owned by the bank that have gone through the foreclosure process.
• Jakob Dupont Knudsen has a business idea – commercialized phone calls. The idea would be to listen to commercials while waiting for the person you’re calling to pick up the phone, and the listener (or caller) would be paid (or their phone bill paid) to compensate for the effort. Crazy idea? Maybe. I know I don’t want to listen to ads while waiting for anything, and I’m not sure there’s enough time while the phone is ringing to listen to anything substantial. But who knows…

Another week, another Carnival! It’s a great, enormous list of entrepreneurial-related posts. Check ‘em out, enjoy, comment here and leave comments on the other blogs as well.

Please help promote the Carnival of Entrepreneurs by linking to this post. It’s appreciated!

The next Carnival goes live on January 16th — so get your submissions in.

That’s it for this week! Next week’s Carnival will be hosted here on January 10th, 2006. You can submit your entrepreneurial gems for next week.

I hope everyone finds something worthwhile, spreads the link love, comments on these blog posts and promotes the Carnival.

Post from: EveryJoe

Carnival of Entrepreneurs #5 – An Uber-Load of Entrepreneurial Fun

That sometimes gets lost in the excitement of starting a new business. People want to build the next cool thing. People want to get funding and buy Aeron chairs. People want to strategize, plan and meet. People want to dream.

Nothing wrong with that, but where’s the revenue coming from?

What?!? We need revenue? Aside from the few examples of companies that barely had any revenue or were losing money hand-over-fist and still sold for millions of dollars, most of us have to go out and earn a living, and yup, we even need to turn a profit.

Dharmesh Shah echoes much of my thinking in Startup Founders: Start Selling Customers!

Dharmesh says, “…one of the single biggest influencers of your future success is predicated on how good the founding team is at selling.”

He lists four very important reasons why you need to go out and do sales. I would add to his urgency in this matter and say “Go get a client now.”

You can even secure clients before you’ve launched your business. And I’m not talking “beta” (everything in the Web 2.0 world is in beta these days anyway…) Before beta, you can shop around your business, your product, your ideas and find clients. At that stage they’re more like partners but they’ll be some of the best resources you’ve got available.

And I would add a 5th item to Dharmesh’s list of reasons why startup founders should get into sales (and quickly):

Your first few clients will be your biggest evangelists.

For that reason alone, you should target those first few clients very carefully. Go after clients you believe will be evangelists. Go after clients you feel will become your buzz marketers.

Go. Go get a client. Now.

Post from: EveryJoe

Stop What You’re Doing and Go Get a Client

In my opinion, Wikipedia’s definition of an exit strategy is flat out wrong as it pertains to business:

An exit strategy is a means of escaping one’s current situation, typically an unfavorable situation. An organization or individual without an exit strategy may be in a quagmire. At worst, an exit strategy will save face; at best, an exit strategy will peg a withdrawal to the achievement of an objective worth more than the cost of continued involvement.

(That 2nd sentence saves the definition a bit.)

Exit strategies are not about getting out of bad situations. Once you’re in a bad situation you’re already in trouble, exit strategies are designed in part, to avoid trouble in the first place.

Exit strategies force you to:

• Really, really, really think about where you want your business to go.
• Plan for disaster (in this case the definition above holds true.) Often people lump succession planning in with exit strategies.
• Laser focus on accomplishing your goal. An exit strategy is a goal.

And saying, “I want to sell my business in a few years,” isn’t enough. That’s the start of a potential exit strategy but a heck of a lot more planning needs to go into it.

Vinay Kumar, in his post 10 Crucial Exit Strategies Leading to a Successful Sale of Your Business says, “Good deals don’t just happen. They take preparation and work. Often a great deal of work and years of preparation are consumed before a sale can even be contemplated.”

He later uses an example from Bruce Barren, Group Chairman of The EMCO/Hanover Group:

“If you want to ensure a successful transition, you need to develop a package of exit strategies as part of your overall succession plan. Everyone in business has heard horror stories detailing what happened when there were limited or no exit strategies. The more exit strategy capabilities, the higher the success rate for transactions. Success is, of course, contingent on being realistic, particularly in relation to the reliability of financial projections.”

To some an exit strategy sounds negative. Or, you might think you’ll never exit because that’s not the point of the business. That’s fine, you don’t have to give up the business (although eventually we all give it up) but thinking in terms of an exit strategy will help crystallize that goal nonetheless.

Bill D’Alessandro talks about this in his post Exit Strategies when he references lifestyle companies.

If you’re looking for venture capital, planning exit strategies beforehand is paramount. Ted Patrick recommends having 3 exit strategies in place when you go to pitch VCs.

Bottomline, think about your exit strategy. And do more than think about it, plan it, write it down, discuss it with others and gun for it.

Post from: EveryJoe

You Need an Exit Strategy Before You Even Start

OK.

After a great discussion about the power of microcredits and microloans I decided to find some worthwhile causes at Kiva.org.

Kiva.org allows you to donate small amounts of money to entrepreneurs and business owners in need around the world. At this moment, most of the opportunities are in Bulgaria, Azerbaijan and Togo. I’m guessing it’s because the loan partners (i.e. credit unions, funds, etc.) that support and manage the loans in those countries are the most active with the project.

These entrepreneurs need the money. They’re trying to improve restaurants and clothing shops, buy some cattle or a piece of farmland, or buy equipment to help their business. These are such small things for so many of us. And most of the people are working their tails off to put their kids through school or just feed them decent meals.

Kiva.org works. They have a huge rate of return on the loans, most of which get paid back in 12-18 months.

I’ve just made a very small loan to Kossi Joseph KOTSI, a carpenter in Togo, Africa. Kossi has already received one loan in the past, which he repaid, and that allowed him to open up his workshop, which he named, “Aimons la Vie” (translated: “Let’s Love Life”.) As a result of opening his workshop, Kossi was able to help his wife get training as a hairdresser. He requested a $1,500 loan for new equipment, materials and to open a hairdressing salon for his wife.

I’m hoping once Kossi gets the money and gets rolling he’ll post updates on the Kiva.org website (or the loan partner, Microfund Togo will) so we can track his progress. And if there’s any information to share with you, I’ll do so.

I plan on making further loans so I can get a bigger sense of how microcredits and microloans work and their efficacy.

Post from: EveryJoe

Helping Other Entrepreneurs Earn A Better Life

I’m declaring 2007 the Year of the Entrepreneur.

Here’s why:

• It’s becoming less and less expensive to start a viable businesses (primarily in the technology/Web world mind you.)
• We’re not in a bubble just yet. 2007 could be a boom year.
• Entrepreneurs are becoming more socially conscious than ever.
• Many of us learned valuable lessons through the Web 1.0 bubble bursting.
• Entrepreneurs (and small business owners) continue to drive the economy.

There are plenty of people raising flags about Web 2.0 and the bubble bursting again. And without a doubt there are many plain old stupid businesses out there. And I’m not taking away from the people who are concerned with Web 2.0 going poof.

But there’s much more value being created today than in the past.

Not in terms of absurd valuations, or money invested to make people into paper millionaires … but real value.

So good luck in 2007. May it be your best year ever. And the Year of the Entrepreneur.

Post from: EveryJoe

2007 Will Be the Year of the Entrepreneur