Micro ISV

The Kotaku Viewpoint

2012-01-01T12:25:00.002-05:00

It seems like the whole world has jumped on the bandwagon of speaking out against Paul Christoforo of Ocean Marketing. The guy did have an epic fail in customer support for N-Control Avenger game controllers. Was the backlash overdone? You know it. Did the schlub deserve it. Probably. But what about the other perps in this fiasco?

N-Control obviously hired Christoforo. They might not have done their due diligence. Or they were too busy. Maybe Christoforo made them an offer they could not refuse. They should have. I think we should look at the customer Dave. We should definitely look to Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade for his involvement. This last stance could get my lynched as well. Mike seems to have an arsenal of supporters in the game industry.

What I find remarkable is Owen Good's piece on Kotaku citing Krahulik as the real bully in this mess. Now some argue that Good is just trying to get some page views. You know how controversy draws eyeballs. I hope this was not his intent. Instead I rather like to think of him as going against the mobs on the net, when jumping on the mob bandwagon would be much easier.

For his somewhat unique perspective, and courageous outlike, I salute Owen Good. I am looking forward to more of this on Kotaku.

Damage Control

2012-01-01T04:13:00.001-05:00

N-Control has a disaster on their hands. To start with, they seem to be unable to fulfill orders for their Avenger controllers. To make matters infinitely worse, the customer support fiasco with Paul Christoforo is dragging them down into the gutter. What is a company to do in such a situation?

They fired Ocean Marketing and Christoforo to start with. Then a guy named Eli Schwartz claimed to be the Marketing Director for the company. He tried to deal with outraged gamers dissing the controller on Amazon. It turns out that Schwartz was a high school intern for the company. He was in over his head.

Since then, Moises Chiullan has taken the helm. He is doing an AMA (Ask Me Anything) over on Reddit. That might be difficult as the Redditors are a tough crowd. Moises is spinning the best he can. One technique is to make Christoforo to be the common bad guy. And he can try to make N-Control look like another victim. This also might be tricky, as they are probably not blameless. Let's see how this eventually pans out.

Marketing Meltdown

2011-12-31T21:56:00.004-05:00

The following story has been all over the airwaves in December. Customer named Dave orders the Avenger game controller. The manufacturer is N-Control. They seemed to have contracted out customer service to Paul Christoforo of Ocean Marketing. Paul goes back and forth in email with Dave explaining the delay. Things get a bit ugly in the correspondance.

Dave forwards the emails to game sites. This includes Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade. Initially Mike was emailing under the name Gabe. Later he states his real name, that he runs Penny Arcade, and hosts the PAX conference. Christoforo gets into it with Krahulik. After Krauhulik posts the email history to the Penny Arcade web site, the mobs come out to roast crucify Christoforo.

Personally I found Christoforo's put downs very funny. This guy obviously has no place doing customer support. I think one moral from the story is that you should be humble and admit your mistake when you get busted by a superpower like the founder of Penny Arcade. Otherwise you will be dealing with damage control for months on end. I got a lot more to say about this. I will try to blog about this in the upcoming days.

The Thank You Economy

2011-12-13T13:23:00.004-05:00

I was reading a blog post that wrapped up by talking about hustle. I would give you a link. But they could not spell hustle correctly, so they lost points. However I was directed to watch some Gary Vaynerchuk videos if I wanted to conquer the world. Who? That's what I was thinking.

Gary's web site has a link to a keynote speech he gave in Las Vegas for Re/MAX. He even makes fun of the fact that most people in the audience would not know who he is. Most recently he wrote a book called the Thank You Economy. I did seem to recognize him from the wine review web site he created a log time ago.

Gary's goal is an old one. He wants to get you to provide great customer service to ensure you get customers that stick. His angle is that you can spend a little time with social media reaching out to such customers personally. That can provide you with lifelong customers.

I don't know if Gary is onto something big like he says he is. Perhaps he is looking to make more sales for his books. Or he really has discovered the next big thing. Time will tell.

The Face Matters

2011-12-07T18:04:00.003-05:00

There have been some corporate blunders this week. One was Paypal freezing the account of somebody buying toys for kids. The other was Download dot com who added evil malware to an open source tool. The interesting thing to see was how the company responded to their wrongdoing. Or should I say it was interesting to see who was assigned the task to apologize to the user community.

Download dot com came out strong. They had the attractive Catherine Hwang draft a response. She looks like a cute asian girl. Who is going to continue to be up at arms with Download dot com when Catherine says sorry?

Paypal, on the other hand, Anuj Nayar put out a release on the toys for tots issue. Yeah he may be the director of communications at Paypal. But yikes. I could repeat some of the comments on Hacker News about this guy's photo. But that would be plain mean.

Here is the outtake. Make sure somebody attractive doles out the apologies when your company screws up. It will only help the reponse to be received warmly.

Master Marketing

2011-11-27T23:08:00.003-05:00

I was reading a technical trade magazine today. Usually I read these things quickly. There is not much time to view the ads. However one ad grabbed my attention with ease. It looked like this:

ad = new MillennialMedia();
ad.display();
developerBank += revenue;

This immediately made a connection with me. They did not have to explain what this was. It looked like Java or C++ code. The code is something only programmers would understand. This company gets it.

Millennial Media is some type of ad solution for mobile apps. I applaud their marketing department. Normally I think of Google as the main source of ads. However now Millennial is on my mind. It might not translate into business from me right away. But you never know.

Amazon Kindle Proposition

2011-11-24T16:19:00.002-05:00

Recently I heard that there were many free book titles available for the Amazon Kindle platform. Sounded like a great deal. Upon further inspection, many of these books were the first in a long series. I guess it is a marketing ploy.

The price seems to be right for the Amazon Kindle reader. Some even have 3G capability so I do not need to be in a Wi-Fi zone. However I checked with one friend that I know has a Kindle. She said the darn thing broke already. She only had it for about 6 months. She needs to get in touch with Amazon to find out how to get the thing repaired. Not good.

Lately there has been a story going around about a Kindle user whose account was frozen. Amazon would not release the reason why the account was frozen. The result is that all the books that were purchased as eBooks were unavailable. Apparently the Kindle does not store the book on the Kindle device. Or at least the DRM prevents the viewing of such books.

Sweepstake Fail

2011-10-24T17:32:00.003-04:00

I saw a Nesquik sweepstakes with a nice grand prize. It was a trip to Disney World. I could use a prize like that for the family. However I did not have any Nesquik. There was a way to get codes via snail mail. I sent off for one, including a self addressed stamped envelope.

I got a reply pretty quickly. The code came with a nicely colored letter from Nestle consumer services. They directed me to a Disney site to enter my code. Okay. I entered the link and found that I needed a Disney account to participate. Annoying. but I entered in some info. They required all kinds of personal stuff. I had to give them some bogus info to prevent an identity theft when somebody hacks their database.

Finally I enter my code. Then I was expecting to find out whether I won or not. No such luck. I just get to some screen that gives me a choice of some free stuff. It all seemed like garbage. I took the least sucky option of downloading a printable image. I clicked it, but never got the image.

Okay let's review. I provided these schmucks a self addressed stamped envelope. In return, I had to enter in all my personal info. Then I was not informed whether I won. I also could not even collect their weak door prize due to some error on the web site, or some other nonsense. Way to frustrate a customer Disney and Nestle.

Rock Star Pay Discrepancy

2011-10-13T12:34:00.002-04:00

I just read a eye opening post from Hirelite comparing Rock Star pay. Rock star programmers make 10% more than regular programmers. While rock star musicians make 150,000% more than regular musicians. Whoa.

I am looking at this from the programmer perspective. There are two ways to see it. One is that it does not pay to be a rock star programmer. At least it does not pay significantly more. Why be a rock star then? You could just sit back and chill like a regular developer and make just about the same amount.

The real answer is that you need to own your own business. Then if you can leverage your rock star skills, you can make a whole lot more.

Price Points

2011-10-04T11:44:00.002-04:00

I got an old Chevy pickup truck. When I say old, I mean about 20 years old. The thing runs. But it is showing its age. I figured I could spend some money to fix the thing up. However I started thinking about replacing the thing.

One of the problem is that trucks seem to cost a lot of money these days. I could buy a used one. But that poses a risk that I buy a used one that is thrashed. so I have been keeping an eye out on car ads in the paper.

I saw an ad for a new Chevy truck that was marked down to $16k. So I went to the dealership and took a test drive. The thing had some issues. It was underpowered with a V6 engine. The color was white which I detest. It was a bare bones model - no CD player or power lock/windows/etc. But you can't argue with the price.

Initially I passed on the deal as cash was tight. Then I saw the price keep falling to just over $14k. Woohoo. I was trying to saw up the cash. Then the price jumped back up to $16k. Now that is still a nice discount from the MSRP. But these guys are not going to get a sale from me if the previusly offered the same vehicle for $2k less.

HDMI Rip Off

2011-09-12T14:37:00.003-04:00

I just read an expose on high end and expensive HDMI cables. Here is the conclusion: they are scams. If you pay more than five bucks for your little cable, you are getting ripped. These cables transmit digital video. You either get the signal or you don't.

If you get the signal, then it will look the same whether you have an expesive or cheap HDMI cable. The video quality will not be magically better if you buy an expensive HDMI. So skip the scam. Buy the inexpesive one from Amazon. You will not be disappointed.

This has been a public service announcement. Shout out to Geoffrey for the 411.

Extra Value

2011-08-30T10:21:00.002-04:00

I watch DVDs with my brother every week. We also grab some dinner while we watch the movies at my house. More often than not, we just head to McDonald's. They are really quick. The food is adequate. The prices are not bad. My brother usually treats as well.

Every so often, my brother will bring over a coupon booklet from McDonald's. This allows us to get some free items with our order. Sometimes we walk into the store so we can both use the coupons. He leaves the coupons with me.

I like a McDonald's breakfast every once in a while. Previously the coupons I used were for a free large soda. Now they have changed the coupon to be a free large soda with purchase. To maximize my value, I buy a sandwich off the dollar menbu. I couple that with the coupon for a free drink.

Here is my question. Why is McDonald's providing the coupons? They can't be making that much money off me. Maybe they are trying to attract new customers. Or perhaps they are trying to get some goodwill from me. It is working. But I do not think they are getting such a great return on investment. We already go to McDonald's and pay full price for more expensive food without them sending us coupons.

Steve Jobs Resigns

2011-08-24T23:02:00.004-04:00

Today Steve jobs resigned his position as Chief Executive Officer of Apple Corporation. He plans to stay on as chairman of the board. He also recomended that the board name Tim Cook as his replacement. We knew this day was going to come sooner or later. Well not it has come.

I am thinking about buying some Apple stock. But the thing I like to think about is the time when Jobs and Wozniak started Apple the company. They had some other jobs. But they had a vision. The story is that they started the company out of a garage. They were plugged into the tech community back then (Homebrew Computer Club).

You had to know early on that Job and Woz were going places. Their company growth was hot just like another start up Microsoft. Bill Gates already retired. And now Jobs follows in suit.

This Web Host

2011-08-16T22:20:00.003-04:00

There was some recent ruckus about some accounts being deleted from ThisWebHost. Some dude had a PayPal issue. His friend got involved. Both of them had their accounts deleted by an admin. The administrator also let them have it over Twitter. Normally this would be just another customer service dispute.

Today I saw that the administrator was being repurposed from customer support to just technical issues. A new administrator blogged about being the new voice for ThisWebHost's customer support. So far so good. Then the blogger dropped the bomb. He asserted that abusive e-mails to the company were illegal. WTF?

I understand the company is getting blasted over the inappropriate tweets from the former customer support. But declaring that e-mails are illegal is just the wrong way to go. They were making a good comeback with the new admin dude. Why try to assert the strong hand of the law? It is almost comical. These guys need to bring in some real PR damage control. Fail.

No Fun

2011-07-27T10:42:00.003-04:00

Doing the coding for a new app to sell is a lot of work. But the work is really fun. Coding is great. However coding alone does not sell a product. I am finding a lack of motivation to do the business end of the work.

You got to find out how to accept credit cards online. Boring. You need to figure out and obtain a domain name. Also boring. You have to stand up a web site. Some of that may be fun. But the basics of it are also a bit boring. It is difficult enough to write the software after dark. But doing the business end of this painful. Not much progress is being made.

Good and Bad Image

2011-07-24T22:01:00.005-04:00

I was on the Yahoo main page after reading my email. There were no interesting articles to read there. Boring. But the image of an advertisement caught my eye. Some dude was totally ripped. He was like a football player, only with more muscles and a skinnier waist. I was down to find out what this ad was about. So I clicked through to the web site behind the ad.

Oh course they were selling some type of nutritional supplement. I want to look the like guy on the ad I clicked on to get there. Unfortunately I saw another image on their web site that was disturbing. That did not look like the shape I want to be in. Perhaps if this was the guy I was playing in a video game, I would be down. However it was just too disturbing to think I might look like that from taking their vitamins or whatever. Sale fail.

Going Shopping

2011-07-20T09:46:00.001-04:00

You got a product to sell. How are you going to do it? I have been asking myself the same question. This must be a problem that has been solved. So now I just need to get that solution on my own web site.

The overall goal is to get a shopping cart up and running with as little cost as possible. Most options involve a recurring monthly cost. Some make you pay an up front setup fee. The ones I like the most are those that charge a certain percentage of your sales. That sounds best because it limits the risk in case nobody buys my goods.

The costs are sometimes tricky. Often times shopping carts require you to have a merchant account, which itself has a monthly cost. Once the pricing structure is down, I would prefer a solution that does not require a lot of technology on my web server. Those technologies may bump me into a higher web hosting plan.

I would like the user experience to be optimal. That means I prefer the cart to work seamlessly with my my web site. It would be better if the user did not have to leave my site to go to a payment processing site. And it is easier for me if I don't need to do a lot (or any) customer programming to get the shopping cart working on my site. Let's see what is out there that meets my needs.

The Beta Test

2011-07-18T14:41:00.001-04:00

You have finished coding up your application. What is the next step? Maybe you can start selling the thing and begin making some cash. That is a very premature move. You would hate life if the thing you shipped is chock full of bugs. All software has bugs. But you want the one you ship to be free of the easy to detect and fix type of bugs. You need to run a beta test of your software.

The best beta test will be one conducted by actual users of your software. That might be difficult if this is your initial release. Instead you need to have some people you trust to test out the code. This might be a contract with a service that does testing. Maybe you could scrounge up some developers to do the job. I would like to call on some friends (who themselves might be developers) to bang on the app. Only then will I know what things I have overlooked during my unit tests.

I do have a wild and crazy idea that might not be feasible. I could write some software that itself would do the beta testing. It could randomly simulate clicks and key presses. Or it could be tailored to click away like a nommal user would. Then it could compare the app results with what it expects is the correct behavior. The output that has the most bang for the buck would be that which does not conform to expected behavior. I will let you know how my beta testing comes along. Stay tuned.

Almost Done

2011-07-06T22:30:00.003-04:00

I just finished slapping together an intro screen for my app. This thing is so close to being ready to ship. I really only have to put some protection against the crackers. I don't want somebody breaking my app and releasing to the world for free.

I know you cannot prevent your app from getting cracked. However I want to make it as difficult as possible. My hope is that the crackers will see that it is too much trouble to crack such a small app. Maybe they will then move on before breaking into my app and putting the results on some torrent.

It is all up to me. But in about a week, this thing will be fully ready to ship version 1. I figure I should slowly add the crack protection while putting together my web site to feature and sell the app. Things are definitely looking up. I had ideas for a few more killer options. They can all wait for version 2.0 though. Let's get some customers and make some cash now.

Adding Polish

2011-07-05T22:43:00.002-04:00

I got the basics of my app completed. Some of the extras are getting done as well. For example, I am putting some small graphics on the screens. I also want the install process to be solid. This thing is just about ready to be sold. It is only version 1. But it is a complete minimal app.

Now I am trying to figure out what domain name to choose. Initially I thought I would register a name that has something to do with my app. Perhaps I should choose a name that represents my company. I plan to be selling apps in different areas. Do I want multiple domains specific to the types of apps I do?

It all comes down to what is best for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I might get some points for having my target words in the domain name. But I think I will do best if I choose a generic company name that gets popular. Then I can just add new apps being sold on my company web site. All right. I got a company name. Let's see which domain names match or come close to my company name.

Selling Features

2011-06-20T20:35:00.003-04:00

I got a minimal set of working features in the app I want to sell. You would think I should start selling. However I want to add about 20 percent more. These will be the killer features I hope will generate more sales.

This is all a numbers game. Perhaps the new features might increase sales. But if I don't put this thing on sale right now, I will get no sales until I do. They say you should release the minimal viable product and start the sales right away. However I need to have some hot features to put on my sales page.

There are a whole lot more ideas I could implement. I am saving all of those for versions 2 and beyond. So I think I can delay shipping the first product for a month or so.

Version 1.0

2011-06-18T00:11:00.003-04:00

I got version 1.0 of my Poker Quiz application completed today. This thing helps you learn to identify the correct poker hand. Now I could sell this version. But I think if I put in another 20 percent effort, I can have a really polished version 2.0 ready to wow my customers.

Currently the game plays correctly. It has a minimal high score screen. I have an install program that will configure the app on a Windows PC. Things are looking pretty good. It has taken about a month to get this far. One week I was sick. So the actual calendar time was 3 weeks. Another 20 percent effort should take less than a week.

Now the hard part comes along. I need to set up a web site to sell the thing. Perhaps I should get that effort started while I work on getting to version 2.0. That way the web site can gain some relevance in the search engines such as Google. Yeah. Okay so I need to figure out my domain name, and get the darn thing registered. Will keep you posted.

Time To Pivot

2011-05-30T01:31:00.002-04:00

They say you should start selling your software by creating the simplest of programs you could write. I tried to pare down my college course registration idea to its simplest form. But even that was a huge undertaking. It was going to take me between 6 months to a year to come up with the minimal product.

It takes more than just the coding to cash in. You need to put up a web site and do some marketing. I don't want to wait 6 or more months before I get to that. Time to pivot and choose another program to write. Today I got the inspiration from a guy discussing technical interview techniques. He let's candidates solve simple problems using pair programming. One of their tests is to write a program to determine what type of poker hand a person has.

My idea is going to spring from that test program. I think I can code the thing up in a few months. We are talking 3 months tops before I have a polished program. The thing will be simple, but will provide some value. There will be plenty of opportunity to make the thing better and sell the improvements. Let's see if we can get this new idea off the ground.

Advice from a Veteran

2011-05-20T14:39:00.002-04:00

Some dude put together a book about development and recently released it for free. He assembled the book from the 4000 or so posts he has contributed on the net. Pretty cool. He pulled his comments up into a database, sorted and massaged them, and spit out a book.

The advice was split between startup type ventures and development and general. I took a close look at the business end of this posts. I was surprised that he spends about 50% of his time in development. I thought development was a small portion of running a business.

Here is another unusual piece of advice. He recommends you do not quit your day job. The reason is surprising too. It is not due to keeping up with a paycheck. He says you can learn a lot about product needs at your day job. Then you can meet that need with your ISV.

The author recommends you make things that people actually need and are willing to buy right now. Like others, he stresses that you make things simple and stick to the Minimum Viable Product. Good stuff.

Got an Idea

2011-05-14T14:44:00.002-04:00

I finished reading the book All The Rage. It follows the story of Napster, the MP3 file sharing program from 10 years ago. I was inspired to find that a high school kid was the author of the program. Sure they had some other dudes writing code. But he originated the thing.

If a high schooler from a tough neighborhood can start up the Napster revolution, then I figure I can come out with a product. I alreday have an idea. It will target college students, or high schoolers looking to enter college. I have scraped some college style data and loaded it into a database. I have also developed a proof of concept prototype.

Now I need to turn the prototype into a real product. I am trying hard to keep it simple and get something that can ship. Next I need to set up my web site. I hear you should do that even before you have a product. Ready, set, let's go.

Super Couponing

2011-05-06T19:44:00.003-04:00

I clip coupons in the weekend newspaper circular. They save me a few bucks every week. I know I cold do better. One lesson I learned by accident is that you can double up by using both a store coupon and a manufacturer coupon on the same item. Sweet.

I recently got a book on couponing. It explained that there are different levels of coupons users. Apparently I am a novice. You can also go online and print out coupons to add to the mix. Finally you can also put coupons on your store card for the ultimate savings. Go figure.

Although I am only starting to read the couponing book, I have learned a few gems I shall try out. You can search online for the name of your store and "deals". It will give you some great savings. Let's see what else this little book can teach me.

Saved by the Coupon

2011-04-18T23:19:00.002-04:00

I got a letter from a hotel I had visited about a year ago. They were running some specials on rooms in the off season. The price was right. They also included a bunch of coupons with the deal.

When I got the hotel, I found their service a bit lacking. Now that soured the deal. However the coupons came in very handy. Overall the deal was just average considering the weak service.

This hotel had the opportunity for a big win. They could have impressed me with a greal deal plus great service. That would have me returning when the rates returned to full price.

However with the service being sub par, they lost some business when they would be making a higher profit. You need to follow through if you grab customers with coupons. Otherwise you will fail on your loss leader.

Free Webcast

2011-04-15T13:10:00.003-04:00

I was reading one of my favorite ISV blogs. The author was talking about a video he had produced. He planned to sell it and make some cash. For a limited time, the video was supposed to be free. I figured I would give it a try.

I was directed to the AppSumo web site. Initially I needed to enter my email address to get through. I figured this was fair since the video was free. Then I found another barrier. I needed to tweet about it on Twitter or share it on FaceBook before getting through.

Ok. So first I need to provide my email address. Next I need to tweet or share. What is the next level of pain I need to endure before getting my free content. No thanks. I don't think I need the free content. Sheesh. At least the company did not lose any money from me. I was just going for the freebie.

Ousting Cofounders

2011-04-14T13:17:00.003-04:00

I just read quite a story about Noah Glass. He was one of the cofounders of Odeo. This was a company with a product that was put out of business by Apple iTunes. The point of interest was that Glass was also involved in the creation of Twitter. He was fired in 2006 when Odeo got bought out by its CEO. His involvement appears to have been covered up or omitted.

Noah Glass states that he named Twitter (orignally called Twttr). He does concede that Twitter creation was a group effort. The site originally ran from his laptop. Glass wanted to spin Twitter off from Odeo as a separate company.

Evan Williams was the CEO who fired Glass. He previously worked for Google. When Odeo was becoming irrelevant, he asked employees to come up with new ideas. They came up with the idea for Twitter. Williams spent around $5M to buy the company back from investors. Then he let Glass go.

Evan Williams is the creator of Blogger. You know he has the power. That includes the power to kick out a cofounder. Ouch. How do you protect yourself against such tactics? I don't know. Maybe you got to be a single founder with your own funding.

Grey Shirt Girl

2011-04-05T10:47:00.004-04:00

A blogger that I like to read ran an experiment. He got a picture of a girl that produced great success in FaceBook ads. He then submitted an FaceBook ad of his own featuring this girl. FaceBook turned him down.

Apparently the word about this girl has been going around for a while. She produces amazing click through results on FaceBook ads. Yeah I get it. She is busting out of L7. So the boys are going to click through like crazy.

Here is the part I don't understand. Both women as well as men click on this ad. Why would women be clicking on the ad of a busty woman? Also this is an image of a woman who is not all that beautiful.

What I am wondering is that if this image works so well on FaceBook, does that translate to Blogger as well? Let us see.

Good Advertising

2011-03-30T15:46:00.004-04:00

I was reading some technical magazine. There was an advertisement in there for a free eBook. The company invited readers to come on an adventure to learn some new stuff.

I went to their web site to give it a try. They were smart. They broke up the chapter of the book. You had to visit different pages on the web site to get to the link of each page. The book itself was a decent overview of Agile software development technologies.

The company did not require me to enter any personal information. They got me to check out their site. The book was well written and left a good impression in my mind. When I need to do something Agile, guess who I am probably going to turn to first?

Making Money by Self Publishing

2011-03-21T00:12:00.005-04:00

I read the story about a technical author that tried to self publish a small book. None of the traditional publishers wanted to do his small pocket guide. So he went to do the publishing himself. The bottom line was that he made about $3k a month in the end. Not too shabby.

Read about his adventures first hand. His marketing angle was to give away free PDF versions of his book. That turned out to be a good ploy. He is also trying to get into cheap Kindle eBook sales. Check out his 99 cent books.

Coming to a Theater Near You

2011-03-09T10:53:00.003-05:00

I saw that there is a new program going on in a big city near me. This summer they are doing an incubator for 10 individuals or groups. You apply for the job via YouTube video. If you get accepted, you move to the city for the summer.

The stint is a 3 month stay in the city. You also get some cash to fund you. This idea is nothing new. It is novel only because there are no big incubator projects like this around my location. I don't live in Silicon Valley.

I don't think I will be applying for this opportunity. I would like to though.

Failed Sales Pitch

2011-03-05T00:34:00.002-05:00

Some time ago I entered a contest to win an adjustable bed. Entering sweepstakes is a hobby of mine. I was waiting for an important call today. When the phone rang, I picked it up. Turns out it was a sales call. And what a fail it was.

I answered the phone, "Hello?" No reply. I repeated myself. On the third time I heard someone announce my name. I thought it might be an automated calling system. Then some woman starting reading a sales pitch. It was obvious that she was reading from a script.

Come on. Even if you are reading, try to make it sounds a little natural at least. I was asked some questions that I answered. The sales lady did a good job moving the offer forward by saying a representative would be out to talk with me. I declined. The phone call was a fail from the very beginning. You had better start strong or do not call at all. In other words, come correct or stay the hell home. Rant off.

Self Publishing Success

2011-02-28T11:28:00.003-05:00

I recently found out about a young adult fiction author who has some great success self publishing her books. Her name is Amanda Hocking. She says she tried to break in the traditional book industry for 8 years. However recently her self publishing books have been bringing in the big bucks.

I looked her up on Amazon. One of her books goes for 99 cents. However I hear most sell for $3. She keeps 70% of this money. I understand she sells around 100k copies of her books per month. Doing the math that comes out to over $200k per month. Damn.

Personally I am going to look for her story in the April issue of Elle magazine. Check our her My Blood Approves blog to find out more about her.

Marketing Win

2011-02-08T10:58:00.003-05:00

I got of a bunch of coupons from McDonalds. Some give you the opportunity to buy an item at a lower than normal price. Others give you outright free stuff.

Today I used a coupon to get a free drink. This enabled me to go in and dine in. I usually get a sandwich off the dollar menu from the drive through. But now that I had a free soda, I could go in and sit down.

It turns out that once inside, I decided to go big and order their Big Breakfast. This couple a couple more dollars than I normally spend. All McDonalds had to do was get the coupon to me, and provide a free drink which costs them very little extra.

This turned out to be a big win for McDonalds. I find myself going to them for my fast food needs now. A little book of coupons goes a long way in developing customer loyalty. Of course you need to have a good product, but you can benefit from something extra to keep the traffic in your stores.

Web App Secrets

2011-02-02T11:01:00.002-05:00

I just read a magazine article on building successful web apps. Most important thing is to have a really fast app. Do this even if you have to fake it and make the app look like it is responsive.

Make sure your apps reach out to your users with reminders. Here is a thought. Listen to what your users are saying. Then respond by adding new features to your app that wow your users.

The end goal is to make money with your app. That does not mean you have to charge for it. You can go freemium. Or you can puts ads in there. There are a lot of other options.

PR and Infographics

2011-01-27T14:09:00.002-05:00

I read this list from Software by Rob on how to launch your startup in 16 steps. It was some good stuff. There were two steps I had not thought about before. They were the use of public relations, and the use of infographics.

Using PR can be costly. So you might want to skip using a big firm at first. You should choose a small local firm instead. Or you can do this in house. Just make sure you don't assign it to a junior employee.

I had not heard the term "infographics" before. Apparently it is short for information graphics. It is a graphic representation of data to make complex topics easier to digest. An example of an infographic is a map.

Startup Compensation

2011-01-26T12:45:00.003-05:00

I checked out a chart on Ackwire that detailed the compensation for a bunch of people at startups. The salaries varied between $50k and $150k.

Equity was normally much less than 1%. Mostly it hovered around a quarter of 1%. There were some notable exceptions. One person had a whopping 25% equity in their startup, but had a very low salary. However another had a respectable 3% equity in addition to a high salary ($130k).

The valuations of the companies were mainly in the $1M to $10M range. So if you consider the average equity was a quarter of 1%, then the equity would be worth between $2500 and $25k. Ouch. I guess you better love what you are doing. Because it does not look like these people are getting rich, even if the startup is successful and gets to an exit.

Android Phones

2011-01-06T03:42:00.003-05:00

A buddy recently shelled out $200 for a Motorola Droid 2 phone. This included a contract, so the retail price is higher. I am thinking about getting a new phone. I am considering the Android phones for myself.

There are many different Android phones. Android is actually the open source Linux based operating system from Google. Examples of the phone are the T-Mobile G1, HTC EVO 4G, and Samsung Galaxy.

Android has a number of advantages over the iPhone. The phones themselves are usually lighter. You do not have to connect to your computer to get the apps. The web browser supports Flash. It is better for navigation, and well as tethering your computer to it for Internet access.

The Android user base is mostly dudes. Developers prefer to create apps for the Android market. You can only get a true QWERTY keyboard with an Android phone. The iPhone uses a software keyboard only.

There are times when there might be different Android OS versions out there causing some confusion. I hear that Android phones are not as reliable as iPhones. I also understand that some of the Android phones have security holes. I continue to debate whether I should get an iPhone or Adroid based model.

The iPhone

2011-01-06T03:34:00.004-05:00

I am thinking about getting a new cell phone. And I am considering the iPhone 4. This is the cooler option. It also seems to be the choice of the younger crowd. The phone itself costs $299 with a 2 year control. Otherwise it goes for $599 retail.

The iPhone in general requires service through AT&T. I hear their cell phone service is not top notch. The rest of the iPhone story sounds good. Apple design is king. The phone is easy and intuitive to use. Their batteries tend to last longer.

The iPhone has the superior software keyboard. It is the best choice for games and music. Applies app store has the most apps. One key differentiator is the front facing camera in the phone. You can do video chatting with other iPhone 4 users.

This phone does not support multitasking. Not sure if that is something I will need on a phone. I also hear the Safari web browser is slow during peak times. You get all iPhone apps through Apple's app store. Apple has a lot of accessories for their phones. The camera is better than most phones. The iPhone 4 has higher screen resolution than most phones.

The verdict is still not out. Next time I will review Android phones.

Profiting With Apps

2011-01-03T14:39:00.004-05:00

I just finished skimming a book about getting rich through apps. The book stated that app development is getting cheaper. However a developer still will charge you between $50 and $150 per hour for coding up your app. That does not seem like an avenue to get rich, especially since FaceBook apps are free.

The details on how to create apps for both the FaceBook and iPhone platform are changing all the time. I learned that there are two varieties of iPhone apps. There is the native variety that runs on the iPhone operating system. Then there are iPhone web apps that run on the Safari web browser.

Going a little deeper, you write native iPhone apps using the Objective C programming language. However iPhone web apps are developed just like other normal web applications. You code in a combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Finally note that games are the best selling apps. It seems like there is too steep a learning curve to code up an app myself. I think for now I will take a pass on this money making opportunity.

Double Cross

2010-12-16T22:57:00.003-05:00

Something was not right at my house this afternoon. The house kept getting colder and colder. Doh! The heat was not working. And the temperature was dropping. Initially I thought we might need to bunker down and get help tomorrow. However I later rethought this because it is supposed to get very cold tonight.

I tried calling my HVAC company. They did not pick up the phone. It was the evening. They must have went home. Looked up a new company. They came over within 2 hours. They figured out the problem pretty quickly. They quoted me a large fee to fix the problem. I confirmed that the cost would cover everything, and there would not be "other problems" that would cost me extra. The guys assured me there would be no more cost to get the heat working.

It took only 30 minutes for them to replace the parts and get the heat cooking again. I was taken aback by the final bill. It was almost 20% higher. I said this was not the quote I was given. Well they said there was a big service charge added. Then there was tax to deal with. The time to be clear about all these extra charges was when they gave me the quote, not when they were looking to get paid. In the end we split the difference. However the damage was already done. Poor communications make these guys look like crooks to me.

Now if I am in a bind again, I would use these guys. Two things are clear. They charge a lot. And the try to add on all kinds of garbage fees at the end. Too bad. They could have obtained a customer with their expertise.

eBook Sales Scam

2010-12-16T14:24:00.004-05:00

Some dude had a great eBook headline. He made $40k in sales from one eBook this past year. That got my attention. He wrote about a hot new technology just as it was gaining traction. It was a very specific subject with a lot of interest.

This guy had me up until the point where he tried to sell another eBook on making money wit eBooks. Doh. Initially I had no reason to doubt this guy made $40k large. Now that he is trying to sell me something, the scam detector went off in my head.

Now I am not saying that this guy did not make any money on eBooks this past year. It is just that there is a conflict of interest here. Of course he is going to claim to have made a ton of money if he wants me to believe him and buy his scheme.

Heck. In this light, $40k don't look like much. You got plenty of other people claiming to have the eBooks to teach you how to make millions. Why stop at 40k? I wish this guy had just stated the facts and documented his win. I can't blame him for trying to make a buck. But that puts him in the company of a lot of other salesmen. So much for eBook sales excitement.

Ebay Tactics

2010-12-15T14:42:00.002-05:00

You must read this Reddit poster's story about tricking an Ebay scammer. Here is the basic story. He put up some sports tickets on Ebay. Someone won the bid for $600 each but backed out in the end. It was took late to find another buyer. What this guy did was precious.

So he gets a throwaway phone number. He calls the bidder up, telling some sad story about how he wants to go to the game with his son, and would offer a ton of cash for the tickets. The bidder then contacts the guy and tells him the deal is still on. Guy collects cash.

The big time win was when the bidder then tries to pawn the tickets off for more money. The guy reveals himself and tells the bidder to get bent. Bamm. This is actually an age old scam technique. In this situation, I believe the ends justified the means. Check out the full story using the link above.

Short Shelf Life

2010-11-10T03:53:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I picked up a bunch of computer games for $5 each. It amazed me how cheap these things were. They were titles I recognized. I have seen commercials for some of these games on TV. How can they make any money off these cheap sales?

I think this is an indicator of the shelf life of the PC game market. You got to make your profits when the game first comes out and goes for full price. After that, it is all down hill.

This makes it a discouraging market to get into. After all, I am sure there are publishers taking their cut of the profits. Then the stores that do distribution must make some money. What is left over for the guy that writes the computer programs. Probably not much at all.

Customer Service

2010-11-08T11:17:00.002-05:00

I have been dealing with this mail order company for some time. They prices are reasonable. And they normally stand behind all their products. So I decided to take the relationship a bit further and buy something big from them. Hey. I felt like it was time to give them the big change. They blew it.

Instead of getting the product I ordered, they drop shipped some other junk. I sent the wrong merchandise back. And I requested they send the right order to me. What happened? Nothing. I get no reply from them. Damn. No trouble. I stopped payment on my credit card charge. That got their attention. They credited back the amount I spent minus shipping. WTF? They are making matters worse. My credit card company ended up eating the charges.

Now I figured I would give this company one last chance to redeem themselves. I placed another moderate order with them. They did not execute correctly. Turns our they missed part of my order. I called up their customer service. Got disconnected after waiting for a few minutes. I called back. Wanted to make sure I did everything I could to salvage this relationship. Luckily I got through and the rep on the line apologized and said they would eat the costs to make the order right. Now that's what I am talking about. In the end, I did not take them up on their offer. Just them willing to put things right was all I needed to hear.

Let's hope this company keeps treating me right. I am fighting to remain a loyal customer. How many other customers are willing to go this far for any company? This company does have the right mix. They got low prices and good customer service when you get through to them.

Y-Combinator

2010-10-26T13:14:00.002-04:00

Snap. Forbes magazine put out an issue featuring Y-Combinator. The cover has a picture of cofounder Paul Graham. I am wondering why there is so much buzz about this company.

Yes. I get it. Paul and his company backed some winners like Reddit, Loopt, and Justin.tv. What I am trying to figure out is why having Graham's backing is so important?

Initially you got a $5k investment from Graham. That's not much money at all. Now the initial investment has risen to $11k plus a little more depending on how many people are in your start-up. That is still not a lot of cash.

Maybe this is all a big marketing thing. If you are in with Y-Combinator, you are going to have the clout and access to a lot of rich angel investors and venture capitalists. But isn't it best to bootstrap yourself and keep all of your company for yourself?

There is only one way to find out. Either try to join Y Combinator, or strike out on your own and see what happens. Let's do just that.

Angelgate Scandal

2010-10-01T23:44:00.004-04:00

Mike Arrington of TechCrunch goes to some joint called Bin 38. He sees a number of super angel investors meeting there. They disinvite him from their get together. Mike suspects the worst. He thinks there is some type of collusion between these people. It must be so. Why else would they not want him there?

Hello. The dude writes stuff in TechCrunch. You don't want your private business being the next blog story. Too late. Mike has been making insinuations and posting secret emails and such. LOL. Don't we have something better to do then to follow the hype about unsubstantiated rumors?

Look. Product good stuff. Get customers. Be excellent. Then with a little luck, success is going to come your way. People are going to want to back you. Who knows? You might be the next Google or FaceBook. Probably not. But you might be. And if you show some promise, the angels are going to find you and invest. Turn the tables around and have them fighting for you. Then it won't matter what these angels discuss in their private dinners. They will all want you taking their money and returning a huge ROI. But hey. I guess the Angelgate diaries make for some good page hits. Whatever.

Solve Your Own Problem

2010-09-26T22:22:00.002-04:00

Some time back I had a good idea for a simulation. It was going to be more like a game. The problem is that it is going to take a lot of time to develop the darn thing. I tried getting started a time or two. But it was tough to follow through. I left the thing alone for a long time.

Recently I read a post from the 21st Century Programmers blog, or something like that. It said to be successful you need to write an app that solves a problem you have. Ok. I am game. No pun intended. You got to forget about producing a commercial winner. Or at least you should not concentrate on commercial quality at first.

Develop a small thing that solves a problem of yours. Do it quickly with the minimal set of features. Actually do it with less than the minimal set of features. Then keep iterating by adding features and fixing bugs. This will get you the traction you need to produce something good. Hey. I will give it a try. You never know. I might just succeed. Now I just need to find an interesting enough problem I am encountering to solve with some code. I will let you know once I get the minimal thing coded up.

Trolled

2010-09-25T23:45:00.002-04:00

Oh you got to hear about this Craigslist ad. A startup needed a web site developed. They wanted login capability. There has to be a bunch of databases involved. The site must be dynamic and professional looking. Those seem like reasonable requirements. Here is the stickler. They cannot pay any money.

Ha ha. This must be a joke. Good one. They promise 10% of the profits from the first 3 months of the web site being up. In the mean time they offer a bunch of troll dolls as down payment. LMAO. I got to contact these people to see if they are pulling a prank or something. I will let you know what I find out.

Freelancing

2010-09-22T11:27:00.003-04:00

People that work for the man dream about working for themselves all the time. You can just work from home and chill right? Well I read an article and a ton of comments contradicting that theory.

Although you work at home when you freelance, you are always at work. Some work 80 hours a week freelancing to make ends meet. The pay is often sub par. You also will encounter a bunch of non-paying clients.

On a different note, it is hard to get a loan if you are self employed. You do get to be your own boss. But there is a heavy price to pay. You also spend a lot of time getting gigs. These costs may very well be just too high for me to go at it alone 100%. I am not willing to jump into a severe test of character if the rewards are not high enough.

Surplus Store

2010-09-11T13:30:00.002-04:00

I keep getting this circular in the paper for a local surplus store. They seem to have great deals. I figured I should give the place a try. They had some grass seed which was 45% off the price I normally pay. They also had some beef jerky that was a whopping 66% off the price I paid last. How could I lose?

When I got to the store, I noticed a lack of shopping carts. Some lady even tried to steal the one I was using. The items from the circular were nowhere to be found. They had some other grass seed which was more expensive. I bought a bag because it was still below the cost I normally pay. However the damage was done. I felt like I visited a gas station with low 87 octane gas, only to find they ran out of 87 octane.

The other disturbia was that they did not have the flavor of beef jerky I liked. They had advertised that they did. No dice. They had a whole lot of other flavors at a very low price. I decided to pass on them. The store was a bit dilapidated. Shelves were propped up with cinder blocks. The aisles were too narrow. The only interesting thing about this place was the stories they told in their newspaper ad. They tell you how they came to buy the closeout items they offer. I am not sure whether that will have me coming back for a second visit. Sure the value is high. But I could not help but feel disappointed with my first trip. I doubt this will affect their stores. The store was very crowded. In this economy, people are scrappy and need surplus stores like this.

Success of Lew Cirne

2010-09-10T11:06:00.003-04:00

I heard an interesting interview with Lew Cirne, CEO of New Relic. He previously founded Wily Technology and sold it for $375M to CA. I like his story because the guy loves to write software. He worked in private industry before starting up a company. That is where he got the idea for his first product. He confesses that he had a lot of other dumb ideas for products. Then the right one hit him light a lightning bolt.

Lew recommends that you do not force your idea to come to fruition. Just solve a problem that you are very passionate about. For Lew and his first startup, the problem was making Java programs self diagnostic. Lew first built a prototype. Then he gave presentations with a few PowerPoint slides and a lot of demo time.

Unfortunately applets and Java running on client machines did not take off. So Lew repurposed his product for servers and pivoted his company. He hired a lot of expensive sales people, and was never able to break even on financials. But they were growing by hiring and making more sales.

Lew says you must hire awesome people. They also need to be both gifted and decent. He found most hires through his extended network. Lew boasts that Wily is still one of the top products at CA, the company that bought him out. I find it interesting that out of the 260 employees of his company, only 15 were engineers developing the product. Most everyone else was in sales. His next product focuses on Ruby rather than Java. He is positioning the product to sell itself via software as a service. If the past is any indicator, Lew will be successful and selling once again for the big win.

Epic Advertising

2010-09-09T09:06:00.002-04:00

I received a thick Microsoft programming magazine this month. After reading the first couple articles, I realized why the magazine had so many pages. Every other page was an advertisement. It was a bit distracting. I would try to read the articles. But I also wanted to check out the ads.

One ad really stood out. The graphics were nothing special. Only black, white, and a little bit of red color were used. However the ad copy was outrageous. This ad was for a tool from Winward Reports. It used a lot of outlandish analogies. The message was that this tool was nothing short of epic.

Although I checked out almost all the ads from the magazine, Windward Reports was the only site I visited based on the ads. I tossed the magazine after perusing it. But I saved the ad. Who does the marketing for this company? I love them.

Long Term Startup Capital

2010-08-24T11:14:00.003-04:00

Startups are being created at a hectic pace. Things are easier if they get bought out quickly. Otherwise there will be the risk of money running out. To prevent such a scenario, they must be backed by venture capitalists with a lot of money. Another technique is to quickly turn a profit to sustain operations.

Some liken this to the boom and bust of the dot coms years ago. A smart founder must consider funding for the whole lifecyle of the startup. Perhaps this is causing a need for a different type of venture capitalist that funds a company after it becomes less risky, but needs funds to continue.

One good factor is that the cost of startups seems to be on the decline. Lean and mean boostrapped startups are best to run longer. There is something that probably does not change over time. Startups fail at a certain clip. Something that accelerates the failing is the shrinking nature of the VC market.

How can you prevent your startup from failing due to cash problems? Launch fast, iterate fast, and spend very little money. It is funny. Some people say the formula for the new startup seems simple enough. Get a catchy tech name. Create a fancy logo. Put up a Web 2.0 site. Then release a mobile application. Got it?

Don't Do Free

2010-08-18T21:15:00.004-04:00

Early on I had a plan that I would developer applications and give them out for free. The idea was to get people to my web site that had ads. That model did not seem to pan out.

Now I read that the free model is a bad one. People don't want to pay once they get a chance to sample your goods for free. Great.

So perhaps it is time to switch up the business model. End the free apps. Charge a minimal amount for them. I will need to step up my game. The app has to be awesome to convince somebody to shell out real cash for it. Reset.

Success Rates

2010-08-02T00:42:00.002-04:00

I read a 2008 paper that researched startup success rates. There is an 18% chance for success on your first venture. If that first one is a success, you have a 30% chance of success in your second venture. Otherwise you only have a 20% chance on your second venture.

The source of the success/failure statistics was Venture Source from 1975 to 2003. The findings show that success affects future results. They also found that you were more likely to success if you were backed by top venture capitalists.

Skills do influence your success rate. Management skills are important. Skills to decide time to market are also key. However past success, or the perception of such success can also propel you to a win.

Microsoft Versus Apple

2010-07-13T00:53:00.002-04:00

Microsoft's stock price has been stagnant for years. This is a bummer, especially for employees of Microsoft. Back in the old days, employees would eventually gain wealth by obtaining stock options coupled with a rising stock price. Stock splits would go hand in hand with a continually rising Microsoft stock price. This is no more.

Apple is the hot company in town. Their stock price is on the rise. Their market capitalization has surpassed Microsoft. This is most surprising as they were in trouble financially in the past. The market cap is not to say that Apple makes money more than Microsoft. This also does not mean that they do more sales than Microsoft. It just means that investors predict that Apple is going to be worth more in the future. Why is this so?

In the past, Apple was a computer system company. They still sell Mac computers. However their rising stock comes from profits in a number of non-computer electronics such as music players and selling the music that goes with them. Then there is the iPhone phenomenon. I keep hearing that cell phones are the future. But are Apple iPhones a future cash cow? I am not sure. Steve Jobs is on a roll. Can Microsoft turn the tide and innovate on their own? It might be that copying other peoples' ideas is no longer favored in the investor community.

Poor User Interface

2010-07-07T17:49:00.003-04:00

I found this site that posts good deals. Right now I am trying it out. One deal was that you could get a free MP3 player by submitting a comment on FaceBook. That sounded good to me.

Now I actually have a FaceBook account for these rare circumstances where I need to log into it. Here is the problem with this contest. It was mind boggling on how to actually post the comment.

There was a link to comment. But when I clicked It, I had to log in. After logging in, the comment link disappeared. Not sure if this was a problem with the sponsor, or with FaceBook itself.

Eventually I clear all my browser cookies, kept clicking all over randomly, and entered a comment. If they did not have a carrot (the free MP3 player), this would have been an absolute fail. It still is a failure in my book. How can this user interface suck so bad?

Eye Candy

2010-07-06T23:41:00.003-04:00

I read a blog post about this great hack to make walkie talkies be texting devices. The dude had a bunch of AdSense ads up on his sites. I scrolled through to see if there was any ads that might be interesting. Only one had that ad copy that made me click. It asked if I wanted to be ripped. You bet I do.

At first I was disappointed with the landing page the ad took me to. I was expecting to see some dudes with exposed six packs. Nope. I found some non-famous guy posing as a basketball player. Weak. I could not tell if he was ripped or not.

Luckily a video of a hot blond chick appeared in the margin. She had a squeaky but sexy voice too. This helped me stay long enough on the page to scroll down. That's where I found pictures of ripped guys. But come on. These images should have been places above the fold.

Let's cut to the chase. Here was the proposition. I could get a free sample. However I would have to pay five bucks for shipping. I have heard about free sample scams before where you get placed on a subscription of non-free product. There are worse free sample scams out there as well. I did not want to deal with such a potential scam. So sorry blondie. I am going to have to pass.

Scrappy Sales

2010-06-29T22:25:00.002-04:00

I found myself reading a blog entry about survival. The guy was detailing his military training. They drove him out to the woods and told him to live off the land, then make it back to camp in 48 hours. It sounded like a believable story due to the details. The funny thing about this was the atrocious spelling and grammar of the piece.

This same author was trying to sell his ebooks. I almost went ahead and purchased one. The thing had a free preview, providing you with a PDF of 10% of the book. I downloaded the preview and printed it out to read. I love reading on paper. The first thing that surprised me was the harsh copyright notice. There were all kinds of restrictions on what you could not do with the book. Perhaps this was just for the preview.

I read through the preview. A lot of it was fluff. There were a few memorable quotes. But here in the funny thing. This prose was written in perfect English. There was not a spelling or grammatical error in all the pages. Then I figured it out. This book was not written by the scrappy blogger. He was just selling the thing. That was the end of the sale for me. I liked the gritty blogger. The misspellings and grammar errors actually made him seem more real. If he does publish something he actually wrote, I might buy a copy even if it is in electronic format.

Internet Leeches

2010-06-28T10:54:00.002-04:00

I was at work and needed to speak with my mortgage company. Luckily I had my loan account number with me. However I did not have my mortgage company's phone number. That should be an easy problem to solve. I googled them.

The search results were interesting. The first page was a secure log in for the mortgage company. The second result turned out to be the link I needed to get the phone number. However another search result in the top 10 caught my eye. They were a company that was not my mortgage company. However the had a page that was obviously trying to profit off my mortgage company.

Here is the scam. Their first technique was to put some Google AdSense on their home page. That in and of itself is not evil. However their also tried to sell my the phone number for my mortgage company. Can you believe that? Their pitch was that they get a lot of calls from people looking for my mortgage company. And they had researched what the company phone number was. For just $9.95 they would share the number with me. What kind of low life business is this? It was almost embarrassing to read.

Too Many Hoops

2010-06-19T01:46:00.003-04:00

I read an interesting blog post on language translation. The author had ads enabled on their page. I decided to click on one of them. First I surveyed all the ads. One in particular stood out. It was a free reading on the numerology of your name. Good stuff. I clicked through.

The landing page asked me to enter my name. That sounded appropriate. Then it wanted my email address. Normally I guard my email carefully. So I put in one of my alternate email addresses. Then it asked for the name on my birth certificate. That seemed strange. So I put in a fake name to test it out. I pressed the submit button. Then I was told to check my email.

I hurried over to my email. It took a while to get the expected email. The contents of the email were disappointing. It told me to click a link to confirm. Ok. I already gave you my name, the name on my birth certificate, my birth date, and my email address. And you are still asking me to fart around and click some links? I don't think so. Don't make it hard for me to become a consumer of your product. You are going to lose me all too soon.

Commercial Product Development

2010-05-27T13:02:00.003-04:00

There are many pitfalls to commercial software development. But that's not a reason to go for it anyway. I have read a number of tips from people who created failures in the commercial software world. I am one of them. Let's see what they have to say.

Launch early. Be warned that some software has a long sales cycle. Make sure your product has killer features that the competition does not have. Make sure you need the product yourself. Temper that with the fact that just because you need something, everyone else will not necessarily need it too.

Make sure you learn during the development process. That way even if you fail, you come out smarter and it is not a total waste. Conduct your marketing research up front before you sink unrecoverable costs in development. Be careful of sharing equity with other partners who may not put in as much into the start up. Also beware of potentially high software support costs.

You should try to save up money then go full time into product development. Make sure your market is not too small. A niche is ok, but too small of a niche is death. Talk with actual people during your research. Get feedback from your users early on. Make sure you have enough domain knowledge for the market you are selling to. Consider integration with other software to expand usefulness of your product. Good luck to all.

Marketing to Big Business

2010-05-25T17:41:00.002-04:00

There are many pros and cons to selling your software to big business. One benefit is that your price can be higher. The volume might also be higher, making the final price even better. However this comes with some trouble as well.

Companies have lawyers. Legal needs to sign off before some big purchases can be made. You will need a software license agreement. Purchase one of these for a few grand. Best to do it upfront.

Give quotes that last for 60 days. Companies will cut you a purchase order and expect you to ship the software. The game is not over yet. You still need to collect. Luckily the purchase order is legally binding. It will just take a while for you to get your money.

Get to know the payment procedure for each of your big company customers. It will make your payments come quicker. Know this. Companies don't like to pay via PayPal. Make it easy for them to pay you by whatever means necessary, except for Monopoly money.

Snapfish Sucks

2010-05-22T23:49:00.002-04:00

Some time ago I signed up for an account with Snapfish. They are a web site which does photo prints for you. I think somebody referred me there and I got free prints and shipping. I tried the thing out and it actually worked.

Later I returned to the site to do some more free prints. Turns out my free prints disappeared. That sucked. But I needed some prints so I paid for them anyway. It was still convenient. However I was a bit disappointed that my free prints went away without warning.

It has been some time since I used the service. I played some online game and got to choose a reward. One of the prizes was free prints from Snapfish. Great. I already have an account with them. I spend a bunch of time uploading my prints to them. I go to check out and use my free prints. Bam. My code does not work. All I get is an "oops" error message. WTF? The web site continues to find new ways of disappointing me.

Top Students

2010-05-20T16:00:00.002-04:00

What predicts whether somebody will become a top student or not? You might think it is how smart they are. But researchers from the University of Pennsylvania discovered otherwise. It is not a person's IQ that accurately predicts how well a student they will become. It is their self discipline.

That sounds like a nice discovery. You want to believe that with a lot of hard work, anybody can rise to the top. It is not fair that some people are smarter than others. This is not something you can control. But you can have grit and will yourself into a better student.

Here is what strong self discipline will improve: standard test scores, quality of schools accepted into, number of school absences, amount of time spent on homework, and amount of time spent watching TV. Not only will self discipline improve these things, it will itself gauge how well you will improve in each of these areas.

Not many of the tired old excuses apply to success in school. Don't blame large class sizes. Don't blame books that are not interesting. And don't blame the teacher. You have the ability to improve your self discipline with some hard work. It will pay off in the end. Academic research backs this up.

Fast Turn Around

2010-05-19T14:56:00.002-04:00

We live in a three story house. Now that summertime is approaching, the top level is starting to get really hot. The real shame is that my central air conditioning runs all the time running up the electric bill. However that just makes the basement cold. Time to buy a solution to this problem.

I tried going to the local Home Depot to pick up some window air conditioning units. Their stock was pathetic. Well at least I tried to buy from the local guy. Next I went online to shop at Amazon. They had every window air conditioning unit ever made ready to ship. There were even tons of user reviews that helped me stay away from the duds.

Amazon got me to buy a bunch of them. It helped that shipping was free. Later that night I got messages from Amazon stating that the units had shipped already. The next day, the first unit had arrived at my house. You can't beat this service. Free shipping that is very speedy. They exceed their estimated delivery time by a week or two. You can bet that I am going back to Amazon for all my big dollar hardware needs. Epic win Amazon.

Sex Sale

2010-05-18T23:30:00.002-04:00

I got an email pitch the other day. "Stacy" wanted me to write about a software product on my blog. She also wanted a link to the product web site. In exchange, I would receive a free license to the software.

LOL. This is weak on so many levels. First off, the software looks more like some spyware. And I think my integrity is worth a little more than a free license. The part I love is that "Stacy" was trying to get the referral.

I don't think there is any such Stacy. It was a nice try though. At least the email pitch did not have any spelling errors. Still I was a little taken aback by the request.

I sometimes write about software. But that only happens when I am really interested in buying some software. And I don't take kindly to bribes to write about software. Yeah I might write about this particular software. However it won't be a positive review.

Price Escalation

2010-05-18T13:24:00.002-04:00

I have heard an outcry from Zendesk customers. This is an online Help Desk software offering. It is released in a software as a service arrangement. Recently they have decided to redo their pricing plans.

Personally I have never heard of Zendesk before. Now I hear about them from customers that are complaining loudly. From what I gather, the average cost for each customer is either going to double or triple.

This company needs to do some PR damage control. If they do not think they can afford to not gouge their customers, they at least need to come up with a better explanation for the raping. The real kicker is that some people chose Zendesk based on their price advantage. Ooops. Bad show Zendesk.

Sense of Community

2010-05-13T15:34:00.002-04:00

I read a chapter in a book about creating a successful startup. The book was published last year so I hope the info is relevant. Your company needs to belong to the community for it to thrive. To manage this you need a dedicated community manager.

The community manager will essentially keep tabs on what people are saying about your company and/or your product.

Blogging is key to a startup. It works. You must provide value in your blog. It cannot be blatant marketing. You also need to be on Twitter. These things might sounds fundamental. However I am guilty of not using Twitter to socialize my business.

Finally you need to do some PR. This can be done through bloggers and reporters. Get to know these people. Get to the point with your PR releases. And if you have the cash, hire a PR agency. That's all for now.

Anonymous Accusation

2010-05-13T14:36:00.003-04:00

I read a rant from the makers of the Friendly Rank web site. They have a function where you can upload your pictures to the site. Then it asks people to rank which picture looks best. The site then let's you know what your best picture is. The idea is that you can use your best picture as your profile picture.

Friendly Rank allegedly tried to license the technology to the OkCupid dating site. However they were turned down. Now OkCupid has released their MyBestFace function. Guess what that does? It let's you upload pictures, has people vote on the best ones, and let's you know the results.

Now this may in fact be a case of OkCupied ripping off somebody else's ideas. If so, Friendly Rank should take them to court. Hopefully they have a patent on the technology. However the thing that seemed suspicious to me was that the Friendly Rank web page that complains about OkCupid ripping then off is signed "Shannon B".

LOL. Who is Shannon B? And why is she not posting her last name, company title, and contact information. It is almost like she is hiding behind the omitted last name. If you have a valid complaint, let people know who you are, and stand behind it. Your complaint loses all its power when you try to lodge it anonymously.

Software Mentality

2010-05-13T00:56:00.002-04:00

I just read a rant about the right way to think of software. You got to make your customer king. Your software has no value other than making the customer happy.

Help your customer get a job done. Software should assist in getting the job done fast. Or it should make them happy. Users do not care about your software. Optimally it should be invisible to them.

Don't make your users learn how to use your software. Make the use transparent. Then you will get happy customers. Happy customers means you make money. Win win.

Great Deals

2010-05-12T14:08:00.002-04:00

I saw an unusual offer for a bundle of older computer games this week. They were offering 6 games. You were allowed to pay anything you want for the games. You could further decide where you payment gets applied (e..g. to charity, to the original developers, etc). This seemed like a great deal.

Then I thought about this for a while. Would I actually play these old games? Probably not. So even for a low cost, they would not be a great deal. I was in the minority. A lot of people decided to buy the game pack. They mostly paid between $5 and $10 for the pack. The total revenue from this promotion was over a million dollars.

The deal was only valid for one week. The week is up. Now I am glad I did not buy the game pack. Turns out they are open sourcing the code for all the games. Now I can get them for free. I even get the source code. Nothing beats free. Free is much different than low cost. I bet this was the plan all along. I would have felt ripped off if I bought the games and they became open source the next day.

Nothing is Free

2010-05-06T15:31:00.002-04:00

I was reading this blog today. The author had a technical argument with another guy. He really worked hard to defend his position in his post. What caught my eye was an advertisement on the side of his blog. The ad said that I could get technical books for free.

This is when I clicked the ad. At the very least, the blog author was going to make some cash from my click. The landing page for the ad emphasized that I could win free books, and that shipping was free too. For a second I contemplated signing up to be able to claim my chance at free books. Then I came to my senses.

Why would somebody be giving away books for free? Technical books are expensive. There has to be a catch. I don't need to even look further to find out what the catch is. There is always a catch. These guys are not in the business of losing money by purchasing free books for me. I will give them credit. They had me going for a second. However they could not close the deal.

Apps That Matter

2010-05-06T01:52:00.002-04:00

How do you create an app that people like? It is all too tempting to create an app that is just a big ad. Customers will see right through that. You need to be more subtle. Functionality is king here. Make something useful.

You got to give in order to get. And in this case, the community wants you to do a lot of giving before they trust you. This is a difficult line to walk. Here is an idea. Put a video up on YouTube showing how to use your app. Personally I think it would be good to hire a booth babe to star in the video. But that's just me.

Before you run out and code your app, make sure you have a purpose. Write it down. That way you have a concrete goal. And it will show in the app you churn out. Good stuff. Now go and write that useful app. If you build it, they will come.

Become an iPhone Developer

2010-04-04T22:49:00.003-04:00

The iPhone is hot. You should be able to bang out an app and make some bucks right? Not so fast. This is no easy feat. There is a lot of info to learn before you write your first app. And it does not always help if you already know how to program for the Mac.

The iPhone has its own operating system. It is a type of Mac OS. The APIs to code to are based on Cocoa, which is an OO framework for apps. You actually use a scaled down version of Cocoa called Cocoa Touch.

You code your apps in Objective C. This language is C with some extra stuff. It is not C++. What are you waiting for? Time to learn iPhone app development skills.

Success Criteria

2010-03-25T17:07:00.002-04:00

I read something on the net recently about what makes a person good to be successful at running a Micro ISV. There were many insightful comments to that post that I want to cover today. There were some common themes in the comments. You just need to stick to it. This requires passion, persistence, and dedication.

Here is something that is disappointing. Your success rate does not have much to do with your technical abilities. Development is only about 10% of the work involved. The other 90% of the work involves things such as advertising, marketing, and selling. You also need to work on processing payments and finding suppliers.

You got to be willing to put on a suit to sell your software. To be successful you need to have a positive outlook. You need to be in a good mood to be able to run your own software business. A common catch phrase is that you need to be smart and be able to just get things done.

Stay focused. You might be able to be successful and get rich.

Gimmicks That Work

2010-03-17T20:20:00.000-04:00

I got a big envelope from a mail order company I use a lot. The envelope contained a poster sized certificate. It was given to me because I was a good customer. The certificate allowed me to get some free stuff if I placed an order. Normally I would laugh at such crazy tactics. But in this case, it actually worked.

No. I did not run out and place an order with this company. But I did keep the certificate. And I plan to paste the thing up on my wall. I have already received some compliments from the certificate. It looks very authentic. There is a seal on it. And it is printed on paper that looks official.

Here is the thing. The certificate by itself did not create any company loyalty for me. It is the reasonably priced goods they offer. During these hard economic times, I love to get a good deal. The quality of the merchandise is not all that high. I have returned a bunch of stuff because it has fallen apart. However they have a 100% money back or replacement guarantee.

This is funny. The company is not that prompt with their shipment of my orders. However I always keep coming back for more with this company. Sometimes they offer free shipping. Other times they offer free gifts. They are always sending me offers in the mail. I am finding that I buy most of my clothes from this company. That’s some successful marketing, even if they resort to gimmicks every once in a while.

Too Good To Be True

2010-03-09T15:23:00.002-05:00

I saw a video on a web page that was pitching a service. You never saw the narrator. However you saw a picture of his family. They looked quite normal. The guy said it costs $97 to join his club. He claims to make thousands of dollars a day. He showed a picture of an account which made him $2.6M this year. The last month he claimed to have made $117k.

It was clear that this guy was a good talker. He sounded young. This guy’s business is promoting other people’s products. He is trying to sell people his coaching services in the form of a club. He guarantees results or you get your money back. He pokes fun at infomercials. Why is he charging money to join? That is to limit the number of people involved. You get email access to him if you pay to join.

Why would somebody give away the keys to the kingdom of $117k per month? The guy says it is charity work for him. He likes to help other people. He considers the $97 price too low, and admits the price may rise a bit.

This is the gist of his technique. He promotes products using Google AdWords. He will show you what he does. Then you can copy it. The products he promotes give you a lot of money for each lead you generate. He claims you can get 100 times your initial investment. He advises against using ads targeted to Google search. Instead you should use AdWords on specific sites. His focus is the USA and UK markets.

There are some tricks he shares for free. Capitalize words in ads. Have a copyright sign in there too. He recommends that you have your own domain. He says that the money you make with his system can buy you happiness. His club let’s you get into his site, where he has 60 instructional videos.

I am usually very leery of such pitches. Why would anybody want to share the secrets of success? If somebody was really into charity work, they would just give away their money. I would be willing to take $97 or $970 or $9700 cash from this guy. I will thank him profusely.

Randall Kennedy is a Devil

2010-02-25T13:38:00.002-05:00

Randall C. Kennedy used to be a columnist for InfoWorld. The key word is used to. IDG fired him recently due to controversy over his claims about Windows 7 memory issues. He is a devil. More specifically Randall Kennedy is actually Craig Barth, CTO of Devil Mountain Software.
Craig, or Randall as he was known to InfoWorld readers, claimed that 86% of Windows 7 computers have memory problem. He based this on data collected from Devil Mountain’s XPNet. This is a collection of computers using Devil Mountain software and reporting the results back to the company. The memory problem claim has been hotly contested in the blogosphere.

The real story seems to have been Barth”s column under the pseudonym. The guy was hyping products from his own company. He was able to keep this a secret from the public for a while. When the Windows 7 memory issues became front lines, Kennedy’s identity cover was blown.

Hey. I am all about writing under a pseudonym. But you got to make sure you don’t have conflicting interests when you write. Otherwise it is going to look bad. I am talking real bad here. Everyone seems to be distancing themselves from Barth. His company is probably going to suffer. And I doubt anybody will be letting him write columns for their magazine. Ownage.

The Cost of One Mistake

2010-02-21T20:49:00.002-05:00

My mom does not like the gifts I get her. She says I get stuff that just clutters her house. Not wanting to be a poor gift giver, I asked my mom what she actually wanted. She said she loves flowers. Great.

I have a local florist who delivers. For a while I have been calling them up, and having them send my mom flowers for her birthday and mother's day and Christmas.

This works out for all involved. My mom gets what she wants. I don't have to do much. And the florist makes some decent cash. Everything was going well until their last delivery.

My mom called me up last Christmas and said the florist delivered some dead flowers to her house. She called the florist up to complain. They sent a replacement set the next day.

However the damage had already been done. I was pissed off that I was paying $50 or $60 for some dead flowers. At that moment I decided to stop using this florist. They had to deliver top quality flowers for the high price they were charging. One screw up cost them me as a customer. That's a lot of lost revenue. I was paying upwards of $150 a year for a few flower deliveries. It is a tough business.

Research and Development Tax Credit

2010-02-09T18:26:00.003-05:00

The US government has a tax credit on the books that companies can take if they invest in research and development. If you use a development process to create new functionality, then you qualify for this credit. Good stuff.

There are some legal stipulations you must meet to claim the credit. But most software development activities qualify. The work must be technical in nature. There must be a probability of failure. And you need to be doing some experimental research.

Your business should file Form 6765 with your taxes to claim the credit. This is something your CPA should know about. The R&D credit is an old one dating back to the early eighties. Cash in now.

Freelancing

2010-01-10T01:17:00.001-05:00

It can take a long time working on your Micro ISV before you turn a profit. During that time you need to eat and pay bills. One way to deal with this is to save up some up money beforehand. Or you could just work your Micro ISV on the side while you have a day job. A final technique is to freelance while you develop your product.

I read a book on becoming a great freelancer. There are many issues involved. The term freelancer comes from a being soldier for hire. A freelancer is free to choose the work they do. They are their own bosses. However they have clients that they work for, even though legally they are their own bosses.

Another name for a freelancer is a contractor. Freelancers frequently have more than one client. They run their own business. To be a good freelancer, you must be good at what you do. It is hard to get started in freelancing. But after a while you will have repeat clients and a solid code base to draw upon.

If you decide to freelance on the side while working a normal job, don’t do freelance work while on the clock for your employer. This might sound like a good way to double dip. But it will hurt you in the end. Good luck freelancers of the world.

Web Failure

2009-12-23T08:41:00.002-05:00

Some guy came out with a service on the web. You are supposed to be able to compose letters on his web site. Then he will actually print out the letter and mail it for you via postal mail for a flat fee of 99 cents.

Now this is not an entirely new idea. I’ve seen the same service being rolled out this past year. The nice part about this latest version is that you get to mail your first letter for free. That at least got me interested to give it a try.

The web page had 4 tabs on it. They were “How It Works”, “Features”, “Types of Letters” and “FAQ”. I tried clicking on Features. Nothing happened. It still displayed the information from the How It Works tab. What the heck?

I guess this guy’s stuff is either broken or does not work with my browser. Come on. I am using Internet Explorer. And with that the guy lost my business. If he can’t get the web page to work, what makes him think I will trust him to deliver a letter for me? Ouch.

Desktop Support

2009-12-15T17:59:00.002-05:00

I work for a big consulting company. We are supposed to report all problems to our Help Desk. The last time I rebooted my laptop, I got a message stating the Windows Service Pack 2 was not installed. It is now required at our company. So I called up the Help Desk. A local desktop support guy came and ran some command on my machine. He told me to reboot the machine in 5 minutes and I would be set.

After rebooting I got the same error message. So I called the local guy back. He did not return my call. I had to call the Help Desk again. The same guy came back and tried some more things. It looks like he needed to manually install an upgrade. He got impatient and told me the last download he did would take 15 or 20 minutes. So he left. That was the last I saw of him.

Come on. Stay here and complete your task. This last visit got crazy. The guy was complaining that my machine was slow. He had some precious ideas on how to fix that. He recommended I defragment my hard drive or clean up some temp files. I would have preferred that he just actually fix the problem he got called in to do already. It has gotten to the point where I am doing the upgrade on the machine myself. It is hard to get good help these days.

Fulfill Orders Quickly

2009-12-09T19:17:00.002-05:00

There is a mail order company that I have been using to buy my clothes. They are sending me more and more mailings. I find stuff I like in just about every mailing. However they are not getting extra business from me. Why? They can't fill my orders fast enough.

I generally don't want to place a new order with a company until I have received my previous order. Normally companies like Amazon rush my orders out immediately. They get repeat business very quickly.

However my favorite clothing mail order company takes its time. They often back order my clothes. That is fine with me. But they are losing out on sales. I got a stack full of offers from them. But I am not going to act on any of them until I get my goods.

Let this be a lesson to all you mail order companies. Ship me my stuff fast. You will be rewarded.

Krispy Kreme Delight

2009-12-03T16:53:00.003-05:00

Previously I had written about the weak guarantee provided by Hostess for their doughnuts. As a result, I refuse to buy any Hostess products. The company is just too sleazy for my taste. I still want to eat some doughnuts. This time I tried Krispy Kreme.

Krisy Kreme cost about the same as Hostess. However their box did not have any bogus quality guarantees on it. I ate up most of the doughnuts. They were not as fresh and good as Hostess. However there was not marketing mumbo jumobo involved. Out of principle, I am going to stick with Krispy Kreme. These guys even get a doughnut link from met. Good job guys.

Hostess Non-Guarantee

2009-11-30T16:18:00.003-05:00

I picked up a bag of powdered doughnuts from the store. The price came out to $3 before tax. These things tasted good. When I first broke into the bag to chow down, I read the back of the back. This is where I found the Quality Guarantee: "HOSTESS is committed to providing quality bakery products. We invite you comments and questions."

WTF is that? It sounded like some crap that their lawyers wrote. I guess I am a little spoiled by real guarantees where the company backs the guarantee with a money back offer. That is standing by your product. What is Hostess backing their guarantee with? If I don't think the product has quality, I can ask them a question? It seems they take their customers for fools.

Come on Hostess. If you cannot offer a real guarantee, don't try to hide behind some lawyer mumbo-jumbo. Either skip the guarantee or stand behind your product. What an epic fail. And to think that I actually like the taste of their doughnuts. The stinking "quality guarantee" left me with a sour taste in my mouth. Weak I tell you. Weak.

Customer Service is King

2009-11-20T02:26:00.003-05:00

I am reading a technical magazine to get some ideas for blogging. That is where I came across a picture of a guy in an airport talking on his cell phone. It was an advertisement for a wireless phone company. And the ad was working.

Here are some quotes from the ad copy. "Increase billable hours. Respond to clients quickly. Access data. Connect with clients. Get more 3G coverage". I don't know about you. But just by reading this, I am sold.

Now I am not going to link to this wireless phone company. Do you know why? Their sorry customer service and shady billing practices have made me dislike them. I am looking to replace them with another carrier. Isn't that a shame? They won my attention with great marketing. However poor prior service ruined the sale. For shame.

Advertising Business

2009-10-29T18:13:00.003-04:00

This post is about a company named Demand Media. They are paying film makers around $200 a day to record short clips on topics the company likes. There are a bunch of weird subjects. This company, in turn, is the number 1 supplier of YouTube videos. And they are all original.

The business is not a small one. Demand Media is on track to making $200M in revenue this year. Their company is valued at $1B. The work they give out is steady. These guys normally do not cover the news. They focus more on timeless information.

Demand Media is not just into videos. They also pay for writers. The going rate is around fifteen bucks for an article of a couple hundred words. The payments are made via PayPal.

The company uses freelancers for its work. Google is their partner. Online content is general is not worth a lot of money. However this is one company that is cleaning up with advertising. I am in the wrong business.

Delivering a Good Message

2009-10-24T13:26:00.003-04:00

This time I wrap up discussing the wisdom I gained by reading The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. My topic today is that of effective messages. In other words, how to you give a good speech?

You presentation must be simple. It is difficult to deliver complex ideas in a speech. Remember to KISS. However the information you present must be concrete. Don't have a lot of intangible theory in there.

It helps if you through in a few unexpected items. This will help keep the audience engaged and guessing. Another technique to keep interest high is to be emotional.

You need to be able to come across as credible. There is so much information out there from many sources. People do not trust what they hear in general. Finally, the best speeches tell a great story. Do so, and you will be on the road to success.

Source of Ideas

2009-10-20T22:29:00.002-04:00

How do you get good ideas for your own business? You can brainstorm. Figure on spending an hour to generate upwards of 100 ideas. I have heard two sides to the best ideas. One camp says that daydreaming produces the best ideas. Another states that meeting customers with problems is king.

If you think your idea is unique, it probably is not. Therefore you need an idea that is totally unheard of if you are basing your success on something new. Remember this. Don't be afraid. You should also avoid being practical or following the rules.

What you should do to think outside the box is to be playful, ambiguous, and foolish with your initial ideas. Forget about getting an MBA. Get a Master of Fine Arts instead. They say this is the new cool thing.

Next time I will wrap up the knowledge I have received from The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. I will cover how to get a great message across to your audience.

Shorter is Better

2009-10-18T18:18:00.004-04:00

You often need to pitch an idea or business quickly. The best presentation has 10 slides and lasts just 20 minutes. Any other numbers or durations are non-optimal. You should be able to cut to the core concept in 7 words or less.

There are over 1 million start up companies in the USA. This is amazing given the fact that there are only a few hundred million citizens total.

How can you succeed at business? Be a customer. This may sound funny, but you cannot learn business from a book. There is no easy formula to come up with a good idea for a business. However you should go do something. Prototyping is a great method to figure out success or failure quickly.

Next time I will go over some other neat idea generators.

On Employees

2009-10-13T01:39:00.002-04:00

What can business books teach us about coaching employees? First you need to realize that research shows great managers help employees be more of themselves. In other words you should build on your strengths instead of trying to patch up your weaknesses.

Other tips include letting teams develop on their own. This has historically worked for HP. It is also the method used to excel at Google. Empower employees to make decisions. Then get out of the way.

I will cover all kinds of topics next time like presentations, customers, and brainstorming.

Legend of Deming

2009-10-09T23:37:00.003-04:00

I am sure most people have heard about Deming. He had ideas on how to improve quality. When he went to Japan, they listened to him intently. Toyota used his methods to eliminate waste and become the number 1 automotive company in America. Dang.

Here is a question to ask yourself. Do you have a best friend at work? I know I do. Now this may not have any bearing on my success in business. But at least I have somebody to talk to and go to lunch with. Some business books say that will actually have a positive affect on me.

Next time I am going to go over some advice to empower employees to do their best. Tune in.

On Customers and Employees

2009-10-08T19:25:00.003-04:00

What do you call an employee that brings in revenue? No, this is not a trick question. They are the rainmakers. I am not talking about somebody who does a job that nets the company some cash. I am talking about the business development folks who bring in new business.

Here is a tip for almost any business situation. Be the best dressed person you will meet today. So unless you show up the CEO, you will be looked up to.

What should be the goal of a business? It should create a customer. All else stems from this act. And what should be the role of employees? It is a singular goal. Perform. Do this in a responsible manner and you will have served your purpose.

Next time I will start with Deming and his message to the Japanese.

Customer Service and Selling

2009-10-07T19:55:00.004-04:00

Here is a saying worth remembering: customer service wins the day. There are more where that came from. Action is paramount to success. Stretch past your comfort zone. And "do something right because it is the right thing to do".

Let's get back to customer service. Strangely enough, researchers have found that customers remember the beginning and end of an encounter. You got to provide a strong delivery at both ends of the transaction. Otherwise you may lose business.

There is a bunch of psychology involved with selling. Therefore you must choose your words carefully when advertising. Words that help sell are proven, health, easy, and discover. Conversely, some words that prevent sales are deal, pay, contract, and sign.

Next time I will start off with branding and introduce you to the Rainmaker.

On Being a Leader

2009-10-06T23:56:00.002-04:00

This time I continue outlining the traits of great leadership. Storytelling is the best way to motivate people. At my last company, the top guy in the building could tell gripping stories to an auditorium full of people. You felt like he was talking directly to you. He was not some stuffy VP. He was a regular, likable guy.

I did not know this superstar personally. But I did know an up and coming guy who wanted to be a VP. In a similar way, he would make he speeches into stories all the time. This happened even when he was talking to two or three people. That's a leader.

Communication and motivation are the keys to changing people and ultimately the company. You got to spread the ambition of the leader to all employees in the company to get traction on a grand scale. It is the faith of the people, not facts, that enables workers in the trenches to move mountains.

Next time I will get more concrete and discuss customer service strategies to grow the business.