Posts related to business category

Vitoto Officially Shutting Down

Vinay Patankar · 31 May, 2015 · Business · Technology

2012 - San Francisco... Vitoto was a failure. It feels good to say that. There has been an air of uncertainty around the state of the company for the last few weeks, its nice to make a decision. Firstly, I am proud of myself for taking the shot. > "You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take." > \-- Wayne Gretzky I am also proud to have acquired my first startup failure. People in Silicon Valley respect failure, its almost like a badge of honor. Don't get me wrong, I would have much preferred a success, and I am really disappointed I was not able to generate a return for my investors, but I definitely left this experience with more than I started with so I'm not complaining. If you don't know, Vitoto was a startup I founded in July, 2012 that set out to create a collaborative video app for the iPhone. I came up with the idea while I was in Las Terrenes, Dominican Republic - I had been perpetually travelling for the previous 2.5 years while running my internet marketing company. I quickly raised some seed capital ($50k) and partnered with a Sydney team - Moroku - to build the MVP. After about 4 months of design and development (during which I traveled through the DR, USA, Thailand and Australia) we launched on the Apple App Store and I moved to San Francisco to start the funding gauntlet. 3 months, a plethora of emails, calls, meetups, pitches and half a startup accelerator later we are shutting down the doors. I want to keep this post as short as possible while both covering off why we are shutting the company down, and some of the key mistakes I believe we (I) made in this process. ## Why Vitoto is Shutting Down The short answer is: No money. Another short answer might be: Good idea, bad business. Below is the long: ## 0\. The Problem One of the key lessons I learned is that great startups have a blindingly obvious, ideally really large and painful problem that the company is trying to solve. Solving this problem should drive almost every decision in the startup. Vitoto did not have this. I mused on this in an earlier post. I tried to spin up problems that I could use in pitches and conversations like "its difficult for people to create collaborative videos" but I couldn't even convince myself, let alone anyone else. The problem just wasn't real enough. Next time: Next time I need a blindingly obvious, clear, defined, large, real problem that is being solved. No exceptions. > I have been working on a new startup applying the lessons I learned from Vitoto. Check it out here: Process Street ## 1\. The Team I have seen two types of successful startup teams here in Silicon Valley. 1\. Young teams who can survive on very minimal cash. These are teams of 2-5 people who have a blend of skills (technical, design, business) and can execute an entire startup between their core team. They are able to stretch $30k to 9 months as they all live in one house, work 15 hours a day, 7 days a week and survive on ramen noodles. 2\. Experienced, well funded teams. These are teams that are generally spear headed by an entrepreneur who has had a successful exit in the past. The entrepreneur goes around and recruits a bunch of his or her friends from their 6 figure jobs and convinces them to help create their next vision. Due to their strong track record and the experienced team formed, they are able to raise money before a single line of code is written. The money raised can be anywhere from $250k to $40 million. Both team styles have pros and cons, however, these two team structures seem to be the most successful. The Vitoto team fell somewhere in the middle. We had a great team, don't get me wrong, but there were some key elements in the structure that lead to the inevitable demise of Vitoto. The two key factors were: 1\. We had a team that was too experienced for the budget. 2\. We had no invested User Experience/Design specialist. Our team ran out of runway and could not develop new features into the product. The product was not getting the traction needed nor could we get the viral loop to work, this made the product unappealing to investors. We did not have enough money to support the team in executing the required UX tweaks and experiments, thus were unable to further develop the product to a point where it could get enough traction to attract investors. One key element here is that the Australian team was not able to deliver any code without money coming in. They have huge overheads and were unable to contribute time for pure equity. Next time: Next time I make sure I start or am part of a founding team that falls into one of the 2 above success categories. ## 2\. Lack of UX focus, planning and execution. The lack of UX focus was another key factor in the (lack of) success of Vitoto. The first element to this was that we had no dedicated UX specialist on the team. We did bring in outside expertise for the graphics design, and while the quality delivered was high, this put further constrain on the budget. The second element was that the team never properly sat down and brainstormed the UX. Quick decisions were made to get the MVP out the door and these had serious impacts on how the product was received by customers. Next time: Next time I will make sure that there is extensive planning, brainstorming, and user testing done on the UX of the product before any time or money is invested in actual coding. And I will make sure there is an invested UX specialist on the founding team. ## 3\. Resource Allocation When I budgeted my initial capital for the business, I budgeted to get an MVP out the door. While I understood there would need to be a marketing effort for the product, I didn't take into account the extent of tweaking that would need to be done to the product after the MVP to get it to a point of consistent user uptake. The UX is the most important marketing tool for an early stage startup. If people are not using your product, it doesn't matter how well you market it. I consistently had user feedback to add, remove or enhance features or experience. But continually found myself saying "it's on the road map but we don't have enough money to build it". A position I should have never been in. Next time: Next time I will make sure my initial funding can carry me to TRACTION not just the MVP. Traction (unless you're super lucky) is going to be a solid 6-12 months AFTER the MVP is released. So I will make sure I have enough to last that long before I dive in. ## 4\. Monetization strategy was loose. This is important, but not as important for consumer focused products. If you are building a consumer app without a clear monetization strategy, just make sure you have the runway as mentioned in point 3. You will either gain traction or you won't. If you gain traction you can figure out monetization, if you don't, well, you're dead in the water anyway. Next time: Next time I am not building a consumer product. B2B with a clear cut monetization strategy and a focus to start monetizing as early as possible. ## 5\. Product outside area of specialization Nobody in the team had built a successful consumer product before. We all had experience in the enterprise space, selling to businesses. We had no experience in consumer of video. We were not playing to our strengths. Next time: Next time I will play in a space I have lived in before. ## What's next? As I said at the beginning, this experience has definitely been a positive one. I can't even begin to describe how much I have learned. It felt like an accelerated university degree. I have gained a TONN of real world experience in the startup world, built a strong network in San Francisco and Silicon Valley and even have my next startup idea locked down. But for now, my visa to the US runs out in about a month so I will be leaving. My marketing company is still running strong and the focus is going to be on scaling that over the next 12 months. I am going to do a few stops in the US over the next few weeks, San Diego, Tempe, Pittsburg then I am going to head to Hong Kong to handle some banking and I want to visit my parents and little brother who are currently in Ningbo (a city in China near Shanghai). After that I am planning to move to Jaco in Costa Rica for at least 6 months. The words for the year are "Scale and Systems". Beyond building my business, I also want to focus on getting stronger in the gym, learning to surf properly and learning Spanish. I am also brewing the idea of doing another sneaky startup, working on team for this one so well see how that goes. What would you have done different? > I have been working on a new startup applying the lessons I learned from Vitoto. Check it out here: Process Street For another Business angle, read Vitoto Editing Features Launched.

How to Make Awesome Videos for Your Store (With AI)

Vinay Patankar · 21 May, 2015 · Blogging · Business · Technology

Back in 2016, I wrote the original version of this post. Making a decent video for your store cost $300 to $600 in software alone, took days of work, and still looked amateur. You needed a microphone, screen recording software, animation tools, and video editing skills. That world is gone. In 2026, AI can turn a single product photo into a full video ad. No script. No storyboard. No editing. One image, one click, one video, and the results are outperforming traditional production in many cases. This is a complete rewrite. Every tool, every technique, and every workflow is new. ## Why AI Video Changes Everything for Ecommerce The economics have flipped. A traditional product video shoot costs $5,000 to $30,000 per collection. AI catalog video generation does the same job for pennies per SKU. But cost isn't even the biggest advantage. It's speed and iteration. When I wrote the original post, I praised DIY video because startups pivot constantly and you can't afford to reshoot every time your product changes. AI solves this completely. Product image updated? Generate a new video in minutes. Here's what the data shows: - 20% higher on-site conversion when AI product videos replace static images - 150% conversion improvement over static images in Pic Copilot's testing - 350+ videos per hour using automated AI pipelines - $0.54 per video for consistent AI UGC with the same character across unlimited variations The ecommerce brands winning right now aren't choosing between "professional video" and "DIY video." They're choosing between "some videos" and "a video for every single SKU in the catalog." ## The Two Types of AI Video That Matter for Ecommerce Before diving into tools, understand the two dominant use cases: ### 1. Product Videos (Catalog-Scale) These are the videos that live on your product pages, Amazon listings, and Google Shopping. They show your product in motion: rotating, being used, in context. The workflow is simple. Upload product photos, AI generates a video. This is where the biggest ROI lives. Most ecommerce stores have zero video on their product pages. Adding AI-generated product videos across your entire catalog is the single highest-leverage move you can make right now. ### 2. AI UGC Ads (Performance Marketing) These are the TikTok-style, talking-head, "authentic" video ads that drive paid acquisition. AI now generates realistic UGC creators: consistent characters that can appear across hundreds of ad variations. One ecommerce advertiser tested AI ads vs human UGC with $100K in spend over 3 months on Facebook Ads. The results were close enough that AI's 100x cost advantage made it the clear winner for creative testing at scale. ## The Core Workflow: Image to Video The killer workflow in 2026 is image-to-video. Here's how it works: Step 1: Start with a clean product photo. White background, high resolution. If you're already selling online, you have these. Step 2: Choose your AI video tool. Feed it your product image. The AI handles motion, camera movement, lighting, and context. Step 3: Add a hook and CTA. Layer on text overlays, a voiceover (also AI-generated), and a call to action. Step 4: Generate variations. This is the real power. Generate 10, 50, or 500 variations for creative testing. Different angles, different hooks, different styles. That's it. No script writing, no storyboarding, no editing timeline. The entire process that used to take days now takes minutes. ## The AI Video Tool Landscape There's no single winner yet because the space is moving fast. Here's how the tools break down by use case: ### For Product Page Videos Claid.ai is the current industry standard for brand-safe, commercial-ready product videos. Best for fashion and ecommerce brands that need clean, professional catalog videos at scale. Handles product attributes well. Luma AI (Dream Machine) offers strong image-to-video generation. Good for hero product shots with cinematic camera motion. Works well for higher-end products where you want that premium feel. Kittl (Motion on Canvas) launched February 2026. It turns static designs into animated content. Good for product graphics and promotional materials that need motion. ### For AI UGC Ads MakeUGC is the most-discussed tool for AI UGC. Pair it with Google's VEO 3.1 Extend for longer clips. Users report generating 350+ performance-ready short-form ads per hour, fully automated. HeyGen is an AI avatar platform for talking-head videos. Reviews are mixed: some love the output quality, others find the avatars still fall into uncanny valley. Best for explainer-style content where a "presenter" walks through product benefits. Topview is a UGC AI agent that works with Sora 2. It takes viral video formats and recreates them with your product and brand. Good for riding trends without manual video production. ### For Full Pipeline Automation Runway is the Swiss Army knife of AI video. Image-to-video, video-to-video, motion brush for controlling specific elements. The most flexible tool if you want creative control. Pika is built for fast iteration, good for generating lots of short clips quickly. Strong at stylized motion. Google VEO 3.1 is currently the most capable model for realistic motion. Best results when paired with other tools (MakeUGC, n8n workflows) rather than used standalone. OpenAI Sora 2 is strong for cinematic, longer-form content. Being used for full ad production by some brands. ### For Automation at Scale n8n + AI Video is an open-source workflow automation approach. Several ecommerce operators have built pipelines that take a product URL or image, generate video through AI APIs, and publish directly to their store. ## AI Voiceovers: Forget the Microphone In the original post, I recommended buying a $180 Yeti Blue microphone and recording your own voiceover. That advice is obsolete. AI voice generation is now indistinguishable from human voiceover for product videos. Tools like ElevenLabs, PlayHT, and the built-in voice features in HeyGen and MakeUGC handle this automatically. The workflow: write your script (or have AI write it from your product description), select a voice style, generate. You get studio-quality audio in seconds. For UGC-style ads, the AI voice is already baked into the avatar generation. The character speaks naturally with lip-sync handled automatically. ## AI Music and Sound Design Same story as voiceover. AI handles this now. Tools like Suno and Udio generate custom background tracks in any style. But honestly, for ecommerce product videos, you usually want minimal or no music. The product and the hook do the work. If you do need music, most AI video platforms include royalty-free background tracks. Don't overthink this part. ## The Chinese Ecommerce Playbook Here's where things get wild. Chinese ecommerce brands are already running AI-powered livestream sales where: - An AI model holds the actual product on a green screen - AI generates the voice in real-time - AI lip-syncs the face - Everything composites live This is 24/7 automated live selling. The tech exists today. Western ecommerce hasn't caught up yet, but platforms like TikTok Shop are pushing in this direction. If you're in dropshipping or high-SKU ecommerce, watch this space closely. ## What AI Video Still Can't Do Well Let's be honest about the limitations: - Rigid geometry. Hard products with exact shapes (electronics, tools) can get distorted. - Reflective materials. Glass, metal, and shiny surfaces are still tricky. - Precise product details. Size, texture, and material accuracy aren't reliable yet. - Brand consistency. Getting exact brand colors and styling requires careful prompting and often manual touchup. For products where precise detail matters (jewelry, electronics, technical products), AI video works best as a supplement to real photography, not a replacement. Use AI for the lifestyle/context shots and UGC ads, keep real photos for the detail shots. For fashion, beauty, food, and lifestyle products, AI video is ready to be your primary production method. ## Cost Breakdown: 2026 Edition ### Full AI Video Stack - Claid.ai: ~$49/mo (product page videos at catalog scale) - MakeUGC: ~$49/mo (AI UGC ad generation) - ElevenLabs: ~$22/mo (AI voiceover) - Runway: ~$28/mo (creative image-to-video) - Total: ~$148/mo for unlimited videos across all use cases ### Budget Stack - Kittl: Free tier (basic animated product graphics) - Google VEO (via AI Studio): Free tier (image-to-video generation) - CapCut: Free (editing and text overlays) - Total: $0 and good enough to start ### Compare to the Original Post In 2016, the budget setup was $144 for a few videos. In 2026, $0 to $148/month gets you unlimited videos across your entire catalog. And the quality is dramatically better. ## The Playbook: Where to Start If you're an ecommerce store owner reading this, here's what to do this week: 1. Pick your 5 best-selling products. Grab their hero images. 2. Generate product videos. Use any image-to-video tool (Runway, Luma, or VEO free tier). Upload the image, generate a 5-second product motion video. 3. Add them to your product pages. Even basic AI-generated motion outperforms static images. 4. Test one AI UGC ad. Take your top product, generate a UGC-style video ad with MakeUGC or HeyGen. Run it against your current creative on Meta or TikTok with $50. 5. Measure and scale. If conversions improve (they almost certainly will), roll out AI video across your full catalog. That's it. No $627 in software. No learning Adobe After Effects. No recording yourself in a quiet room with a $180 microphone. One product photo. One AI tool. One click. A video for every product in your store. The future of ecommerce is video-first, and AI just made that accessible to every store, regardless of budget or team size.

Ultimate Youtube Video Ranking Guide

Vinay Patankar · 21 May, 2015 · Blogging · Business · Technology

I've been using videos to market our startup Process Street for the last few months and have been getting some great results with video bringing in a steady flow of views, leads and customers. Now, you might already be aware that video is an important marketing tool in today's online world — that's why products like PowToon exist — but the way I use video might be a little different. See, I'm not using video in a traditional sense of putting it on my website and using it to convert customers or explain ideas (although I do that too), I'm using these videos as pieces of content to rank in Google to bring in organic search traffic. # Why Video is Awesome Creating videos in this way is similar to creating blog posts or landing pages for SEO, but with some important benefits. Firstly, YouTube videos rank well in Google. Like really well. Since YouTube is owned by Google, and is already an extremely high authority site, chances are that a piece of content you put on YouTube will rank higher than your own site, especially if your site is new and doesn't have much authority. Posting content on YouTube also lets your content be discovered when people search YouTube, which is the second biggest search engine in the world, bigger than both Bing and Yahoo. Moreover, optimizing your videos to rank in Google automatically optimizes them to rank in YouTube too, bringing an additional traffic stream you otherwise wouldn't've had. But what is really great about ranking in Google search is that it's search traffic, the best kind of traffic for a product like mine, which is solving a very specific pain point for businesses. This kind of traffic brings us customers from huge enterprises which I otherwise would have had a hard time identifying and marketing to. # How I Rank YouTube Videos In this post I will explain the process I use to optimize and rank my videos in Google. Here are a few examples of terms my videos are ranking for in Google: Standard Operating Procedure Software (Google Search|Video Link) Business Systemization (Google Search|Video Link) Sharepoint DMS alternative (Google Search|Video Link) The amazing thing about ranking videos for these kinds of keywords is that, even though they might not have a ton of traffic, they are VERY targeted visitors, people searching for that exact kind of product. I am not going to talk about how to make a video in this post. If you want to learn more about creating videos, I recently wrote a post on how to create a startup explainer video plus PowToon has a number of great tutorials on their blog. In this post I will show you how to optimize your videos and get them ranking for your target keywords. # On Page Optimization The first thing you should do before uploading your video is prepare you keywords, title and description. ## Keyword Research When ranking YouTube videos it's good practice to target multiple long tail keywords in the video. This will bring in more traffic as you rank for multiple terms with just one video. For example, this video I did on checklist software is ranking for Checklist Software, Checklist Software Tool and Checklist Template Software. You should find a keyword to target based on the content of your video. This is pretty easy: type a few variations into the AdWords Keyword Planner tool and find the one that ranks the highest. There are a few tricks you can do to find keywords that have low competition, but for the sake of this guide I am going to a assume you already know what keyword you want to rank for before you created the video. For our example, lets use "Tree Removal Miami" > Tree Removal Miami Once you have your primary keyword, it's time to get to work building a list of secondary keywords and constructing a title and description for your video. Below is a video I made for a friend teaching him the process of keyword research and constructing the title and description. In the video I walk through two example keywords "Tree Removal Miami" and "Electrician Miami". The video is an over the shoulder of me doing it, and runs about 30 minutes if you need a detailed explanation. (Spreadsheet from Video) ## Build Keyword List Take your primary keyword and put it into the AdWords tool, then pick 3-6 other keywords that have the highest search traffic and are related to your product. You can also use Uber Suggest to find the most common searched for terms after your keyword. This is the keyword list I came up with for Tree Removal Miami > tree removal miami tree removal cost miami tree removal service miami tree stump removal miami palm tree removal miami tree removal services miami emergency tree removal miami tree removal company miami tree removal miami FL tree removal cost miami FL tree removal service miami FL tree stump removal miami FL palm tree removal miami FL tree removal services miami FL emergency tree removal miami FL tree removal company miami FL ## Video Title Use the keyword list to construct the title. Weave in as many of the keywords as you can with the title still making sense and not looking like spam. > Tree Removal Service Miami FL | 555-555-5555 | Low Cost Emergency Tree Stump Removal Company ## Video Description The description should include ALL your keywords, woven into legible paragraphs that again don't look like spam. > Tree Removal Service Miami FL | 555-555-5555 > Low Cost Emergency Tree Stump Removal Company in Miami FL. Get lowest cost services on your emergency tree removal. > We guarantee the lowest tree removal cost in all of florida for tree stump removal. Contact us today for a free quote from the most reliable tree removal company in Miami FL. ## Video Tags For the video tags, just copy and paste in your keyword list. Easy. ## Advanced Optimization There are also a couple of advanced optimization techniques that I hear good things about. They are: - Transcript (adding a written transcript to your video can help the search engines crawl the video and give you higher rankings) - Annotations (again adding more text to the video helps with search) I haven't tested these myself yet but so far I have been able to get to the first page of Google for a number of terms just using the methods above of optimizing the Title, Description and Tags then doing the off page optimization steps outlined below. # Off Page Optimization - Backlinks Now your video is uploaded and optimized, it's time to start ranking it. Ranking a YouTube video is pretty similar to ranking any website where the main ranking determinant is the number of backlinks you have pointing towards that video. YouTube has another factor however and that is the number of websites that have actually embedded the video, making it slightly different to creating backlinks for traditional websites. Here is a list of YouTube ranking factors in order of importance: 1. Embeds 2. Links with Anchor Text 3. Links without Anchor Text 4. Social Signals Below are the strategies I use to rank my videos on YouTube. Keep in mind that these are not all the strategies that exist, and that there are many ways to get backlinks and embeds. ## Submit to Social Media Properties - Share on personal Google+ and company - Share on company Facebook page, like it, share it - Share it on twitter company account - Retweet on your own account ## Submit to Onlywire Onlywire is a service that lets you manage over 30 web 2.0 properties from one control panel. It's awesome to get a quick backlink shot of 20-30 links to any post or video you publish. Submitting your video to Onlywire won't move the needle much but it takes just a second to do and the more links the better. I use Onlywire quite a bit as I use it to build links to every Web 2.0 post, guest post, video, forum post, profile, etc. that I create. This is a really easy way to get a quick link boost. Plus you can pay someone on Fiverr to set it all up for just $5, an effective, cheap and automated way to do social bookmarking submissions. I talk about submitting to Onlywire a lot in the rest of this post. This is not a necessity though, merely a shortcut. There are other social tools to help you manage various social networks, or you can simply submit to them manually for free. However, Onlywire is the easiest tool I have found, and it's what I use in my business. ## Post on Site Create a blog post or landing page on your website. A general rule for a landing page is that it should have 300-500 words of unique content. The keyword should be included in the title and the body. The keyword should be linked to the YouTube video, the video should be embedded onto the page and you should also link out to an authority site. To beef up the page further, add the keyword into an h1 tag and as the alt text of an image. This formula should be followed when posting anywhere, including your site, other blogs you own, or Web 2.0 sites. Here is a quick checklist: - 300-500 words unique content - Keyword in title - Keyword in body - Keyword anchor text linked to video - Embed video - Authority link - H1 tag with keyword - Image with keyword in alt text Once you have published your post to your site, don't forget to promote it. Submit it to social bookmarking sites, Onlywire and across the web. If you are looking for more places to promote your content, try this checklist. ## Post on Blog Network Create a blog post on a personal blog or other site you own. If you don't own any other web properties, now might be a good time to create a blog. Having a second web property such as a blog is a great way to get additional exposure and backlinks for your videos. I have a few older blogs that are still around and have some decent authority so I use them to write posts and embed my videos in, like this one I did on standard operating procedure software. Once you have published your post to your blog using the same format as above, submit it to Onlywire. ## Submit to Profiles Company profiles and business directories are another great way to get embeds for your video. Depending on your niche you can embed your video onto your LinkedIn page, Angel List profile, or Yelp listing. These are great quick ways to not only get backlinks to your videos but also to generally increase your branding as a company. Remember to submit your profile pages to Onlywire to get some secondary link juice. ## Guest Post Write related guest posts for other sites and find meaningful ways to link or embed your videos into the guest post. This is one of the most powerful ways to get links to your videos. In fact, I am doing it right now with this post. Another example of a guest post where I embed and link to a number of my videos is this post I did for the Startup Chile blog. Remember to promote your guest posts too! Submit them to social bookmarking sites and Onlywire. If you want to learn more about guest posting, try these guides: Advanced Guest Posting 10 Resources to Make You The Best Guest Blogger Ever ## Create a Post on Your Web 2.0 Properties Another great way to get embeds, links and views for your videos is to publish them on your Web 2.0 sites like the ones listed below. Use the same format as when submitting to your blog or website. There are a lot of different Web 2.0 sites available, and it can take a bunch of time and resources to post on all of them, so I have broken them down into Tier 1 and Tier 2 sites. Start with the Tier 1 and, if you have the time, keep posting onto the Tier 2 sites. ### Tier 1 Wordpress.com Blogger.com Tumblr.com Medium.com ### Tier 2 LiveJournal.com Soup.io Webs.com Doomby.com Hpage.com Sosblogs.com Blog.com SnapPages.com Jigsy.com Beep.com Tripod.lycos.com Ucoz.com Jimdo.com Bravesites.com Newsvine.com Storify.com Over-blog.com Whether you are posting on Tier 1 or Tier 2, every time you create a new post, make sure to submit it to Onlywire. ## Keep on Linking As you continue to write content, do presentations, post on forums, etc., remember to keep linking back to your videos when you can. The more links you can get back to your videos the better they will rank over time, so keep on plugging them wherever you can. If you do the linking optimization tips above and actively work on generating links and embeds to your YouTube videos, they will rank in Google and bring in a targeted, free flow of traffic. Tell us about your YouTube ranking experiences in the comments below! Related read in Blogging: Start-Up Chile Application Video.

Abstract Job Hunting - Using Google Adwords to land your Dream Job

Vinay Patankar · 03 May, 2015 · Business

As an ex recruiter I know a thing or two about how to get a job. I've seen a whole bunch of crazy techniques people have used to land themselves their dream job. Some pretty cool, like creative web-pages, some completly idiotic like calling everyday saying "I have job". I came across this video the other day of a SUPER-EPICLY-AWESOME way to get your next job. The guy was looking to get senior job at one of 4 or 5 firms, working for one of the executives. What he did was create a Google Adwords campaign, with the keywords targeted to the names of the Executives he wanted to work for. If you dont already know, Google Adwords are the sponsored advertisments you see on the top and side of a Google search result. Its basically how they make all their cash. Take a look at the example below: The areas in the red are the areas you can "rent" from Google for a price per click. Usually in the 10c - $2 range. Oh and sorry about the funky language, I'm in Budapest at the moment and Google tracks your location to display advertisments close to you. This guy bought the space for the executives names, so when they Google themself, his advertisment popped up on the top of the search and took them into his website of some sort, which I am guessing was a sales page / resume of him asking for a job. Check the video he made of the experiement: (click here if you cant see the video) For all his efforts (probably 1 days work) and money invested ($6) he ended up with two job offers! Genius! Think of all the cool stuff you could use this for. Tim Ferriss used it for choosing the title of his book. Next time your struggelling to get past that gatekeeper consider the option of putting up a Google ad and see what happens. Now thats abstract living! Related read in Business: Abstract Income: How to Support an Abstract Lifestyle.

Mexican Story - Four Hour Work Week

Vinay Patankar · 02 May, 2015 · Business

This story kicks ass. Its from the . I don't think the lifestyle is for me I'd probably get bored, but the story has stuck with me. The perspective is the complete opposite to my capitalist mindset so I like to think it brings me closer to the middle somewhere. Enjoy! > American consultant was at a pier in a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. > The Mexican replied only a little while. > The consultant then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? > The fisherman said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. > The American then asked the Mexican how he spent the rest of his time. > The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, senor.” > The American consultant scoffed, “I am business consultant and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and, with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. > “You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.” > The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?” > To which the American consultant replied, “15-20 years.” > “But what then, senor?” asked the fisherman. > The consultant laughed, and said, “That’s the best part! When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public. You’ll become very rich, you would make millions!” > “Millions, senor?” replied the Mexican. “Then what?” > The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.” For another Business angle, read Startup Idea: Work and Workout Space.

Start-Up Idea: TailSearch - Search for Retail Stores

Vinay Patankar · 17 Nov, 2014 · Business · Technology

One liner: TailSearch: Search for retail stores. User experience: - iPad / Touchscreen TV positioned at front and around the store with a search bar / filters to filter down all items in the store. - There is a real-time map of the store with all the items in the store, and as you filter down, they break down and show you the location in the store of the item so you can easily find what you are looking for. - You can filter down men/women, colors, style, type, size etc… select tags, type in search etc… - User can easily search for any item in the store and be guided straight to it. - User can also download an app to their own phone and use that as a map around stores. - User can also search for all stores in area using the tech to see if items are available in other stores, can search from any device. Store experience: - Store purchases “security tags” similar to the ones that beep now. Tags are smart tags with geo locators. - Store sets up a geo fence so no need for expensive alarm beepers. Tags beep when taken out of geo fence, also alert is sent to store / security. - Store set up iPads around the store so people can search, store also entered into wider search network. - Store scans barcodes of items and then attaches tag. Users can access that data through search. Monetization: 1. Selling security tags 2. Selling monthly recurring to store for software / support 3. Making advertising / affiliate commissions from wider search network 4. Transition into POS and merchanting, take a commission on all sales. Opportunities: - Could crowd fund the product since its hardware (maybe? as its b2b) - Clear acquisition targets (Google/Amazon/eBay) Costs: Lots of hardware bullshit to deal with Selling won’t be easy Medium-High switching barriers exist For another Business angle, read Start-up idea: Marketplace for mechanics to help buyers purchase used cars.

Best 5 Talks from #500Distro

Vinay Patankar · 28 Aug, 2014 · Business · Technology

If you are interested in getting traffic for your startup, you should definitely watch the videos from the recent 500 Distro. 500 Distro is a conference where they gathered some of the greatest minds in customer acquisition, retention and growth hacking to do 20 min sprint presentations on a number of different topics. Below are my favourite 5 talks from the day. For another Business angle, read Tools to Build you a New Life.

Hiring VAs for Startups

Vinay Patankar · 21 Aug, 2014 · Business

Check out this article on Entrepreneur about hiring a VA for your startup or small business. They give Process Street a shoutout :) How to Hire a Virtual Assistant For another Business angle, read Step by Step Guide to Hiring a Virtual Assistant (or How I Hired my First VA).

Startup Explainer Video How To

Vinay Patankar · 31 Jul, 2014 · Business · Technology

If you are looking to make a startup explainer video, make sure to check out this guest post I did on the Startup Chile blog: How to Make a Startup Explainer Video It's a detailed post covering what we did to make our startup explainer video for Process Street on Knowledge Management for Small Business. You can check out the video below, or visit the above post to see the details of how we made it. Related read in Business: Start-Up Chile Application Video.

Long SaaS Ramp of Death

Vinay Patankar · 17 Jun, 2014 · Business · Technology

Posting this here to remind me to watch it again. Amazing story from the CEO of Constant Contact. Related read in Business: The Death of Broadcast Advertising....

The Most Important Rule in Business

Vinay Patankar · 23 Apr, 2014 · Business · Business-process-management

Everything you do in your business is a process. From customer service to sales and marketing. Being successful in business is all about optimizing these processes as much as possible. Optimization is such an important area of business, but this critical area is often overlooked by business owners and CEOs amidst cries of “I’m too busy!” or “I don’t have the time right now—I’ll get to it eventually…” See more at: A strong follow-up in Business is Business Process Redesign Templates.

Venturebeat on Facebook Blacklist!?

Vinay Patankar · 07 Jan, 2014 · Business · Technology

I tried opening a Venturebeat article from Facebook the other day and got the below screenshot: Just goes to show even the big brands can fall victims to problems like this. Creating a process to test problems like this on a regular basis is crucial and one of the reasons we created Process Street. Hopefully they can fix this soon! If this Business topic resonated, continue with How Much Money Does the Facebook Ecosystem Produce?.