Erich Stauffer

Category: Entrepreneurship

  • 10 New Business Ideas

    I closed my web design and IT consulting business in 2012 and plan on starting a new business in 2013. It wasn’t that the old business was failing. It was a success, I just wanted to do something different, something that was easier to scale up without adding employees (at least not right away), and the name (Watershawl) just didn’t make sense anymore.

    I am a professional!
    I am a professional!
    Why Start Your Own Business?

    One of my primary reasons for wanting to run my own business is to be able to hire workers just as I was hired when I first started out. I think of it as the natural progression of things and as a way to give back to the community who has given so much to me. The secondary reason is the scheduling freedom it allows.

    With that in mind, here are some business ideas I am considering in 2013:

    Start an eCommerce Business

    I’ve done affiliate marketing for around four years now, but I’m ready for the higher margins associated with e-commerce. It all started when I realized that three of my clients were doing e-commerce and I kept getting job requests from e-commerce companies. After I continually got told I was over-qualified I began to realize that I should probably start my own e-commerce business. The only issue now is in deciding what product to sell, which is not easy. In fact, there isn’t much about e-commerce that is easy, but it is a proven business model.

    Start an Alternative Energy Installer Business

    When you consider how many homes and businesses still don’t have solar, wind, or other alternative energy sources connected to them, the opportunity seems huge, but when you look up on a cloudy, winter day in Indiana it seems like there could be better businesses to start. It may be better to start a business simply painting roofs white in the summer. There are companies in Indiana doing this though, mostly up north.

    Start an eCommerce Consulting Business

    When I think about all I’ve learned from e-commerce in 2012 and couple that with my web design, SEO, and affiliate marketing knowledge I seem like a good candidate for an e-commerce consultant or what the customer might call a ‘ecommerce web designer’. I have experience with WordPress and WP-Ecommerce, but I recommend BigCommerce or Shopify.

    Start a Restaurant

    This is one of the most capital-intensive and risky things you could do, but I’ve always had the desire to own and run one. I’d serve chili with cut celery sticks (like a Bloody Mary) and put sliced pickles in our grilled cheese sandwiches. And since community involvement is one of the trends in 2013 I’d hold contests for creating and naming new menu items. Scotty’s does a good job of this and with social media.

    Start an ePublishing Company

    I see a trend towards self-publishing ebooks and even traditional paper books, but although this process had become easier it still requires some graphic design, layout, and technical knowledge not to mention basic editing, sales, and marketing techniques. There could be a need in the Indianapolis area for a digital book consultant service based on some feedback I’ve gotten through presentations and meetings I had in 2012.

    Start a Content Management Company

    Content managers are relatively new job roles that are a direct result of the amount of information now stored in company Intranets, business blogs, and e-commerce sites. Because of the ease of creation and the fact that content marketing is so important to SEO, the sheer amount of content each organization has to maintain has created the need for content management services. This interests me because I like to organize the world’s information (like Google).

    Start an Affiliate Marketing Business

    Although I have been doing affiliate marketing for a while now, you could say I haven’t been too methodical about it. By applying systems, consistency, and dedicated effort to affiliate marketing, I could turn this side hobby into a real business. Although the margins can be lower than traditional e-commerce, there is no inventory to store and ship. This is the least capital-intensive, but still requires a lot of work to be successful.

    Start a Business Consulting Company

    I believe management is an important component of a business’ success. As a business analyst I helped business owners create systems to manage their business by analyzing, summarizing, and reporting on my findings to business owners. I did this as a technology consultant, but most of the time IT work was very little of what I did. There seems to be a need in the Indianapolis market for people with advanced Excel and Visio skills, but the trends are moving more towards analyzing SQL and other types of databases which require programming languages I don’t know.

    Start a Dental Consulting Business

    Independent dental offices are usually ran by either the dentist alone or the dentist and an office manager. They don’t usually have their own marketing or IT staff, but have the need for both marketing and IT services. There is a steep learning curve to understanding dental procedures and their specialized software (ex. Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Practiceworks). It also helps to know HIPAA laws, CPR and OSHA requirements, and systems for how to greet, treat, and keep patients. On top of all of that there is staff efficiency, utilization models, report tracking, and HR issues. It is amazing how complex one dental office really is and so there are many ways to add value through consulting services.

    Start a Mobile Device Consulting Company

    I actually started one of these in 2011 called “Geek Hand”, but I may have started it a little too soon. Since then smartphones and tablet PCs have only grown in popularity and use. Businesses are now starting to give their employees iPhones and iPads instead of Blackberries and laptops. The value here is in helping businesses learn how to sync their email, contacts, and calendars with Microsoft Exchange and Google Apps. For screen repair I normally refer people to CPR in Carmel.

    Bonus: Start an Import/Export Business

    If you have the connections, the capital, and don’t mind travel, this is an exciting business model that is similar to affiliate marketing in that you take a percentage of each sale you make. The primary difference is you’re normally dealing in wholesale amounts, which means the payouts can be bigger. The key to the import/export business is to look for opportunities where you can add value to the transaction. For example, you might have identified a farmer who operates 75% of a given market, but has no email account. By being the connection between the farmer (the manufacturer) and an e-commerce site, you can take a cut of the goods shipped. Another example is to look for countries that used to not trade with other countries that have had a change and now have started to trade openly. One example is Vietnam. The service you will provide is in developing first-of-its-kind relationships between vendors in the US and suppliers in Vietnam. You will have to find global shippers, learn the laws of their country and yours, and make sure your packages don’t get stuck in customs!

    If you read this, you might also be interested in 20 Good Business Ideas from 2011.

  • What Do Meetups Mean to You?

    Recently, Aaron B. Hockley wrote about, The Dirty Little Secret of Attending Meetups. Aaron states that he doesn’t go to meetups to learn, but “to meet interesting people.” Having written about Meetups extensively in the past, I decided to comment:

    “I go to meetups to learn new things, things that aren’t taught in any class, things that you wouldn’t have learned if you hadn’t been in a group setting to learn them. There are things that happen in group dynamics that don’t happen while reading a blog post on how to do something. But to your point, the people make the difference and if you go to it with that mindset of just wanting to meet interesting people, then learning or networking or anything else is just a bonus on top of that.”

    Unlike Portland, Indianapolis doesn’t have an Instagram meetup, but any photographer could create one. It does have a WordPress meetup – two of them, in fact. Indiana may not be the west coast, but here’s 4 reasons why Indiana entrepreneurs rock.

    Here’s what Meetups mean to me. What do Meetups mean to you?

  • Big Opportunities No One Claim Yet

    A while back I wrote about a new trust system for the Internet called, “YourSCOR – A New Metric for a New Economy”, which is an idea for a Self-Collected Online Report, or SCOR for short. It would be similar in use to how a FICO score works today, but instead of being built from credit history, it would be built from social transactional history such as your Klout, Ebay, or Amazon score. It could also include your FICO score, but that would only be one part of it – just as your credit history is one part of who you are as a person.

    As Marc Andreessen pointed out in the May 2012 issue of WIRED magazine, the Internet in Netscape’s day was all about anonymity, but today, there is a large push toward knowing exactly who you are online. Google was part of that push when it required all Google+ users to use their real names instead of pseudonyms.

    Even FAKE GRIMLOCK said, “BECOME REPUTATION SYSTEM FOR INTERNET ONE OF BIG OPPORTUNITIES NO ONE CLAIM YET.”

    That’s because it’s hard.

    But don’t hackers like hard problems to solve? Don’t they want to change the world? The problem with hard problems is that they are hard. I later regretted writing Problem Solver Seeks More Things to Fix because of all the problems that came sans-knocking wood afterward. I won’t laundry list you, but it made me rethink the whole “hard problem” love thing.

    Reverse anonymity is not the only trend happening on the Internet today. There’s also a move towards hyper-localism. In a world with perfect information, there would be no need to travel farther than the nearest location to get what you want and the Internet+Mobile Apps is bringing us closer and closer to 100% knowledge of our surroundings. This knowledge allows us to make better decisions and #shoplocal.

    So what’s the next big thing?

    In my last article about Why Google and Facebook Might Not Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years I talked about how Forbes thinks Google might not know how to pivot to mobile. My guess is because their going to leap over it and create the Next Big Thing: Google Goggles.

    Why are Google Goggles the next big disruptor? Because they can do everything cell phones can do, but better. Why do you need a mobile phone when you’ve got a heads-up, augmented reality GPS device with retina and voice recognition? Does all of that exist today? No. Will it eventually all fit on a contact lens? Probably.

    Almost everyone thought Google bought Motorolla to enter the mobile marketplace or to get access to their patents. What if it was to create a whole new industry around a new way of interacting with the world? The same world they helped organize? Now that’s an augmented reality.

  • Time to Pretend by MGMT

    I really like the song, Time to Pretend, by MGMT. It has an interesting sound and a playful beat, but when I read the lyrics online, I was a little disappointed in the content. When I heard the lyrics in my head, they sounded much different – so I decided to re-write some of it to be more optimistic, but still keep the same tone:

    I’m feeling rough, I’m feeling raw, I’m in the prime of my life.
    Let’s make a startup, make some money, have the time of our lives.
    We’ll write some code up, get some funding, and dance with the stars.
    We’ll make the software, and the website, and drive elegant cars.

    This is our decision, to live fast and die young.
    We’ve got the vision, now let’s have some fun.
    Yeah, it’s overwhelming, but what else can we do.
    Get jobs in offices, and wake up for the morning commute?

    …

    But there’s really nothing, nothing we can do
    Love can’t be forgotten, life can be the start up of you.

    The original lyrics are tainted with drug abuse and divorce while longing for a time when they used to spend time digging for worms in the sandbox at home. I remember picking cedar berries out of my friend’s sandbox, making highways, and rivers. It was a time to create with little fear of failing. The older you get, the harder life gets so why not fail early, fail often?

    I can see why MGMT may want to live recklessly and die young. It’s a cop out to the life intended for us. Life is hard, there is no doubt. But within those constraints, there is fun. Life can be a game that can be beaten. The fear in each of us is the fear of losing – so don’t lose. Choose to win. The only ones way to lose is to stop trying to win. So choose to win.

  • How I Made it as an Entrepreneur

    I got this email from an old friend today and wanted to post my reply to him:

    So how are things at Watershawl these days? You still able to make a living off of it all? I’m pretty anxious to hear all about what you’ve got going on these days. It seems like you’ve been away for a while now… it was sink or swim time and you swam!

    I’ve got that itch again. You know the one where I want to make money my way. I won’t lie they really take care of me there, and I’m learning tons every single day, but I’m starting to read blogs about making money from home and what not again. And it reminded me that I haven’t checked in with you for a while on where you’re at.

    Take Care,

    Jake

    My experience at Watershawl can best be described by the attached picture, but yes, I’m able to make a living off of it. The issues I have are not unique to my business though and that’s cash-flow (you know, the stuff the Cash Management guys talk about all the time). What that means is that although I make enough over time, it doesn’t always come in at the same rate I need it to go out for bills. In other words, it averages out alright, but isn’t always timed right. For example, this month I’m scheduled to make a $400 profit over my bills (something that never hardly happened when I had a normal job), but right now I don’t have anything. It’s like that pretty much every month and that’s because I didn’t have a savings account (and still don’t).

    I don’t think the itch to leave will ever really go away (unless you die inside), but there are ways to test the waters before you jump in. First of all, start thinking of your job as your biggest client and try to stop ‘expecting’ a paycheck and start trying to ‘earn’ a paycheck. This will put you in the mindset you’ll need when dealing with clients outside of a employee relationship. When I left I had 1 boss, but now I have over 20 (the number of current clients). My time is not my own. It wasn’t then and it isn’t now. I have to work for them just like I had to work for my old job. The difference is that if I work more, I get more (and I can charge more). I also get to sleep in and do whatever I want. 🙂

    My recommendation to you would be to take advantage of where you’re at and LISTEN to what people are saying. What I mean by this is if you can start to hear what people’s problems are, stuff they complain about, and/or what their pain points are, that’s the beginning of discovering a product, service, or business that you could start in order to solve that need. You’re in a better position in some ways than I am for finding out that information. I would love to find out what problems commercial loan officers have or what problems their clients have. If you can find a problem that you can solve + a customer that is both willing and able to pay for that solution, you have a business idea.

    The key is to iterate your business idea until you have what’s called a product/market fit. Eric Ries talks about this in his book, Lean Startups, but you can also read Steve Blank‘s work on it. They’ve worked together so they have similar ideas. But basically, the premise is to 1) discover a problem 2) hypothesize a solution 3) interview potential customers about the solution 4) refine the solution. Once you get to a product that the customer would be MAD at you if you took away from them, you have a product/market fit and then you get funding and build like crazy. There are other subtle variations (like starting with a product instead of a customer), but being customer-centric in everything you do will pay dividends.

    One idea that I don’t mind sharing with you is a “LED light bulb replacement service” where you go to a company like a bank and say, “I’d like to save you 40% off your lighting bill and would be happy to show you how it works by converting one of your branches to LED lighting at cost – if you like it, we’ll do the rest of your branches too, if not, we’ll go on our way and thank you for your time.” Essentially, you’re going in, finding out how many bulbs they have, estimating the cost upfront and the cost savings, and then swapping them out in one day. You can even do a buy-back on existing fluorescent light bulbs that you can either trash or sell to someone else.

    A typical day for me is waking up around 8, checking my email for emergency work, working on some projects for customers (usually web edits), reading up on subjects in my field, visit a customer at their location or at a restaurant for a meeting, attend a networking meeting or meetup at night, and then in bed by midnight. I recently joined a networking group called BNI and am active on Meetup.com. I run my own group called Indianapolis Marketing and attend several others as well as Tech Point meetings, which are put on by a partnership with the State of Indiana. I use blogging to content market online, but that’s less successful than in-person networking for me. I’d be interested in hearing what you’re working on at work or in your ‘spare time’.

  • How to Start Making Money on the Side

    Recently a former co-worker and friend asked me about how I started making money on the side:

    I’ve toyed around with a lot of ideas around how to start making money on the side and how to then move from that being side income to my main source of income, but I haven’t pursued anything too closely. I’ve actually picked up a huge work load in applications support at my day job. I’m now the primary support person for items processing, online banking, telephone banking, the company Intranet, the new auto-dialer, all instances of Sugar CRM ( we currently have 3), the online survey tool, the online enrollment tool, and last but not least I’m the main IT contact for the website. So things got really hectic for me, but I’ve realized that if I let myself get lost in that chaos it will only become harder to start making income on the side. For now I’m learning PHP and MySQL and hosting a website using Apache so that I can hopefully branch off and do some freelance work.

    So you’re making more working for yourself than you did at your day job?

    Yes, I’m able to make a living off of doing web design and IT consulting full-time as an independent contractor. The issues I have are not unique to my business though and that’s managing cash-flow. What that means is that although I make enough over time, it doesn’t always come in at the same rate I need it to go out for bills. In other words, it averages out alright, but isn’t always timed right. For example, this month I’m scheduled to make a $400 profit over my bills (something that never hardly happened when I was at my day job), but right now I don’t have anything. It’s like that pretty much every month and that’s because I didn’t have a savings account when I quit and I still don’t. (EDIT: I do now.)

    I don’t think the itch to leave will ever really go away (unless you die inside), but there are ways to test the waters before you jump in. First of all, start thinking of your day job as your biggest client and try to stop ‘expecting’ a paycheck and start trying to ‘earn’ a paycheck. This will put you in the mindset you’ll need when dealing with clients outside of a employee relationship. When I left I had one boss, but now I have over 20 (the number of current clients). My time is not my own. It wasn’t then and it isn’t now. I have to work for them just like I had to work for my past employer. The difference is that if I work more, I get more (and I can charge more). I also get to sleep in and do whatever I want. 🙂

    My recommendation to you would be to take advantage of where you’re at and LISTEN to what people are saying. What I mean by this is if you can start to hear what people’s problems are, stuff they complain about, and/or what their pain points are, that’s the beginning of discovering a product, service, or business that you could start in order to solve that need. You’re in a better position in some ways than I am for finding out that information. I would love to find out what problems commercial loan officers have or what problems their clients have. If you can find a problem that you can solve + a customer that is both willing and able to pay for that solution, you have a business idea. This is called customer development.

    The key is to iterate your business idea until you have what’s called a product/market fit. Eric Ries talks about this in his book, Lean Startups, but you can also read Steve Blank’s work on it. They’ve worked together so they have similar ideas. But basically, the premise is to 1) discover a problem 2) hypothesize a solution 3) interview potential customers about the solution 4) refine the solution. Once you get to a product that the customer would be MAD at you if you took away from them, you have a product/market fit and then you get funding and build like crazy. There are other subtle variations (like starting with a product instead of a customer), but being customer-centric in everything you do will pay dividends.

    One business idea that I don’t mind sharing with you is a “LED light bulb replacement service” where you go to a company like First Merchants and say, “I’d like to save you 40% off your lighting bill and would be happy to show you how it works by converting one of your branches to LED lighting at cost – if you like it, we’ll do the rest of your branches too, if not, we’ll go on our way and thank you for your time.” Essentially, you’re going in, finding out how many bulbs they have, estimating the cost upfront and the cost savings, and then swapping them out in one day. You can even do a buy-back on existing fluorescent light bulbs that you can either trash or sell to someone else. A similar idea is to paint their roofs white.

    A typical day for me is waking up around 8, checking my email for emergency work, working on some projects for customers (usually web edits), reading up on subjects in my field, visit a customer at their location or at a restaurant for a meeting, attend a networking meeting or meetup at night, and then in bed by midnight. I recently joined a networking group called BNI and am active on Meetup.com. I run my own group called Indianapolis Marketing and attend several others as well as Tech Point meetings, which are put on by the State of Indiana. I use blogging to content market online, but that’s less successful than in-person networking for me. I’d be interested in hearing what you’re working on at work or in your ‘spare time’.

    I know you sell your skills at SEO out to companies but I wasn’t sure if you were still scooping up domain names and putting content with ads up or not. Right now I have a few ideas that I’m going to try to do some research on what kind of market might be out there for these services and if it’s something I could/should pursue. For starters I’d like to design an app. In my head I could see where small companies would really enjoy and benefit from having someone build an app for them. I’d also still really enjoy designing a “portal” similar to what our company Intranet offers, but better on every level. Another thing similar to this is I’d like to design a workflow creator tool. The one inside our company Intranet is completely flawed and my employer began hunting for an outside tool to buy to fill this need. I also am looking at starting a few different blogs around things I’m passionate about such as weight loss, video games, “manly skills”, and adventure. I’m sure to really gain profit from these areas I’d have to really pin point a specific something inside of those categories but currently I’m just looking for experience. Once I see the possibility I think I could really define it more.

    Do you still do the blog for money stuff?

    I’m really glad they’ve plugged you in and are using you so much at your day job. The opposite of that is brutal and part of the reason I left. They weren’t using me at all and I had nothing to do. Let me tell you from experience applying at other jobs and learning what I’ve been learning over the last 6 months that any and all programming knowledge is the key to the future in the workplace. Make sure you’re learning as much as you can about PHP, SQL, and how to manipulate and query databases. The trends are all going towards software programming, big data analysis, and cloud computing. You’re in a good spot now, but you may be able to take what you’re learning and be more valuable elsewhere. That’s usually the only way to actually get a real ‘raise’.

    I still have blogs that make me money, but it’s not my primary income and while it seems like ‘passive’ income, it’s really not. If I don’t keep writing and backlinking, the blogs stop making any real money after about a month of non-activity. That’s why it’s so important for businesses to have a blog and a strong social media presence because if they don’t, they don’t show up in Google where they need to. Think about it, there are so many websites out there now that Google can’t possibly keep them all at the top – so they favor the ones with fresh content. This applies to small businesses, blogs, or anything else online. Let me give you a real-world example:

    I had a blog that was making $25 in October, but I wrote like crazy all of November and December. By the end of December, I made $600 from that blog, but after not writing anything for January and February, it’s back to $25. Now some of that was Christmas traffic, but it’s happening across all of my blogs. Unless I write on them and keep them relevant, they aren’t relevant. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still plenty of money to be made in blogs, but you have to do the same thing I told you with starting out a business. You have to find real problems people are having with the product, write to those problems with how your affiliate products are the answer – and the people will come. It’s still work though.

    The best thing you can do is to just do something. You’re not going to get good at it until you try and fail. It’s okay to fail, it’s how you learn. I have way more blogs that failed when I first started, but I started two new blogs in December that now equal my top site. I learned from all of my mistakes and can now do it better, faster. As far as apps go, I don’t want to discourage you from trying, but there are some big learning curves and substantial marketing issues to overcome in the marketplace once you’ve made one. My advice there is to pick a platform, make a simple program, then make iterations of the program, making it do more and more or do a different programs over time, learning as you go. You can actually use your apps as a platform to market your new app releases, meaning your best app should probably be your tenth app (and it makes sense that it would be that way anyway).

    I make more net now than I did “net” at my day job, but while my schedule is different, it’s sometimes twice the work. That’s because when you run your own business you have to work to get the business, and then you have to work to do the business so it’s almost double the work. At my past employer, the work came to me so half of the work was already done. I didn’t have to run an internal marketing campaign around the company asking for work and specifying why I should be the one to do it. Although, come to think of it, I probably should have. It would have riled a lot of feathers, but it strikes me as a better way to live within an organization. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll figure out what you want to do, but remember to enjoy the moments you have. Enjoy your family, and such.

  • Problem Solver Seeks More Things to Fix

    Recently I’ve been rethinking how I feel about work and jobs. As you may or may not know, I help business owners solve technology and marketing problems, which gives me some freedom to choose who I work with and when. I don’t have fixed hours and if I work more, I can get paid more, but it’s not all roses and cherry blossoms.

    When you run your own business, while you may earn more, much of your work is doubled or even tripled. Not only do you have to do the work, but you have to go earn it, and then process all the finances, documentation, and taxes on the back end. In a traditional job environment the work is handed to you and you just do it. When it’s done, someone else processes it. Your work is finite and so is your pay.

    A Paradigm Shifts Again

    For ten years I worked full time jobs in banking and technology, and I always would told myself I’d be happier running my own business until one day I did. I started off running it on the side in 2007 and in 2011 I finally went full time. I do web design with HTML, CSS, and WordPress, email support with web hosts and Google Apps, and computer and network support for Microsoft products like Windows and Server 2003/2008.

    While I have been successful at running my own business, there are two reasons why I’ve recently began applying for jobs in the Indianapolis market. The first reason is because I realized that the ideas I had about working hard now in order to do much less later were not realistic. I didn’t even realize I had this mentality until after a couple of months had gone by and I discovered that there will never be a time when I’m doing ‘nothing’. I’ll always be doing something, so why not just spend some time figuring out what I want to do, not just what I can find a job doing.

    The second reason I began looking for jobs in the Indianapolis area was because I realized that it didn’t matter who I was doing the work for, as long as I was enjoying what I was doing. Even as a business owner, I have a boss. I have clients, my wife, and my Lord to report to. It’s not just willy nilly around here. I have to meet or exceed all of their expectations just as I would have to in a traditional job scenario – only more so because while the rewards are higher, so are the risks. There are no written warnings with clients, just lost opportunities in the future.

    You Are a Startup

    A friend of mine, Jason Cobb, recently coined a term, “You are a startup,” meaning that whatever you’re doing, do it like a startup. But what is a startup? A startup is traditionally a software company that is rapidly trying to create a product that is useful and monetizeable as fast as they can. It normally involves a small team consisting of a leader, a technical co-founder, and a marketer. These roles could all be one person, or it could be five people, but the point is that it’s a small team pushing out useful iterations of a product with the hopes of expanding very fast once a market can’t live without it.

    So how does a startup mentality apply to you? Whether you are working for a client or for a company as an employee, you must be producing stuff that matters, you must be a leader, and you must be marketing yourself. This means listening to your customers and getting feedback, getting to know your fellow employees, and continuing your education (via meetups, books, or traditional training).

    As I wrote about in 13 More Books for Every Entrepreneur, Reid Hoffman, (co-founder of LinkedIn) together with Ben Casnocha (entrepreneur and author) have written a book about managing your career as if it were a start-up business: a living, breathing, growing start-up of you. The thesis is that the same skills startup entrepreneurs use, professionals need to get ahead today.

    Now that I’ve experienced running my own business, I no longer look down on the traditional 9-to-5 job because I know that I can have impact either way and still accomplish my goals of learning, growing, and taking care of my family.

    12 Month Goals (and Roadmap)

    I recently subscribed to a blog I’ve been reading since 2008 called I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. Today he sent out a link to a PDF with a 12 Month Goals Roadmap worksheet, very similar to Michael Hyatt’s Life Plan. I’d like to share my answers here.

    1. What will you be doing for work? – Editing HTML, CSS, and PHP; Converting static HTML web pages into dynamic CMS blogs; converting clients from POP email access to Google Apps; training users on how to use WordPress; Affiliate Marketing; Computer Network Troubleshooting and Repair

    2. What’s your boss (or the person to whom you’ll be accountable) like? – Gives me feedback; Challenges me; Considers me an expert in what I do; Trusts my decisions; Considers my feedback

    3. Where will you be working? – The Greater Indianapolis area, preferably along US 31, Keystone Ave, or 465; In an office with time allocated to work in blocks without interruption,  the ability to get up and walk around or go outside for a walk; And good Mexican, Chinese, and Thai food nearby.

    4. How much time do you spend working? – 10 hours a day, 70 hours a week.

    5. What does your Monday look like? – Reading and sharing emails until noon, viewing reports, and responding to client requests.

    If anyone is interested in using my services or would just like to get together for coffee, please don’t hesitate to email me or follow me on Twitter.

    This is one of those personal blog posts, if you’re interested in reading more about me specifically, try this one next or not, it’s your life.

  • 10 Entrepreneur and Startup Board Games

    As an entrepreneur who is interested in startups and board games, I considered making my own entrepreneurship board game or a board game about starting up, but like any good business owner, I started with market research. It turns out there are already at least ten entrepreneur or startup board games either on the market already or in development. Some of them you may have heard of and others are brand new.

    Startup Fever by Louis Perrochon

    Set in the world of Internet startups, the pieces are employees – from engineers to salesmen to executives. Opponents try to steal them with better offers. As head of the company, you can choose to invest your resources in personnel or sales. There’s even an expansion that introduces venture capitalists and lawyers, for extra flavor. The goal, as in real-world product development, is to get the most users.

    ScrumBrawl by VicTim Games LLC (Bugher and Vic Moyer)

    The object of ScrumBrawl is to score three goals by moving orb tokens into a portal. To do so, players control fantasy creatures – 50 in all – whose characteristics determine how they interact. Players also battle each other’s creatures to keep them from scoring. At one point, the game was much more elaborate than its final version, but play testers told VicTim Games that the concept was too unwieldy.

    Fluke by Ida Byrd-Hill, Detroit, MI

    A Detroit mother has developed a board game that takes players from accidental inventions through the tricky realm of patents, portfolios and finally to corporate wealth – if they’re savvy enough. The player with the largest portfolio wins.

    GoVenture Entrepreneur Board Game by GoVenture

    Run your own business and compete, collaborate, and negotiate with other players. Game play is designed to recreate the real-life thrills and challenges of entrepreneurship in a fun and educational social learning experience. Activities are expertly designed to enable you to experience the true challenges of entrepreneurship, while at the same time, provide an engaging and experiential group learning opportunity.

    Zeros-To-Heros by Richard Mak

    Marketed as the “World’s 1st board game on Entrepreneurship” Zeros-To-Heros is the winner of MENSA Singapore SELECT Awards (2007) based on its originality, dynamic game play, ability to stimulate players’ intellect and fun. You start the game as an employee with ZERO capital and ZERO understanding of business. Take the exciting path to become your OWN BOSS and see whether you survive or become an entrepreneurial Hero.

    Hot CompanyÂŽ Board Game

    Students experience what it’s like to “be the boss” while experiencing the thrill of running a company and finding solutions that will lead to success. Each player or team is the “owner” of a hot new company. Roll the die, pick a card, and you’re in business! The object of the game is to get “your” company to turn a profit. Hot Company® develops a wide array of real-world business skills.

    I’m The Boss!®

    A game of deal-making and negotiation, where students are investors just trying to make a deal. Through intelligent negotiations, temporary alliances, and cut-throat bargaining, players can rake in millions. But watch out for the other investors at your bargaining table who meddle in your affairs and try to take over your deals. As the boss, you stand to gain the most, but you can find yourself quickly cut out of a deal. In the end, the winner is the investor with the most money.

    Rich Dad Cashflow for Kids

    CASHFLOW for Kids teaches children how to have money work for them. CASHFLOW for Kids is a complete educational package which includes the book “Rich Dad’s Guide to Raising Your Child’s Financial I.Q.” CASHFLOW for Kids is recommended for children ages 6 and older. Children learn the difference between good credit and bad credit, assets and liabilities, earned income and passive income, and income and expenses. Cashflow for Kids is an easy way for parents to teach their children about finance, but it requires an adult or older child who already understands the basics of finance to reinforce the lessons as they are experienced.

    Entrepreneur’s Accessory to Monopoly by The Third Dimension

    This game, subtitled “The Power-Business Venture Game”, is an unofficial expansion to Monopoly. It comes with a small board that fits exactly into the center of a standard Monopoly game board. The game plays like regular Monopoly but adds Corporations, Leverage Buyouts, Corporate Takeovers, Casinos and Financial Coups into the mix. Look for it on eBay, but Monopoly itself is a good economic game.

    Globalization by Sandstorm

    Build your global empire… one company at a time! As the head of a multi-national corporation with one goal in mind – to make money – players in Globalization attempt to outbid their competitors to acquire businesses within six different industries and grow their conglomerate. Streamline operating costs build additional factories sue your competitors or take one of your subsidiaries public for big returns! Your corporate strategy will impact which companies you buy and how to take your corporation worldwide. The first to reach a billion in net worth wins!

    Want more learning sets for kids?

  • Why Etsy, Kickstarter, and AirBnb Succeeded While Others Failed

    Chris Dixon, serial entrepreneur and investor in Kickstarter, recently wrote a post entitled “An internet of people,” where he asks why companies like Etsy, Kickstarter, and AirBnb are succeeding now when others like them have failed before.


    Before Kickstarter there were these metal things that started motorcycles.

    One of my most popular posts is on why Collegeclub.com failed when Myspace and Facebook succeeded and in that post I propose that the reason was bad management and the high cost of technology at the time (Leslie Perlow argued that Collegeclub was ‘Saying yes when they really meant no’), but when Chris Dixon asked Roelof Botha the “why now” question regarding web-based marketplaces, “He said something I thought was really interesting: marketplaces depend on trust, and trust requires knowing the reputation of a prospective counterparty. Today, for the first time, you can get background information on almost any prospective counterparty by searching Google, Facebook etc. Or put more simply: we finally have an internet of people.”

    Google’s authorship markup verification process has helped make the web less anonymous and so has Google+, which doesn’t allow pseudonyms, only real names. Brian Manning commented that, “eBay has been doing this successfully since the 90s. In the beginning their key hurdle to success was a lack of trust among buyers and sellers. At the time, they built extremely innovative tools that helped make users comfortable that they weren’t going to get ripped off; ratings and recommendations, slick complaint process, good customer service, etc. This was critical to their success. I recall reading that as trust among users increased so did eBay’s site usage and revenue. ‘Trust’ was their key revenue driver,” to which FAKE GRIMLOCK responded for the need for a “REPUTATION SYSTEM FOR INTERNET”. I agree, which is why I started YourSCOR, which was supposed to use metrics from eBay, Facebook, and Twitter to create a new type of credit score that people could control instead of corporations. It was supposed to be the “FICO for the Masses!”

    Apparently banks are starting to think the same way as this article points out, As Banks Start Nosing Around Facebook and Twitter, the Wrong Friends Might Just Sink Your Credit. Of course sites like Reputation.com have been around for a while, they are more like a super-sized Google alert with a dashboard (please correct me if I’m wrong). What’s lacking is a Klout-type mechanism for trust in people on the Internet. I may not be the one to bring it to the table, but surely someone will.