Tag: internet marketing

Categories
Business Technology

Product Idea: Hairdresser Poncho with a Clear Window for Phone/Magazines

Hair Dresser Poncho

So I went to the hairdresser today and… you can probably guess the rest from the post title. I wanted to use my phone while getting a haircut and started to think why there was no clear window in the poncho so I could use my phone without getting hair all over it.

This kind of product would be perfect for a “Muse” (with appropriate testing first of course).

If you don’t know what a Muse is, its a concept from the book The 4 Hour Work Week, the book that inspired me to start my first internet business when I left to go travelling. It refers to a small business, usually internet based that requires very little energy to run once set up as you systemize all parts of the business (one of the things my startup Process Street is designed to help with).

I like the idea of this product because you could sell it wholesale to companies who supply hairdressers, creating a business with decently high revenue but only a few clients, 80/20 that shit (another concept from the book).

See Through Hair Dresser Poncho

I found the above image, its kinda what im talking about except for getting  a haircut.

Categories
Business Technology

How Much Money Does the Facebook Ecosystem Produce?

Facebook went down the other day for the first time I can remember.

Got me thinking about how much money is being lost every minute they are down.

I know individuals who spend upwards of $50,000 each day on Facebook advertising, which is actually nothing compared to the big brands.

If you take into consideration:

  • All the revenue being lost by Facebook themselves
  • The opportunity cost of a large portion of Facebook’s employees not being able to do their jobs properly
  • All the hundreds of thousands of advertisers who’s ads are not being displayed
  • Hundreds of thousands of brands who’s posts are not being read of their fanpage walls
  • All the apps that have gone down, including massive platforms such as Zynga
  • All the third party Fabook developers who cant work right now cause Facebook is down
  • Social media managers who cant do their jobs
  • Loss of data from 3rd party analytics companies
  • Probably many other things I cant think of.

Facebook is SO massive that anything it does has a massive ripple effect. I once read a while back that the Facebook ecosystem had created over 220,000 jobs, that number is probably much larger now.

Crazy to think about.

Categories
Business Technology

Ingredients of a Successful Bootstrapped Startup?

I’ve been meeting lots of people and getting lots of feedback here in San Francisco.

Here are some of the consistent ingredients of successful startups I have collected from observation and feedback.

Note, these elements will probably not leave you with the next Facebok, but just know, for every Facebook, there are 1001 companies who tried to be Facebook and failed.

  • Solve a problem
  • A focused product of which the core feature set can be built relatively fast and cheap
  • Recurring payment model
  • The core feature set (MVP) should be good enough that you can actually charge people for it
  • There is the ability to grow out to different markets/features to increase your customer base and how much you charge (aka scale potential)

This is similar to what 37 Signals teaches. Basically this will remove the NEED for funding, but you can still take it if you want. It will allow you to grow based on revenues of your company, and the fact that it is recurring will create a more stable model.

Vitoto – has almost none of these ingredients. But then again, we want to be the next Facebook 😀

Quite the conundrum….

Categories
Business Technology

Idea: Create Separate Instances of Browsers for Separate Web Apps

I always get lost in my browser tabs. I am a heavy heavy internet user and often find myself with 20-40 tabs open at a time in Chrome. Many of them running web apps that I like to keep open all the time:

  • Multiple gmail accounts
  • Google Calendar
  • Google Docs (Drive)
  • Asana
  • HasOffers
  • Cacoo

The annoying thing about tabs, compared to icons on the bottom of the screen (applies to mac and PCs – I use both) is they its very easy for them to change position.

For example when you open links from a web app, it opens a new tab and pushes all the other tabs over. Meaning your reaction to go back to the 3rd tab to check calendar, is no longer there caus its been pushed along.

What if there were a way to create browser tabs that broke off and could be pinned as an icon to the bottom of the screen. All they did was launch a new Chrome window, but that window was mapped to that icon in the task bar and made it easy to navigate between different chrome “instances” or “apps”.

I know it would make me more productive…

UPDATE: Turns out this feature is already built into chrome 😛 – Click here to see how to do it.

Categories
Business Technology

Google Apps Removes Free Version Completely

I just got an email from Google stating that they are removing the free version of Google Apps completely. This is not going to effect existing accounts but new users will not be able to sign up for the free version. I am a heavy user of Google apps and use it on 20+ domains. This is a sad, sad day…

Hello from Google,Here’s some important news about Google Apps—but don’t worry, there’s no need for you to take any action. We just want you to know that we’re making a change to the packages we offer.

Starting today, we’re no longer accepting new sign-ups for the free version of Google Apps (the version you’re currently using). Because you’re already a customer, this change has no impact on your service, and you can continue to use Google Apps for free.

Should you ever want to upgrade to Google Apps for Business, you’ll enjoy benefits such as 24/7 customer support, a 25 GB inbox, business controls, our 99.9% uptime guarantee, unlimited users and more for just $5 per user, per month.

You can learn more about this change in our Help Center or on the Enterprise Blog.

Thank you for using Google Apps.

Clay Bavor
Director, Google Apps
Categories
Business Featured People Technology Travel

99 Abstract Life Hacks – Make your Life Easier Today!

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Categories
Business

The Death of Broadcast Advertising…

It has been a topic of discussion for some time now that broadcast advertising has been losing its effectiveness. I mean seriously, when was the last time you saw a billboard on the side of the road, picked up a phone and called the number displayed?

Maybe recently, but it was probably a fluke. Broadcast advertising is basically the same as spam – untargeted advertising to the masses.

Not that spam doesn’t work, it does. But it is not the most effective method of advertising.

Examples of broadcast advertising include:

  • TV
  • Radio
  • Newspaper
  • Billboards
  • Cold Calling
  • Junk mail
  • Etc…

These methods, while targeted to a small level (like you know that mostly females watch The Bachelor so you advertise female oriented products during the airing of that show), in modern age of today, you can do so much better.

With the technology and data that exists today, it is much easier to find, track and target your audience down to an almost exact science.

Here are some targeted advertising options to consider:

Search Advertising

I’m sure most of you know what search advertising, most people in the world have probably clicked on a Google search advertisement at some point in their lives. But you know why you clicked on it? Because you were searching for it, it works.

Facebook Advertising

Most people tell Facebook what their likes and interest are. So target people who are interested in what you have to offer…

Sponsored Emails

There are email newsletters in EVERY single market in the world. Instead of broadcasting to your general demographic, why not purchase an advertisement on an email list from people who have already indicated they are interested in what you have to offer?

Retargeting

Retargeting or behavioural retargeting is genius. You may have seen this happen to you already, but basically if you visit a site of a certain type (say a stock trading website) you can then follow that same customer across different sites showing them the same advertisement until eventually they buy.

Needless to say, there are many other methods of targeted advertising that all work very well. And a good combination of broadcast and targeted advertising can work wonders too (think broadcast advertising to determine your target market, then retargeting that customer until they buy). But if you find yourself stuck in the old school mentality of broadcast advertising only, you need to get with the times…

Categories
Travel

$2,000 Black Jack Hand – #ASW11

Here is the video of the $2,000 Blackjack hand I did at Vegas.

Here is the story in case you missed it:

Video of the $2k Blackjack Hand

Awesome time, thanks Shoemoney!

Categories
Business Travel

Affiliate Summit West #ASW11 – Recap, Video and Photos

Its been more than a week since I have gotten back from Affiliate Summit West 2011 (#ASW11) and wheels are turning. I am thinking it may have been the most productive few days of my life, even though all I did was get wasted all night and wake up at 5pm each day.

Here is a video of my time in Vegas. (click here if you cant see the video)

 

 

You may notice there is very little of the ‘actual conference’. That’s because I didn’t really go to much of the ‘actual conference’…. Hell I didn’t even use my free breakfast’s, lunches and I think I used about 2/10 of my drink vouchers…

Some people may say that I wasted the time there because I didn’t go to any of the sessions and didn’t learn anything (which I know is what many of the others who entered Shoemoney’s Contest wanted to do.

But I beg to differ.

I learned HEAPS. But what I learned, will never be told at a session or keynote. Its the real shit. I also made some deep relationships. I went to Affiliate Summit knowing nobody. Like literally nobody. But I have gotten very used to rocking up to places knowing nobody and quickly making friends. It is kinda necessary when you are a solo traveller.

I left ASW with a bunch of new contacts. But not just business cards. Real projects that are in the works. On top of that I made new friends.

It is really hard to really befriend someone when you meet them during the day at a networking event. Sure you may have things in common, sure you may have an interesting conversation, maybe even go for lunch or something. But it is still surface level.

To build a relationship and you need to have shared experiences. There is almost no way around it. So how do you do this?

Well… going out partying until 8am is a good start. Doing stupid shit helps too:

ASW11

My goal at ASW11 was to make some solid connections. I didn’t want to come back with a bunch of business cards and no follow up plans and I didn’t want to come back having not met anyone but listed to a bunch of speeches which I could learn in a few hours of research on my own (no disrespect to any of the speakers).

But hey, that was just my strategy going in knowing nobody. Next time it will probably be a little different as I will arrange to meet people in advance now that I know a few people.

What is your general conference strategy?

Categories
Travel

A Day at Affiliate Summit West 2011 #ASW11

4:50pm – Woke up at the Wynn overlooking Las Vegas Blv.

4:55pm – Got out of bed to check my phone that kept beeping. Had message to go to lunch – 4.5 hours ago… Organise to meet a friend downstairs for food and to watch the BCS game.

5:45pm – Get downstairs and get in line for food.

5:50pm – Realise Shoemoney is launching his new product in 10 minutes, so run off to the announcement room for the only event/speech I will see all ASW.

6-7pm – Watch product launch of Link Control and get a free lifetime pass. C ya later Hypertracker.

7:30pm – Roll with Shoemoney to play my $2k blackjack hand. I get dealt a 13 against a 10, land an 8 on the hit for 21. Dealer is 18. Winner winner chicken dinner!

8:00pm – Eat dinner/breakfast with Shoemoney and crew at Switch.

10:00pm – Head over to the Affiliate Ball at Rio with a VIP ticket. Watch 3-6 Mafia rock the house.

1:00am – Head over to the Veniusian for a drink

1:30am – Head over to XS at the Wynn

3:00am – Have a ‘drink’ with a nice young lady in my hotel room

7:00am – Sleep time

It’s a tough life…

Photos and video to come