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Biz and Marketing

Guest Post: Bootstrapping on Steroids- Build an Internet, Technology or Software Company for Zero Dollars Part 2

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This is the Part 2 of a 3 part series, courtesy of Alex Genadinik. Part 1 can be found here.

Introducing: Guest blogger and fellow Tweep Alex. Alex has a background in software engineering and is currently focused on building semantic systems for the business world. He is the founder of Semantic Valley, a web 3.0 start-up specializing in creating taxonomy and ontology based products. Their alpha-stage demo of a semantic search of shoes can be seen at MilderWilder.com. Say hello on Twitter too! @genadinik

Why Everyone Should Have Partners to Round Out the Team

Sometimes engineers who have become confident in the business world can pull off a start-up by themselves, but most people need partners. Business people always need engineers for the obvious reason that someone has to actually build the product. Engineers need business people and additional engineers because it is just too difficult for one person to write code, go to business meetings, network, deal with legal issues, do marketing, branding, social media, a slew of other tasks, while keeping a clear mind to maintain focus on their entrepreneurial vision.

The Perfect Skill Set of the Founding Team

Traditionally it has been thought that a perfect founding team consists of 2-4 people. The ideal mix should consist of one person who covers all things having to do with the business side, and the rest of the team members who have strong backgrounds in creating technology.

The engineers should ideally have different backgrounds within tech. One may be more of a back-end server engineer who would be in charge of architecture, while another could write business logic and focus more on the user-facing part of the application. As for the business person, she has to stand on her head doing all the non-tech tasks (legal issues, business docs, business networking, lead generation, light accounting, etc.) possible to allow the engineers to focus on building the core product.

Hunt for the Right Partners

Find A-players who buy into your idea and are willing to work crazy hours, side by side with you to grow the idea into a company. But how do you know whether people will deliver? People often say they will or can do various things, but often cannot or just do not. They may have the best intentions in mind, but few people can work in a highly-demanding and unstructured environment for a long time; especially without a regular salary.

My view is that everyone should be given a chance, and put into a position to succeed, even if it is a long shot. At the same time, to ensure you do not waste your time, let them prove themselves by assigning immediate tasks and see for yourself how they will perform. This will help you weed out bad partners.

Here are some specifics to look for:

*
o Responsiveness
o Professionalism
o Honesty
o Accountability
o Sharing of vision
o You respect them as people and professionals

If any of these qualities are not there, see it as a big red flag.

Appreciating Your Partners

Once you do find good partners, recognize that working for equity is much more difficult than for a regular salary, and appreciate their work. At the same time make sure they always have momentum-building, challenging but not overwhelming tasks.

Copy and Messaging

Universal Laws of Good Copywriting Part 3

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If you’ve been following along, you will see that we’re now on Part 3 in this “Copywriting Rules” series of articles.

Throughout these articles, we’ve gone through several important copywriting rules. To reiterate, these rules were:

* Set out writing to one person.
* Use your prospect’s language.
* Use emotion.
* Time’s ticking, make sure you keep their attention.
* Make the copy visually compelling.

Now we’re going to go through even more rules you should know about in making the best possible piece of sales copy.

Rule #6: Make it easy for people to buy.

Don’t give your readers a reason to say no. Remove as much risk as you possibly can. You can do this in a few ways, with the most obvious being a secure guarantee.

Many copywriters find that the more outrageous and secure the guarantee, the better the conversions. The ironic part, though, is that the longer the guarantee period, the less refunds a company usually gets.

This could be because most people put off putting things back until “later”, whereas they have a sense of urgency with a shorter guarantee period.

Whatever the reason, a strong guarantee makes it hard for your prospect to say no. If you tell them that if they don’t like your product they can get their money back, they have no reason to object. They have absolutely nothing to lose by trying your product out.

On the other hand, if they have to take on a lot of risk, they’re going to be more apprehensive about buying. In this Internet age, a lot of people are nervous about being scammed. If you haven’t yet done business with a prospect, they’re going to be wary – and rightfully so.

Don’t give them any reason to turn you away.

Rule #7: Use scarcity.

Like we mentioned earlier, people are quick to put things off until the elusive “later”. By using scarcity, you will force people into moving NOW.

You probably see this in action all the time. Department stores use sales to get people to buy by a certain time. Infomercials will give you an extra widget if you order “in the next 5 minutes!”. High-end automobile manufacturers only have “x” amount of limited editions for certain cars.

There are several ways in which you can implement scarcity. You can:

* Limit your product or service to “x” amount of people

* Only give special pricing to “x” amount of people

* Have a special deal/coupon for people who order by “x” date

All of these things are designed to make people move quickly, thinking that they’ll “lose out” if they don’t.

It’s important to remember that whatever scarcity tactic you choose to employ, that you make sure to honor and uphold that. Lying one time may get you sales the first time, but it can severely damage your ability to make more sales down the road.

Biz and Marketing

Guest Post: Bootstrapping on Steroids- Build an Internet, Technology or Software Company for Zero Dollars Part 1

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This is the beginning of a 3 part series, courtesy of Alex Genadinik.

Introducing: Guest blogger and fellow Tweep Alex. Alex has a background in software engineering and is currently focused on building semantic systems for the business world. He is the founder of Semantic Valley, a web 3.0 start-up specializing in creating taxonomy and ontology based products. Their alpha-stage demo of a semantic search of shoes can be seen at MilderWilder.com. Say hello on Twitter too! @genadinik

There is a glut of overly optimistic blogs and articles giving advice and encouragement on entrepreneurship, innovation and fearlessness in the face of risk.

This can be quite misleading due to its authors’ success bias because they are the tiny percentage of people who have succeeded and are given a voice; among the infinitely many more people who have failed and whose stories are not widely read.

Unfortunately, chances are against most of us who try. The goal of this article is to offer suggestions on how to build a company and give it a chance to stand on its feet, while spending nothing more than the legal fee to register as a company. Hopefully it will afford you more time to try to build your company well.

What You Can Expect

During the bootstrapping stage the following milestones have to be accomplished in order to ensure the company is able to survive moving forward:

Copy and Messaging

Psychology of a Sales Letter

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If you catch the attention of the reader in the first paragraph of your sales letter, your reader will most likely read through to the second paragraph. And if you have convinced him to read on by your first paragraph, the more your second paragraph will be convincing because by now your reader will believe he has a need for your product or service because you’ve suggested that the product that you offer will satisfy a need. Make sense?

The content of your copy must briefly sum up three important aspects: attraction, necessity and urge.

The second paragraph can be called the “psychological paragraph” because it creates a psychological impact on the reader making him;

Mindset and Inspiration

The Sandman’s Secret Hostage Hold Over YOUR Positive Mindset

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More and more everyday my belief in the power of a strong and positive mindset grows. There is nothing you can’t achieve if you focus your thoughts and intentions on it, and believe that you will get it, regardless of how hard it is or how long it takes.

For some people though, it can be tough. Heck it’s tough for me at times too. And I notice that I am especially susceptible to a poor and negative mindset, as well as procrastination and a lack of motivation when… I don’t get enough SLEEP. Go figure!

Seriously though, I have been monitoring this for awhile now and it’s completely true. Your body needs rest, and it needs the right AMOUNT of rest. Just a couple days ago, there were two nights I went to bed fairly late, but no more than usual.

I then had to awaken an hour earlier than usual the next morning. Come alarm time, I could barely keep my eyes open. And guess what? That lethargy continued throughout the day and eventually merged with a pounding headache to make the picture complete. Woot!

And I’m sure it goes without saying that my irritability levels were high, (OK, super high… let’s face it, I’m a bi*** when I don’t get my sleep!) and my patience level was practically nil. NOT conducive to a good day or a positive mindset, let me tell ya!

Mindset and Inspiration

You Don’t Build A Business On Hope And Faith

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OK, so just to be clear, I’m a huge believer in faith, the power of positive thinking, and that yes, miracles do happen. So I’m not knocking any of those things, or the power that hope can have in a person’s life and their perceptions of the world. That doesn’t mean I’m going to leave my livelihood up to those things. C’mon, a girl’s gotta eat! And shop, and hang with friends, and go see cool movies and… oh sorry… I get a little carried away at times. 🙂

So, hope is great, but it’s definitely not a business strategy. If you are going into business for yourself, you at the very least need a loose ‘business plan’ with a few key goals outlined in order to see any kind of success. After all, if you don’t have a direction or a purpose, what’s the point? You’re essentially just spinning your wheels, slinging mud, and not going anywhere.

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