My Small Biz ExperimentMy Small Biz ExperimentThoughts, musings, and lessons learned along the way in creating my small business from the ground up by myself. Articles
New 4 Hour Work Week Idea
2008-02-27 08:11:00 It's been a while since my last post. I've been busy freelancing and coming up with new ideas for my next experiment. For a while I thought about doing an online Flash game and reaping the ad revenue from the embedded ads and the ads on the page. I started reading online and found that most of them probably don't make that much money except for a lucky few like Desktop Tower Defense. I've More About: Work , Idea , Week , Hour
SEO Experiment Part 1: The Results
2007-10-30 07:17:00 About a month and a half ago, I blogged that I needed to do some SEO to my business website so that I could get some organic search traffic. For a while I really was not seeing any difference in my visitor traffic. I was mostly getting traffic from links I submitted and blogs that featured my website. I had stopped using Google AdWords because it wasn't making much sense to spend so much money on More About: Results , Experiment , Part
The One Way To Generate Traffic To Your Site
2007-10-08 08:48:00 I'm starting to get good at generating a moderate amount of traffic to my fledgling business' website. In my previous post, I've found that AdWords was not a cost effective way to generate traffic for certain businesses. Now I've decided to build traffic only through free means. I've been doing a lot of reading on search engine optimization and on how to build traffic. I systematically test each More About: Traffic , Site , The O
The 4-Hour Workweek Book Review
2007-09-26 05:42:00 I first heard about this book through John Chow's website. He's a professional blogger who makes boatloads of money blogging and tells you exactly how he does it on his blog. But I digress. "The 4-Hour Workweek" is a New York Times best selling book by Timothy Ferris. Basically it's about how he has freed himself from the chains of 9-5 cubicle dwelling rat race lifestyle that we are all More About: Book Review , Review , Book
Google Web Optimizer Experiment
2007-09-26 03:28:00 After just having bitched about the uselessness of Google AdWords, I will follow up on a cool new Google product called Web Optimizer . It's a free product by Google which requires a Google AdWords account. Web Optimizer allows you to do A/B testing on your website. Put simply, it allows you to test different variations of your page to see which one is more effective. You can change just copy or More About: Experiment
Google AdWords Results After One Month
2007-09-26 03:19:00 After using Google AdWords for a month with a budget of $50.00, my experiment has finally come to an end. I created 5 variations of my ads, 2 of which had 0% click-through rate, and the rest had 0.6%, 0.74%, and 0.97% respectively. I had 91,936 impressions that resulted in 126 clicks. All that resulted in 1 sale. As you can see, the percentage of sale/impression is EXTREMELY low. On top of that, More About: Results , Google Adwords , Adwords , Result
SEO Experiment Part 1
2007-09-12 09:19:00 I've just been recently told that my site is not very search-engine optimized. For those of you not in the know - search engine optimization (SEO) is the art of optimizing the content on your website to drive the most traffic to it. It's no surprise there really. My site, being an e-commerce site, is really sparse on content. Worse yet, my product page is done in Flash which makes it harder for More About: Experiment , Part
Generate Residual Income With No Money Down
2007-09-07 16:50:00 Don't you wish you could make money when you're not working? That's the dream for entrepreneurs like me - to have businesses that work for me 24-7 without my intervention or management. With sites like CafePress, Zazzle, and Spreadshirt, it's easy! If you've never heard of these, they are essentially e-commerce sites that will sell products (mostly t-shirts) with your designs on them for you. More About: Money , Residual Income , Income , Residual , Dual
Leverage Free Tools on the Internet
2007-08-23 06:35:00 My business is all about leveraging free tools. As much as I love to code like the next programmer, however if something's been written and it's freely available - I'll use it. Four years ago, when I was younger and more naive, I would have coded everything myself because I wanted it done right. Nowadays, I'm all about getting it done at all and out the door and into the hands of people as soon More About: Internet , Tools , Free , The Internet , Leverage
About Me & My Business
2007-08-22 18:21:00 A reader of my blog recently contacted me asking about myself and the nature of my fledgling business. Needless to say, I was very flattered. I didn't think people who read my blog cared enough. You may wonder why I chose to remain anonymous and not mention my company's name or website, or even the products I am selling. I have several reasons: I don't want to be seen as plugging my own business More About: Business , Sine
Google AdWords Works - Sort Of
2007-08-21 00:06:00 I finally took the dive last week and decided to try out Google AdWords. In case you don't know what Google AdWords is about - I suggest you check it out: You create ads and choose keywords, which are words or phrases related to your business. When people search on Google using one of your keywords, your ad may appear next to the search results. Now you're advertising to an audience that's More About: Google Adwords , Adwords , Works , Sort
First Small Victory
2007-08-21 00:02:00 So far online sales of my new product have been pathetic at best. I haven't tried the usual channels (Ebay, advertising, etc). I've just been doing word or mouth and referrals. Offline sales are doing great but how do I spread this so that I don't have to be actively involved trying to sell it 24-7. Well, I finally found someone willing to take a risk with my products and to try to sell them. More About: Victory , Small
If You Build It, They Won't Come
2007-08-12 08:35:00 The person who came up with the old adage, "If you build it, they will come", probably had no real world experience. I've created some great products, a great website, but no traffic. That's because no one knows about it. The only way to get them to come is to let them know about you and let them be able to find you. My next experiment is Google Adwords - stay tuned for that. I can't believe I More About: Build
Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
2007-08-04 00:08:00 One thing I learned from my first startup in retrospect is that I should have been more involved in the day to day activities of the company. I wanted to build a kick-ass web application and was so focused on just coding the application, that I missed out on all the other aspects of HAVING a real business. Aspects like, accounting, marketing, business development, client relations, etc. They were More About: Zone , Comfort zone , Comfort
Apple - Great Holistic Experience
2007-08-02 08:54:00 I just dropped by the Apple store to pick up a neoprene sleeve for my new MacBook Pro. I've been using this going-on-5-years-old laptop as my personal/small biz workstation for some time now. It's painfully sloooooow. But I digress. Anyways, I paid for the sleeve with my credit card and thought nothing of it. When I got home and checked my email this evening, I found that Apple had sent me an More About: Great , Holistic , Experience , Erie
Social Networks Are Good For ... Networking - Duh.
2007-07-28 05:18:00 So I thought social networks would be a great way to push my products. So far I've added tons of 'friends' and no sales. What I do have is a couple people who are genuinely interested in working with me to cross promote, in other words, barter services. Having read the great book 'The Tipping Point', I thought social networks would be the best way to push my products onto connectors. So far I More About: Social , Networking , Social Networks , Networks , Good
Experiment #1
2007-07-24 15:35:00 I finally "launched" the website late last week even though the site's been up for a while. That's because the products finally arrived and everything finally fell into place. I was very excited to finally start promoting the products. My initial thought was I was going to do most of my online marketing through a certain social networking site. It's cheap and easy. Not only that, but they were More About: Experiment
My Top 10 SlideShare Slides for Entrepreneurs
2007-07-19 07:51:00 In no particular order: Tribal Knowledge - Lessons Learned From Inside Starbucks http://www.slideshare.net/BrandAutopsy/tr ibal-knowledge 10 Quotes From Starbucks Executives http://www.slideshare.net/BrandAutopsy/10 -quotes-from-starbucks-executives Word Of Mouth Marketing Techniques WOMM http://www.slideshare.net/kameran/word-of -mouth-marketing-techniques-womm Word of Mouth Marketing http:// More About: Entrepreneurs , Slides , Rene
Startup Baby Steps - Monetize Your Hobbies
2007-07-15 22:23:00 One of the best ways of getting your feet wet in entrepreneurship is to find ways to make money off your hobbies. I'm a developer by trade. I started doing web design out of necessity working for a consulting company. It was not unusual for small companies not to have enough resources to hire a proper designer and to just depend on the consultant to do everything. What were we going to do? Turn More About: Baby , Hobbies , Startup , Monetize , Steps
A Software Approach To A Retail Product
2007-07-13 06:37:00 I'm a software guy who's now entering into the world of retail now. I know nothing about it, but I do know a thing or two about software. I know that I would not wait around to get a web application absolutely perfect before releasing it. I would release what I think is good enough and have users start using it and testing it and based on their feedback I would constantly improve upon it. More About: Software , Product , Retail
Customer Service Fiasco (Or Why UPS sucks)
2007-07-13 04:52:00 I just got back from the UPS package center to pick up my products. This will be my first time seeing what my products will look like in real life after much hoopla (see previous entry - Don't Give Your Customer s a Reason to Leave You). I waited almost an hour and a half for my package. Instead of looking forward to opening the package and seeing my products for real, I was just exhausted and More About: Customer Service , Service , Sucks , Fiasco
Eat Your Own Dog Food
2007-07-09 17:59:00 One simple litmus test of your product is, do you yourself use it? Often times consultants that I know create software products and leave the client, never really knowing or understanding how their creations get used. If you are creating something, but do not use it, ask yourself why. And ask yourself, what do I need to do so that I would use it. One of the best ways to understand your client and More About: Food , Dog Food
Need Help Pricing? Ask Your Competitors
2007-07-09 01:46:00 When I first started thinking about my products, I had no clue what they were worth in the market. Sure I knew what the manufacturing costs were, but I had no idea what the market would pay. My solution? - Look around and see what others are charging for a similar product. I scoured the net and retail looking for similar items. I even called a competitor, pretending I was interested in buying and More About: Competitors
Market an Emotional Product not a Logical One
2007-07-07 15:17:00 By that I mean appeal to your customers emotion, not to their logic. With my first startup, my friends and I created a very compelling piece of software. It would save small business time and money. They would not have to hire a company to do what they could do themselves with the software. It was easy to use and once people saw it in action, they understood immediately its value and loved it. More About: Market , Product , Logical , Logi , Emotional
Don't Give Your Customers A Reason To Leave You
2007-07-07 05:36:00 Five days later, and still no sign of my products. I called my suppliers today and I had her WORD that the products would be ready by end of day TODAY. End of day comes and goes, and still no sign of the products. I did this to myself. I should have had the foresight to see this. The signs were there. I would always have to call them and prod them just to make sure my stuff was getting done More About: Customers , Leave , Reason , Give
No Battle Plan Survives Contact With the Enemy
2007-07-01 16:34:00 Likewise, no business plan survives contact with the customers, or in my case the vendors and suppliers. My website is complete and ready to go online at any second now. I'm just waiting for the suppliers to have my inventory ready. What's supposed to be a two-week turnaround time has turned into a 4+week fiasco. I'm very disappointed in them. What's more I am disappointed in myself for not More About: Contact , Battle , Plan , Enemy , The Enemy
Everything's a Commodity
2007-06-28 16:59:00 When I first started my small business, I thought my product was the asset. It's certainly what the customer will focus on and what they pay for. But the success of the company does not depend on the uniqueness of the designs of my product. I've come to believe that it's just another commodity. Great design is a commodity. I can pay for it and have somebody else do it. The genius of MacDonald's More About: Modi , Commodity |
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