Mashups - The Learning Curve Begins
I have been sitting here playing with mashups every since going to the doctor yesterday. Mashups for those who don’t know yet is a way of combining information from various parts of the web into a new creation.
Mashups is looking to be the new generation in web design and information exhange. I build my first mashup and put it on the Travel Warnings which updates in real time plotted on a yahoo map. So far it doesn’t look like you have to be a hardcore programmer (I was a hardcore programmer) to build a mashup, but it helps. Mashup editors tend to baby you right now and don’t offer total control yet.
I will be posting more on mashups as I follow the learning curve.
Mashups - New Media!
I just made my first mashup taking travel warnings and plotting them on a world map. All you have to do is click on the pin and a window comes up showing the travel warnings for that location. Travel Warnings
Loads kinf of slow, but it is my first one. I will have to see what else this can do now.
There is Always Another Way
In the past few months I have learned a lot blogging. One thing I have learned from bloggers like John Chow, Darren Rowse (Problogger), and John Cow is there is always another way.
Looking and thinking outside the box is how bloggers make themselves noticed. Getting noticed and knowing what you are doing are the two major things that will get people to flock to you site and keep them coming back. The idea isn’t new, it has been out there in the business world for a long time.
If you are following what the leaders of the blogging pack are doing then you aren’t thinking outside the box, but just being “one of the herd” as John Cow puts it. It is time to quit following the herd and start being creative. It doesn’t take a degree to be creative, just a pad, pen, and some time.
I usually sit down for about an hour a day with pad, pen, and a hot green tea just to write down ideas, thoughts, and plans that I have bubbling on the back burner in my head. It is my way of just exploring new ways of thinking without risk and wasted time. Each idea I write down has two columns under it with pros and cons.
I know a lot of you bloggers wanting to make money online are spending 20 hours a day following thirty different blogs on making money. You spend countless hours reading and rereading blog posts duplicating what others have done. Isn’t it time you start to think for yourself?
Find time to unplug from the internet and let your creativity out of the box, you might find it is all you needed to do to get your blog off the ground and flying high!
Bootstrapping - Making You Think in Business
One statement I hear a lot from people is, “I wish I had the money to start a business’.
In most cases it does take some money to start a business. Most people seem to think you need thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars to create a business, but that is a very false idea. There have been a lot of people start a very successful business on nothing more than $100.00.
Having a lot of money to start a business isn’t always the best way to begin in some cases. Everytime I have been asked in the past about finding money to start a business I first ask them is, “Why do you need a lot of money?” The answer I normally get is a long list of new equipment, lots of employees, a new office, new building, lots of custom made decor, and other stuff they really don’t need in the beginning.
The reply I usually give back is the true story about a guy I know who borrowed $250,000.00 to start a play place for kids with a ball pit, video games, parties, food, tunnels, and more. He started it as a sole proprietor business since it took his own credit to borrow that much money from the bank. He was bankrupt 6 months later.
His mistake? He had the money to start the business but he didn’t have the experience. The business had failed before it even opened. What happened? The answer is simple, he spent too much money on things he didn’t need in the beginning.
He didn’t need,
- $5000 in custom built software with the business logo just for his employees to log parties and accept payments
- Custom built high chairs for the little ones, when off the shelf commerical high chairs were much cheaper
- An overpaid manager (who didn’t really like kids) to run the business so he didn’t have to be there
- 35 employees when the business only needed 20 to be completely staffed
What he should have spent money on instead was,
- Better food at the snack bar instead of ordering frozen pizza and other pre-made food to reheat for customers.
- Advertising instead of relying on word of mouth and friends
- Research and education in how to run a business of this type
- And most important, only spend money on what you really need to keep the customers coming back
If he had only borrowed $75,000 to open the business he would probably still be in busy today. The lack of money would have forced him to think. Not having all the money he needed he would have taken a much closer look at employee requirements, custom equipment, and would have thought more about what the customer will want and how to keep them coming back.
Starting from scratch and without a lot of money is an important lesson and education some business owners miss out on when they borrow money. If you have the money to keep the business going for a long time without sales then you don’t worry about learning to make sales, finding out what are the needs of the customer, and what will keep them coming back. When you finally get to that point months down the road your business is already past failure because your customers already don’t have a great opinion of the business and you will have to work extra hard to get them in the door and coming back.
Before you lose your house, life savings, marriage, and all your friends and family take a hard look at the business you want to start and see how much you really need to get it going. You might find you don’t need a loan, you just need to start thinking like a business owner.
Travel Warning - May 10th
Being here in the USA it is so easy to forget the rest of the world. While you go out to work and play each day you don’t really think about your safety. Being a traveler I am often concerned with safety, here are the latest travel warnings.
Click here to see full listing and information on each warning and alert.
Travel Warnings
Nepal 05/07/2008
Burma (Myanmar) 05/05/2008
Chad 04/30/2008
Haiti 04/30/2008
Burundi 04/22/2008
Lebanon 04/21/2008
Bootstrapping - Starting Below the Bottom In Business
What is bootstrapping? It is starting a business on less than a shoestring. It is starting a business with nothing; no capital, no loan, no grant, and no borrowing money from daddy.
I started my first business over 20 years ago on less than $100.00. It failed. I learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and I never gave up. As the culture has grown and technology has increased turning this big world into a smaller one, it is now easier to start a business on $100.00 and make it big.
Let’s face the reality of business. You are reading this blog post because you want to start your own business and are looking for all the free information you can get on the subject. You have tried those “get rich” schemes and have found that the only one making money is the guy you paid for the “Get Rich Plan”. The real truth? Building a business and making a lot of money from nothing takes time and hard work.
There are a lot of businesses you can start with little money. Before you begin exploring what those businesses are you need to first look at the world from a hard business view point. The United States is now in a Post-Industrial era, we have long passed the industrial era of the 1800’s and early 1900’s. This means the types of businesses which find success are businesses which fit well into the post-industrial society.
Service Business: Service businesses will always be a big business in this world. There is always someone willing to pay for a service; maid, yard, cleaning, repair, and so forth… Service businesses are a niche business which there is always new ideas. Just look at the service business of cleaning up crime scenes. Yes it is a nasty business, but they make a lot. That is what a service business is about, doing a dirty nasty job someone doesn’t want to do. Just cleaning their own house is a dirty job some people is willing to pay a lot to avoid.
Retail Business: Let’s face it, Wal-Mart doesn’t carry everything a person wants or needs. Niche retail businesses will always be around and with the growing number of products being put on the market each year it isn’t about to go away. Now you are thinking, “It takes money to buy inventory!” Yes, that is right. Most wholesale businesses have a minimum order of just $100.00 and some will drop-ship. Once you have your inventory all it takes is a place to sell it. Right now there are many online auction sites which will allow anyone to sell products online to a world market.
The fact is that if you really have the desire to own a business you can do it. My second business was a retail business. I started it on $200.00 which I put on a credit card. Yes, it was a bad thing to do, but all the money I made went to pay the credit card off first, then it went back into the business.
Writing Daily - Tips for Blogging - Finding Your Voice.
Since I got into blogging I have found it to be not much different than the normal writing I was doing daily already. That in mind I have found a lot of the skills, tips, and tricks I have learned as a writer has helped me a lot in blogging.
One important thing a writer and blogger needs is to find their voice. A writer’s voice isn’t what you say outloud, it is that internal voice while you write which forms the words and keeps things going. It is also that voice that helps take a collection of information and hopefully forms it into something that can be turned into a book, article, story, or something worth reading.
You can read all the books on writing, talk to all the well published authors, or dance naked in the street, but how you find your writer’s voice is different for everyone. Like blogging people can tell you how to do it, ways to make it a success, but it is still up to you to make it all happen.
Finding your writing voice is the easiest and hardest thing you will ever do in writing. Yes, I know that doesn’t make sense. You already have a writing voice, you just don’t have focused on the task of writing. You know you want to write, the voice is giving you things to write down but it hasn’t focused on writing, it hasn’t taken those things and turned them into something that makes sense.
Many authors and books will tell you lots of ways to find your voice. Writing daily, write before you go to bed, write first thing in the morning, and so forth. The whole point in all these tips and tricks is to write. Write daily, write in the morning, write in the evening, write while you are naked, write while you are eating, write while you are awake, and then when you are done write some more.
Finding your voice and getting it under control is one thing that takes experience and time. No help book in the world will help that go faster except give you tips and tricks to get you to write more.
Franchises - Top 10 Warning Signs
Are there bad franchises? YES!!!!!! Just because a company is offering a franchise does not mean anything. While there are very good companies to invest in if you are thinking about a franchise, any company can offer a franchise. To help you out listed below are some of the warning signs you should be looking for if you plan on investing time and money into a franchise.
Investing in a franchise is costly and can wipe out a life savings. If you aren’t comfortable with the answers you are receiving, feel rushed, or things just don’t feel “right” then slow down and think things over before you sign contracts.
- Weak Financial Statements: A warning sign yes, but not always a bad thing. Weak statments will be more of a risk, but if the company is new and growing it might also work in your favor. Remember all businesses had to start at the bottom.
- No Answers: If you are asking questions and you aren’t getting answers, walk away. I take that back, RUN. If they don’t want to give you answers then they don’t have answers you want to hear.
- The Hustle: Even in business and the franchise world you get the hustlers. Investing this much money is not a quick choice to make. If they are rushing you to sign paperwork like a used car dealer in a leisure suit with oily hair, do not walk run to the nearest exit. Do not let anyone rush you into investing. If they say the offering will close soon, let it close without you.
- Product Price Sqeeze: Can the prices be competitive in the market? Will there be any supply problems? Talk to other franshisees and find out what they think.
- High Turnover Rate: Like in a job what is the turn over rate? How many franchisees have left the business? The UFOC can answer this question for you. How high is too high? That depends on the business, if it is a low investment franchise then the turn over rate will be higher.
- Attorney Avoidance: Do not be afraid to consult an attorney when thinking about investing in a franchise. If the franchisor doesn’t want an attorney involved, saying that it will complicate things, or saying things to discourage you from talking to an attorney then you do not want involved with the franchisor either. Simply put “RUN”.
- Too Many Lawsuits: Item 3 in the UFOC will give a 10 year history of lawsuits. If the list is long find out why and get details, otherwise avoid the franchisee because something isn’t right.
- Earnings Claims Mumbo Jumbo: A tricking subject but if it isn’t in the UFOC then you probably won’t like the answer. Federal law prohibits them from answering this question if it isn’t listed in the UFOC. Remember that and take it to heart, if they didn’t list it, then you won’t like it.
- No UFOC: Federal law requires you receive a UFOC before you sign contracts or pay money. If they don’t have a UFOC then you need to walk away from the franchise. NEVER EVER sign contracts or give money to a franchise without a UFOC.
- Consistently Bad Reports: How bad is bad? Visit current franchisees, talk to them. If they are all giving you the same bad reports, then you need to think twice about investing. Your fellow franchisees usually have protected areas so they won’t have a problem talking to you. If they don’t have anything good to say about the company or on a certain topic of the business find out more information before you go further.
Remember buying into a franchise is a risk, it takes times, money, and a lot of work. Like all businesses it is a commitment which can last years and you can lose or make a lot of money. Never rush, research a lot, and make sure you know what you want before you sign on the dotted line.
Problogger Book
I ordered Darren’s Problogger book on Amazon yesterday. I will give a review when I get it read. Continued education is something we all need to do, never quit learning.
Before I ordered it on Amazon I checked Borders Books at the mall. They didn’t have it in yet, but it will be $24.95 when it does come in. Amazon has it for $16.49.
Franchises - Understanding the UFOC
What is the UFOC?
Uniform Franchise Offering Circular (UFOC) is the detailed and extensive information bible to the franshise. It will contain detailed financial statements, sample contracts, and the franshise system it offers. Also called the “Franchise Disclosure Document” or “Offering Propectus”, the format and presentation is prescribed by federal and state laws.
A typical UFOC can be as large as 400 pages, expensive to reproduce, and required reading by a franchisee (careful required reading). Not everyone will get UFOC, a casual investor will not warrent getting one, but if you visit company HQ and and are serious about investing in the franchise it is legally required you have a UFOC before contracts are signed.
The UFOC contains a lot of very important information. Too much to list here. As an investor it is a time consuming task to read a UFOC but if you are serious in your investment then NOT reading it will be the biggest mistake you will ever make. While the UFOC contains a lot of important information for the franchisee, make note it does not contain all the information you will need to make a choice.
