Archive for the 'Entrepreneurial' Category
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
Even in these tough times, there are still plenty of motivated and passionate people taking risks and starting new businesses. One of these folks is Lester Hutt, who is the founder of BevShots.com, which takes microscopic photos of your favorite drinks and turns them into beautiful art. The piece shown above is English oatmeal stout. I know Lester through a long-time friend, and he agreed to share some of his business experiences as well as how it has affected his family’s personal finances.
What was your inspiration for Bevshots?
I was working as a business research analyst at Florida State University, and my job was to find possible business opportunities out of university research projects and patents. I came across the work of research scientist Michael Davidson, who took photographs under a microscope of a variety of items including DNA, biochemicals, and more. He also did cocktails, which he initially used for a tie collection.
I’ve never really understood abstract art, like a blue wall at a modern art museum that is supposed to express “man’s frustration with industrialization in the 20th century”. I thought that this would be a great opportunity to make a form of modern art that is affordable to the masses.
What previous experience did you find most useful in starting this new business?
For one, my time working for Apple taught me the power of good industrial design and creating a great user experience. In addition, I had just spent the last several years running every aspect of a small business, from product development to managing employees to sales.
How did you come up with the initial funding costs?
We used a combination of loans from family, personal cash reserves, and a revolving line of credit with local community bank. Thanks to my existing banking relationship from the aforementioned small business, it wasn’t difficult to secure a loan with relatively favorable terms.
How did this affect your personal finances?
It definitely affected us quite a bit. For one, we went from two incomes to having only income to support our family. We started looking for places we could cut back, including going out to eat, canceling our cable television, clothes, and travel. We’re also thinking of buying a used car as our next work vehicle.
Besides trimming expenses, we also found that we were unable to take advantage of other investment opportunities like real estate that we might have otherwise pursued. We do still maintain an emergency fund with 8 months of liquid cash. Even in a worst-case scenario for the business, we will still be okay.
More after the jump:
Read the rest of this entry…
Posted in Entrepreneurial | 5 Comments »
Friday, September 18th, 2009
Someone e-mailed me about high-yield savings accounts for businesses. These can be a helpful tool to maximize interest income for all kinds of businesses with idle cash, including sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLC’s, and corporations. Here’s a quick rundown of some favorites.
ING Direct
The ING Direct Orange for Business Savings Account pays 1.15% APY and has no minimum balance requirements or monthly fees. The benefit of this savings account is that you get the “it just works” factor of ING Direct. There are no bells and whistles, it simply pays you a good interest rate, and provides easy and fast transfers to/from your existing business checking account.
Capital One / Costco
If you can open with at least $1000 and will keep at least $100 in your savings account, you can get a slightly higher interest rate of 1.40% APY with the Business Money Market Account from Capital One Bank. The perks of this account include checkwriting ability (you are limited to 6 withdrawals per month, 3 of which can be checks) and the sign-up bonuses for Costco users. Executive members can get $60 and Gold/Business members can get $20 after you open your first account and deposit $5,000 within 30 days.
(Considering upgrading to Executive? Buy a Costco membership certificate and get over $50 in coupons.)
Fidelity Investments
For maximum flexibility, you can open a Fidelity Account for Businesses and invest in anything from a money market fund to bond mutual funds to individual stocks. (Online stock commissions range from $8 to $19.95.) You’ll need $2,500 to open, but there are no minimum balance requirements or annual account fees. Currently, money market yields in general are very low. The Fidelity Cash Reserves fund currently has a yield of 0.28%. But if you were so inclined, you could invest in Treasuries, municipal bonds, inflation-protected bonds, or even dividend stocks.
Posted in Banking, Entrepreneurial | 6 Comments »
Monday, August 31st, 2009
The following is a guest post from David at MoneyNing, who recently published his own budget travel book. He graciously wrote this post when I asked about this entrepreneurial pursuit. If you like what you see, I encourage you to check out his personal finance blog for more.
In the good ole’ days, only the most common and commercially viable books saw the light of day since publishers carefully pick and choose what they believe the market will digest. As a result, many would-be best sellers don’t even get a chance to reach the marketplace because those authors either didn’t have the connections nor the reputation to get editors to even turn to the first page.
Luckily, those days are over. With the rapid advancement in publishing, inventory and printing technologies, it isn’t a question of whether to publish a book but whether the book should be published through print or digital. When I wrote The Little Budget Travel Book, I chose to go through print even though I was primarily doing business online. Below outlines the reasons why I chose that route.
The Case for eBooks
Whether to publish it as an ebook was a question I pondered long and hard because it seemed like the more natural route. As an internet marketer, I was very familiar with the online buying process. Without a physical product, the lack of shipping and handling also allows more control of the whole sales funnel from advertising to delivery. The entrepreneur in me is saying “the simpler the better”. In addition, ebooks are:
- Trivial to Reproduce - Unlike a printed book, there’s no need to print a physical copy every time someone buys.
- Free to Distribute - As I already have a website, putting a section up for distribution is easy and free.
- Easy to Update - As easy as changing a word file.
- Instant Payment - Since you control the payment process, you receive your payment as soon as someone makes a purchase. With a printed book, it takes at least three months before a sale’s revenue gets to your bank account.
Furthermore (and this may sound counter-intuitive), I actually found that the market is willing to absorb self published ebooks at a much higher price. With less overhead and higher revenue per book, the financial aspect heavily favors an ebook.
The Case for a Printed Book
The path to a printed book is much more complicated. I need to communicate with the printing company who needs to make money, and adhere to the strict rules about specifications of book sizes, margins and fonts used. Then there’s the bookstores. They need to hold inventory, catalog the book and take another cut from sales, and there are other charges that just aren’t necessary in the digital world. On the surface, it doesn’t look like a good option at all, but there are a few tangible benefits. A printed book gives you:
- Credibility - Having your book printed improves your reputation amongst your peers online and off. Forever and ever, you can tell everyone that you are “a published author”. In addition, the book will help my blog and vice versa.
- New Marketing Channel - By having a printed book, I’m able to tap an otherwise untouched market. With it on sale at websites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble, my name is out there just that much more.
- Hands Off Customer Service - When you sell an ebook, you are handling all customer inquiries. When a printed book is sold, customers generally deal with the bookstores for any customer service questions. For someone who’s time is valuable, this advantage cannot be taken lightly.
- A Bigger Sense of Accomplishment - It’s hard to describe the excitement of holding the printed book for the first time. In fact, you can see my reaction when I first got the book in the video below.
Read the rest of this entry…
Posted in Entrepreneurial | 17 Comments »
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
Why do some people exceed far more than others? This is the question asked by the book Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. The short book argues that most people erroneously believe that very successful people are primarily products of a high intelligence and lots of talent. But there are many other variables out there, ranging from their date of birth, to their family’s cultural background, to sheer luck.
But the most important relationship was between hard work and luck. In the Chapter called “The 10,000 Hour Rule”, Gladwell states that it takes 10,000 hours to master a subject - be it hockey, music, or computer programming. There are no shortcuts to this.
However, Bill Gates got 10,000 hours of computer time while attending an elite private school before he even reached college in 1973, at a time when many top universities didn’t even have computer labs. Before they became famous, The Beatles ended up playing at a club in Germany for over 8 hours a day, 7 days a week. This meant they accumulated more live stage time (1,200 performances) in a couple years than most bands had in a lifetime. In other words, they both had a nice does of luck to be able to get their 10,000 hours in when very few others had the same opportunity.
At the same time, they also had the ambition and drive to actually complete those 10,000 hours. Sometimes I think that “talent” is no more than loving something so much that you don’t mind spending endless hours doing it.
So to be extraordinarily successful, you need both luck and hard work. People can interpret these stories differently. One person might say “Yup, those guys were successful because they were more lucky than I was.” and then feel better about their lives. The thing to remember is that between hard work and luck, you can control only one.
If you don’t put in the hours, there is essentially zero chance of success. If you do, then when opportunity hits, you can flourish. Gladwell connects the Chinese proverb stating “No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich” to a special public school network within low-income areas that creates kids who can compete with those from private schools in wealthy suburbs.
Although I was initially afraid that this book would try to put too much emphasis on the role of luck, in the end it actually reinforced my own basic beliefs about hard work. You can’t control the cards you are dealt. All you can do is play them as best you can.
Posted in Book Reviews, Entrepreneurial | 26 Comments »
Sunday, June 7th, 2009
Bud Caddell shows us how to be happy in business with a clever Venn diagram. Very insightful and concise!
Which is harder? Saying no to work that pays well, getting better at something you’re not, or learning to monetize? It was definitely tough for me to say no to something you do well and get paid good money for. I had to save up enough money first to be comfortable with getting better at something else I like better. Via Daring Fireball.
Posted in Career, Entrepreneurial | 12 Comments »
Friday, June 5th, 2009
I’ve finished reading The Snowball, and one of the things that struck me was how Buffett thought about individual destiny, meritocracy, and wealth. For one thing, he is a wealthy person who supports an estate tax for those with very large estates (currently for those greater than $3.5 million). Here’s a glimpse of why:
Wealth is just a bunch of claim checks on the activities of others in the future. You can use that wealth in any way that you want to. You can cash it in or give away. But the idea of passing wealth from generation to generation so that hundreds of your descendants can command the resources of other people simply because they came from the right womb flies in the face of a meritocratic society.
I also connected strongly with a related concept Buffett termed the “Ovarian Lottery”.
I’ve had it so good in this world, you know. The odds were fifty-to-one against me born in the United States in 1930. I won the lottery the day I emerged from the womb by being in the United States instead of in some other country where my chances would have been way different.
Imagine there are two identical twins in the womb, both equally bright and energetic. And the genie says to them, “One of you is going to be born in the United States, and one of you is going to be born in Bangladesh. And if you wind up in Bangladesh, you will pay no taxes. What percentage of your income would you bid to be the one this is born in the United States?” It says something about the fact that society has something to do with your fate and not just your innate qualities. The people who say, “I did it all myself,” and think of themselves as Horatio Alger - believe me, they’d bid more to be in the United States than in Bangladesh. That’s the Ovarian Lottery.
He also made a comment that if born several hundred years earlier, he and Gates probably would have been some other animal’s lunch because they did not see well and could not climb trees well. I’ve had the exact same thought, as my eyesight is really horrible. If was born in the 1700s, I’d probably be considered a cripple.
This led me to a post by a Kiva Fellow working in Uganda. Kiva is the site where you can lend as little as $25 to low-income entrepreneurs.
Any one of these people could be tremendously successful in America (economically speaking). Maybe a CEO of a prominent company, or a hotshot lawyer who wears a two-thousand-dollar suit to work everyday. But they arent. And the only reason for that is because of where they were born.
[...] I won the ovarian lottery. I am a US citizen; got a good education; enjoy great health; and came equipped with a “engineer” gene that allows me to prosper in a manner disproportionate to other people who contribute as much or more to society. I’m in the top 1% of the entire population of the world.
Kiva, to me, is simply a way for those of us who drew the best tickets in the ovarian lottery to help those who drew less fortunate ones.
Something to spread a little humility. You or I may have worked hard, but that’s doesn’t mean we didn’t get a huge head start from winning the Ovarian Lottery. Would you be where you are if you grew up in a country where nobody would even teach you how to read?
Posted in Entrepreneurial, Giving Back | 46 Comments »
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009
I’ve gotten to the part in The Snowball that involves Charlie Munger. A very interesting person, although probably not someone I’d like to have a beer with (I’d feel stupid), he is probably best known as Buffett’s long-time friend, business partner, and vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.
Even before meeting Warren Buffett, Munger was wealthy according to most standards from real estate investing. Here is a quote from a Buffett interview in the book:
Charlie, as a very young lawyer, was probably getting $20 an hour. He thought to himself, ‘Who’s my most valuable client?’ And he decided it was himself. So he decided to sell himself an hour each day. He did it early in the morning, working on these construction projects and real estate deals. Everybody should do this, be the client, and then work for other people, too, and sell yourself an hour a day.
Now, I’m sure just being a successful lawyer would be plenty for many people. But if you aren’t satisfied with your current situation, why not work for yourself an hour each day? Instead of just idle dreaming, set aside specific time for action. Perhaps the key is small chunks of time, but at regular intervals.
Example. If you’re an administrative assistant making $10 an hour and you don’t want to be, don’t just sign up to work another hour for $10. Working longer is not necessarily the best idea. Instead, give up the $10 (or $8 after taxes), and improve yourself in some way or create something so you’ll be making a lot more. There is no one solution, look into yourself. Nursing school? Investment books? Finding a mentor?
Finally, another quote from Charlie Munger about the desire for independence:
I had a considerable passion to get rich. Not because I wanted Ferraris - I wanted the independence. I desperately wanted it. I thought it was undignified to have to send invoices to other people. I don’t where I got that notion from, but I had it.
I think I’ll be buying a copy of Poor Charlie’s Almanack the next time I run low on things to read, even though it costs fifty bucks.
Posted in Entrepreneurial | 23 Comments »
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009
I received a snail-mail postcard that advertised up to 30% off certain FedEx Express shipping services, and 10% off FedEx Ground until May 31st, 2009. After that, you’ll still get either 16% or 8% off eligible services. Seems like a potentially useful offer for those with eBay businesses, online shops, or other shipping needs.
The card actually directs me to chinese.fedex.com, but the English enrollment link ends up here with code cs10578709. Available to both existing and new FedEx account holders. The fine print:
Apply now to enjoy up to a 30% discount on select FedEx Express services and a 10% discount on select FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery services, when you ship with FedEx now through May 31, 2009.
After May 31, 2009, your account’s previous discount structure, if any, in place immediately prior to joining the Choose FedEx program, will be reinstated, subject to the terms and conditions of such discount structure; if no previous discount structure existed on your account prior to enrollment in this promotion, discounts of up to 16% on eligible FedEx Express services and up to 8% on eligible FedEx Ground and eligible FedEx Home Delivery services will go into effect, subject to applicable terms and conditions.
Eligible FedEx Express services for the 30% discount: FedEx Priority Overnight®, FedEx Standard Overnight®, FedEx 2Day®, FedEx Express Saver®, FedEx International Priority®, FedEx International Economy®, FedEx 1Day® Freight, FedEx 2Day® Freight, FedEx 3Day® Freight, FedEx International Priority® Freight, FedEx International Economy®Freight
Eligible FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery services for the 10% discount: All FedEx Ground, and FedEx Home Delivery, single piece shipments.
Posted in Deals & Offers, Entrepreneurial | 3 Comments »
Sunday, January 25th, 2009
If you have a website that you would like to promote, there are several coupon codes out there that can get you a free $200+ in credit towards Facebook Ads (update: codes are expired). In addition, if you join the Visa Business Network and install application, they’ll kick in another $100 (still available). Via this SlickDeals thread.
You’ll need a credit card to sign up, but it shouldn’t be charged until after you use up all your credits. Watch the expiration dates, and set your ad budgets wisely. Facebook ads are pretty low-converting from what I’ve heard, but at least this way you can test for free.
Posted in Deals & Offers, Entrepreneurial | 19 Comments »
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
Today, I wanted to share an interview involving a unique website business thought up, constructed by, and maintained primarily by just one person. Maury is a long-time MMB reader and e-mailed me recently about his new venture - PennyPortrait.com. There, you can purchase a kit that allows you to create a portrait of Abraham Lincoln solely out of differently-shaded pennies:
Each kit includes a poster of Abe Lincoln made from images of actual pennies. The poster is suitable for framing as is, but with a little effort, some glue, and 846 of your own pennies, you can have a unique work of art that truly shines. (No, really… it shines!)
Here’s the interview:
Where did you get the idea or inspiration?
I read an article online about a father and son who created a giant portrait of Abe Lincoln out of pennies. Their image was 24″ x 36″ and they used two shades of pennies. I thought other parents and kids might enjoy a project like this and went about trying to create an improved, easier to assemble version on my computer. Using four shades of pennies, I was able to decrease the size of the image to 18″ x 24″ (846 pennies) which seemed a bit more
manageable.
Did you set up the website yourself? Do you have previous experience in this area?
I have a background as a graphic designer, but had only created a handful of small sites previously. The trick was to use one of the various free CSS templates available on the web and go from there. For example, the Penny Portrait site is based on this free template. Using a free CSS template allows you to create an impressive site in short order. Some of the graphic
elements took a little bit longer, but the layout was a snap.
Is this your first side business?
This is my first retail business of any kind. I’ve had a lot of experience with service businesses (animator/designer/consultant), but I’d never actually sold anything tangible before. Part of the reason I wanted to do this project was to learn how a retail business works with inventory,
suppliers, sales tax, credit card processing etc. It has been extremely educational from that standpoint.
Who sorts the pennies? Are you using child labor? (You could fund your child’s IRA this way…)
I just sell the kits, so customers are responsible for supplying and sorting their own pennies to glue on the poster. I had considered selling completed portraits, but I think the real satisfaction with something like this is to have something on the wall you created yourself. (That and shipping all those pennies could get expensive!) The sorting part is surprisingly easy if you have a bunch of pennies to start off with. I was able to sort enough pennies watching TV one night for at least two portraits. As far as funding my kid’s IRA, I toyed with the idea of paying him a “talent” fee to be included in the photos, but thought I’d better not push my luck with the IRS - He is only eleven months old.
(My mistake, the buyers provide the pennies. That’s much better!)
Do you construct the kits yourself, or are they put together by a third party?
I have a little assembly line in a spare room where my wife and I put the kits together ourselves. Each tube holds a poster, a booklet with fun facts about Lincoln and coin collecting, an assembly guide and a pouch with a 1943 Steel Penny. At this point, other than marketing, that is really the only time consuming part of our business.
How did you decide on pricing, and not making it too high or too low?
Pricing was one of the toughest decisions to make. I talked to a number of people including retailers to get a general idea. It is a unique product with no competition, so I’m not forced into competing on price - which is nice. My competition ends up being other unique products you can buy for about the same amount. One thing I learned is that brick and mortar resellers of your product typically use “keystone” pricing. This means that retailers expect you to sell them products at 50% off the suggested retail price. So if the suggested retail price is $20, a retailer will want to buy them from you for $10. This only applies to bulk orders, but my suggested retail price needed to be high enough that I could still make a little profit through traditional retail channels in addition to e-commerce.
What other difficult decisions have you had to make?
The toughest decision was how many poster to purchase initially. I wanted a high quality product, so didn’t want to skimp on printing or materials, but printing can be quite expensive. There are online places like PSPrint.com, which will print posters for you at great prices, but the paper quality is lower and when you include shipping, the savings disappear. I ended up going with a respected local printer to avoid shipping costs and to oversee the quality of the product. The trick with printing a poster this size is the initial setup fee is about $1,000 whether you print one poster or one thousand. My fun little “learn about e-commerce” project suddenly got expensive! Of course, the more you order, the cheaper it is, but it was
nearly impossible to guess initially what the demand for a product like this would be.
Another tough decision involved shipping tubes. I really liked the way my product looked in a clear tube, but the cheapest supplier of clear tubes charged $1.40 per tube and had a minimum order of 500 units. Cardboard tubes cost about half that and I could order just a few at a time. I ended up breaking down and ordering 500 clear tubes, but am using those strictly
for retail. Online orders I ship in the more durable white cardboard tubes. It was a tough decision at the time because $700 is a pretty big upfront expense for shipping tubes! (Not to mention I have a garage full of them.) This is one situation where my design sense vetoed my business sense. We’ll see how it works out.
How many hours a week do you spend on this project?
I would guess we spend about 5-10 hours a week on it at the moment. I have a full time job, so I mainly work on this in the evenings or on weekends. At this point, it is simply a matter of assembling the kits, and shipping them out as we get orders. My wife recently left her job to stay at home with our first child, so she is a big help in this regard. The only other thing that takes time is marketing. I’ve found that sales are directly proportional to how much effort we put into marketing. My wife does a lot with marketing as well.
What forms of advertising are you pursuing?
We use Google Adwords which is absolutely fascinating. It allows you to run variations of ads and use different keywords to generate targeted, effective ad campaigns. Google has shown my ads thousands of times and provided me with valuable feedback on who my target market really is. At the end of the day, it is a great business model because their interests are perfectly aligned with yours. They only make money when people click on ads, so it is in their best interest to make sure your ads appear where they will be clicked. I have an advertising degree, and one of the things that stuck with me all these years is that by simply adding the words “free” or “new” to an ad will cause it to drastically improve results. I tried this theory out in Adwords, and sure enough those ad variations were my most effective. Google
Analytics has also helped me in seeing what parts of the site people visit after they hit my homepage. I’ve been so impressed by Google I actually broke my rule of only buying index funds and picked up a little GOOG after the recent market crash.
In addition to Adwords, I’ve also had success advertising in various online forums. For example, I will hop onto a coin collecting message forum and give a free kit to anyone who guesses a number I’ve chosen between 1 and 100. I end up giving away a free kit, but I typically get about 50 potential customers to look at my product and even comment on it! It has been useful as a marketing tool and also for improving my product based on comments.
Oddly, one of the most successful forms of advertising I had nothing to do with! Someone submitted my site to “Stumbleupon” and it immediately received over 1000 hits. Stumbleupon is a very cool social networking application where users give a “thumbs up” to sites they find interesting or entertaining. By installing the Stumbleupon toolbar, you can rate sites you visit or click on “stumble” to have it take you to random sites others with your same interests rated highly. I was pleased to see so many people liked my site.
What other backend tools and/or third-party systems do you use?
I use E-junkie for my shopping cart system and have been blown away by the product and support. It costs me $5 a month for a polished shopping cart system that works flawlessly. I even contacted them about a unique problem I had (Texas charges taxes on shipping & handling, many states don’t) and they were nice enough to add that ability to their system. They also have a simpler version they provide for free if you don’t need certain features.
I went with Google Checkout for the payment processor for a couple of reasons. It was really easy to setup and was cheaper than PayPal. I was worried with PayPal that people would think they needed a PayPal account when in fact, all they need is a credit card. Google charges me 2% of the purchase price + .20 cents per transaction. So I pay Google .60 for every 20 transaction which is reasonable. They have a complete system you log into that makes billing and shipping a snap. The final reason for using Google Checkout was that when I spend money via Google Adwords, they kick me back a portion of what I spend on advertising in the form of free transactions. So if I spend $50 on Adwords in a month, Google will process
$500 worth of transactions free for me that month. PayPal and other merchant processors couldn’t compete with that.
Great. So how’s business?
Business is going well! We’ve sold over 100 kits so far and are really just learning how to advertise via the internet. This week, for example, we are exploring marketing via Amazon and Yahoo in addition to Google. We are also looking at the possibility of getting in some retail catalogs and have been working with local toy and coin shops who are now stocking the product. It’s very satisfying whenever an order pops up in my inbox.
Has your businesss been affected by the economic slowdown, or is it too early to tell?
The product is pretty unique, so I think for the people who want it, the price is not prohibitive. My main problem is making sure people know my product exists! It really doesn’t fit into a traditional product category which makes it a bit tricky to advertise. As the product just launched, I’m going to miss some Christmas opportunities (e.g. catalogs and retailers) but I’m hoping 2009 will be a good year for this product. There will be four new penny designs released next year to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the penny and Spielberg is also making an Abe Lincoln movie starring Liam Neeson. I’m hoping these events might generate some interest in pennies and Abe Lincoln. They certainly can’t hurt!
– End of interview –
Recap
I want to thank Maury for letting me pick his brain and see into the “nuts and bolts” behind PennyPortrait.com. I think there are a lot of us (me included) that have had their own niche ideas but haven’t gotten over the hump to making it happen, and I think he showed us some practical tools and tips to help us along.
Look for a giveaway of these neat kits soon. If you can’t wait, you can get $5 off using the coupon code “MyMoneyBlog” (I get nothing). If you have any further questions for Maury, please leave a comment below. If you’re an entrepreneur with a unique story and would like to be interviewed here as well, please feel free to contact me.
Past Entrepreneur Interviews:
Posted in Entrepreneurial | 17 Comments »
Saturday, November 8th, 2008
Already started your own business, or thinking of doing so? Want to go “legit” and form an LLC or corporation? I received an heads up from about a promo next week Tuesday where you can get a free incorporation service worth $149:
On Tuesday, November 11, 2008 from 6am to 6pm (pacific time), MyCorporation is offering a special promotion titled FREE FOR A DAY. For one day only, MyCorporation will process a new Corporation or Limited Liability Company for FREE. That’s a savings of $149 off regular service fees (note: document shipping, state fees, publication fees, and additional product fees are additional). This is the first time this promotion has ever been offered!
MyCorporation is owned by Intuit, of TurboTax and Quicken fame. (And more recently, of free Quicken Online.) These types of pseduo-legal services are a middle ground between filling out the filing paperwork all by yourself and hiring a lawyer to do it. They perform services like checking your name to make sure it is not violating any other trademarks, making sure you filled out the forms with no common errors, and helping you start out with all the additional paperwork obligations of a separate legal entity.
Although the standard advice always seems to be “go with a lawyer”, I ended up incorporating my own home business in 2006 with one of their popular competitors, LegalZoom. I was very satisfied with their service, and even talked to a real person on the phone about some details. (They do a lot of cheap wills and trusts too.) I think I paid about $200 + filing fees. A lawyer would have cost around $1,000 + filing fees.
The decision to incorporate is not always simple, but I wanted to throw it out there so interested folks can think a bit about good reasons to incorporate, whether to go LLC or corporation, possible available names, and other details. One book that I recommend is from Nolo Press is LLC or Corporation? How to Choose the Right Form for Your Business. I chose to go the S-Corp route primarily to reduce self-employment taxes. The window for this promotion is small, but you still have to pay $50+ in state filing fees, so don’t take it too lightly. Offer is supposed to show up on the website on Monday.
Update: MyCorporation is now running a promotion where they havefree filing services for all of December with coupon code MYGIFT!
Posted in Entrepreneurial | 27 Comments »
Sunday, October 12th, 2008
In my last Amazon.com order, there was a flyer for 250 free business cards from Intuit Quickbooks. I have been meaning to get new business cards with my new address, so I tried it out. Even in this digital age, business cards are a great way to publicize your home business or freelance work. Pass them out!
The ordering process was easy, and UPS Ground shipping was $5. I kept things pretty simple, and did not add a custom logo for extra money or any other options, and it was $5 total with no sneakiness. Very cheap advertising, not to mention it is a deductible business expense. 
The order shipped in 3 days.
From looking at the 42 available free designs, it would appear that these are the same offered by Vistaprint. I have used Vistaprint before with no problems, but others have reported issues with them. Vistaprint does try to cross-sell you a lot of different trial offers with various companies before letting you check out with your free business cards. Quickbooks did not. Also, Vistaprint puts their logo on the back of the free cards, which some feel makes the cards look less professional. Quickbooks does not.
Posted in Deals & Offers, Entrepreneurial | 8 Comments »
Thursday, August 14th, 2008
It’s not every day that you get to interview someone who:
- started out as an Emergency Medicine doctor in her native country of Russia,
- went on to be a body double for Cindy Crawford,
- is a former public relations executive,
- has been reading my blog for nearly a year
,
- … and now spends her time twisting latex balloons.
Irina Patterson is a balloon artist, usually working at upscale events like cocktail hours, galas, art dinners, or yacht events. She is a great example of how following your passions and having an open mind can lead to a fun and flexible self-employed business. Although she admits that it is not passive income, she has managed to build what she terms a “money printing press” since she has all the work she can handle.
I wanted to learn more, so below is an e-mail interview that I recently conducted with Irina:
How did you get started as the “Balloon Lady”?
Believe it or not, I have never seen balloon animals until about 4 years ago. I don’t have kids and I don’t go to the malls. I saw balloon animals for the first
time at a private party and totally fell in love with the process. I love bright colors. It just made me happy. I guess it makes happy many other people too. Otherwise, how can you explain the demand for balloon art entertainment even now, when people cut down on everything.
How long did you practice making balloons before you started to earn money doing it? Did you worry about not making enough money at it?
I practiced at home for about a week. Then I went to a strip mall. Paid them $75. That was their monthly fee for allowing me to make balloon art
for tips. I made that $75 in tips right back on the first day. At the time, I didn’t know better at the time. I only paid fees like that for about 2 months.
You can find places where you can make balloon animals without rental fees. You can find restaurants that will PAY you to entertain their customers. In Miami restaurants usually pay $50-100 per 3-4 hours on a weekend + most customers will usually give a tip. You can expect to make about $ 150 for about 4 hours as a restaurant balloon artist.
But the best part is this. While you are entertaining at a restaurant, you are also marketing your private party entertainment. Private parties will always give you better return on your time. In Miami, on average, a balloon artist can earn $100-200 per hour at a private event. And you are usually booked for more than one hour.
I didn’t have to worry about making money as a balloon artist. At the time I was full time employed as a PR executive. But I couldn’t believe how easy it was to make money as a balloon artist.
Read the rest of this entry…
Posted in Entrepreneurial | 16 Comments »
Monday, July 21st, 2008
A few months ago, Dan of SuperiorTitanium.com approached me about advertising rates for his website selling titanium money clips. Although money clips are somewhat financially related, I thought it would be an even better fit to do an interview with him in exchange for some publicity. (No money changed hands at all.)
I’m always interested in the what I call micro-businesses run by one or two people, especially those selling physical products. Mainly, this is because I’ve always been turned off by selling physical goods, and have preferred to make money by either selling advertising online or by performing services. Let’s get to the interview:
Where did you get the idea to sell titanium money clips? Why titanium?
I’m an mechanical engineer and I’ve always had an interest in all things mechanical. Titanium itself is a very interesting metal, especially; since it is never found in it’s pure form and is basically a black sand prior to processing. To me it is pretty amazing that we even have titanium as a metal now and it was truly a major feat of engineering to get the process for refining titanium figured out.
I used to carry a leather wallet around, but it was pretty bulky and uncomfortable to have in my pocket all the time. I decided to make a money clip out of titanium, since it is very springy and will not fatigue and break over time like steel will. Titanium also allows the money clip to hold more and still spring back to its original form allowing me to hold my bills and credit cards along with my drivers license! The money clip worked very well for me and my friends liked it and they bought some.
I decided to try and sell them online with a very basic website and using Paypal to accept payments. I tried some advertising with Google Adwords to get traffic to the site and happily people purchased the titanium money clips and there were repeat buyers who were buying them for their friends. This inspired me to keep selling them and to not only improve on the design, but to add in different variations to suit different tastes. Of course sales were very few at first, but I stuck it out and it has paid off in the long run.
Your site looks very professional. Did you design it yourself or hire somebody?
The current website is designed by a very capable website design company and represents A LOT of work over time by myself and the designers. It was very important to find a company who was very good to work and fast to respond to questions, etc.
Is this your first online business?
This is my first online business although it is the 4th website design. I have a lot of different ideas, but I’m trying to stay focused in order to really build the business and not get spread too thin.
How long have you been running this site? Do you have others?
This site has been running for about 5 years now and although I’ve had many other product ideas I’m sticking to this one for now. My other ideas would require new websites, so there will likely be more sites in the next year or two.
Is this your full-time job? How many hours a week does it take to maintain and run?
It’s not a full time job and is run on 10 to 15 hours per week (with help), although the more time spent promoting the website the better the sales are, so I usually spend more time than that.
Do you dropship or do you hold your own inventory?
We manufacture our own money clips and hold lots of inventory, since everything is now made in batches for efficiency. This allows us to tightly control quality, delivery and all aspects of the business. I believe this is key to a strong business and quality products.
Can you give a range into the gross annual income of your website? (Ex. $1,000-$10000 or $10k-$50k or $50-$200k)
(declined to answer)
What has been the most difficult challenge in your venture?
The biggest challenge has been making people aware of the existence of titanium money clips and the benefits over traditional money clips and wallets.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a business selling consumer products online?
Do something you love to do because it will take passion to make your business a success and it is true that it doesn’t really feel like work (well 90% of the time it doesn’t!). You will also need to accept that it will take a long time to make money especially if you have a new product that people are not aware of. The money will come, but you will need patience and determination.
Any other tips?
Listen to your customers, since they are the ones who are putting/keeping you in business. I always try to be fair and reasonable because every satisfied customer is like a sales person out there and over time it is a powerful force working in your favor.
– end of interview –
Recap
I want to thank Dan for the interview. Here are the main take-aways for me:
- Had an idea within personal sphere of expertise (mechanical engineering), and made a prototype.
- Tried selling to friends first, then expanded.
- Keeps trying to improve website.
- Make product himself, and controls inventory directly.
- Not a full time job.
- Most time is now spent on marketing, not product development.
Now that I write this, I have some additional follow-up questions like what shopping cart backend software he uses. If you have some questions as well, please leave them in the comments and I’ll try to get them answered if they aren’t trade secrets. I haven’t had a chance to try out the product myself yet, but be on the look out for an upcoming titanium money clip giveaway.
If you liked this entrepreneur interview, also check out this interview with Dennis of OneGreekStore, a custom apparel store for the college Greek community. Finally, if you’re an entrepreneur with a unique story and would like to be interviewed here as well, please feel free to contact me.
Posted in Entrepreneurial | 18 Comments »
Friday, May 23rd, 2008
There’s always the weekly garage sales to dig through, but if you are after some higher quality furniture, antiques, or collectibles, this Money magazine article about estate sales suggests another option. Estate sales are similar to garage sales, except the process is more formal and many times everything in the entire house is marked with a price tag. You walk in, snoop around, and pick up what you want. Everything often must be sold within the 1-3 day sale. It’s usually after a death, but there might be a number of other causes.
The article has a bunch of good tips, including:
- Call head to find out what specific items are available beforehand, so you can do your homework.
- Arrive either really early to get the best selection, or really late for the best haggling.
- Bring tools like a big tote bag, bubble wrap, a flashlight.
- Use the internet or phone-a-friend to prices things instantly while browsing.
To find a sale, there are newspaper classified ads, Craigslist, and local liquidator firms. There’s also EstateSales.net, which if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area there is a sale of the contents of four model homes Friday-Sunday in Discover Bay. (Wonder if this indicates good or bad news?) I like the idea of good furniture at steep discounts! I hope it’s better organized than this picture from another listing in the area:
Also, I found that it’s actually better to use the “Find Companies” section of EstateSales.net and look for local liquidator firms; they usually provide a link to their websites. I have found several estates sales which are only listed on the individual firm websites. Anyhow, although I don’t think I’d be a good antique flipper on eBay, I still think it would be interesting to go to one of these. Anyone have any good stories?
Posted in Entrepreneurial | 8 Comments »
