Start-Up Blunders You Can Learn From

Woman using computer

Start-Up Blunders You Can Learn From

Like anything else in life, if you’re thinking of starting a business, you should look to those who have gone before you. While you should take the time to learn from the successes of others, you should also spend time researching their mistakes. It’s reported that only 10 percent of new businesses will still be operating after five years. If you hope to be among that coveted 10 percent, here are common blunders that you should learn from: [Read more...]

CISPA is STILL a Threat to Freedom, Privacy and the Internet

My apologies to all my readers. I have people assisting me in restoring the hundreds of posts that are missing because of a hosting company server failure. Unfortunately, I had counted on them to manage backing up the site and although they claimed they would restore the site, there were apparently no usable backups.

We have been diligently manually restoring content because the only backup was more than a year old. We ask your patience as we train more people to help with the massive task of recreating 100s of missing posts and pages. Thank you.

This is the current status of CISPA according to Wikipedia:

This is the old CISPA message (slightly modified): [Read more...]

Brand Building Tactics For 2013

With business competition becoming fiercer by the day, branding is quickly becoming one of the most important daily processes for businesses. If people recognise a brand that they trust, they are much more likely to make a purchase. This could even mean that they set aside the cheaper option, simply because they have more faith in a company that has gotten involved with brand awareness.

How Can You Build A Brand?

Building a brand is by no means easy. Most experts will say that a potential customer is going to need to see your company branding at least 3 times, before [Read more...]

Do You Own Your Content? MySpace Pulls a StumbleUpon ~ Big #FAIL

MySpace: What Have You Done with the Blogs?

Major Fail: Myspace Deletes Users Blogs

If you ever needed an example as to why you should be publishing content you care about on a platform you 100% control, look no further than MySpace.

In the latest attempt to pivot, MySpace removed the blog feature from the site. Why they would do this knowing full well that it would annoy their existing users is really besides the point.

StumbleUpon pulled the same thing – which is why long time lovers of StumbleUpon are still sick all these years later over all they lost.

Own Your Content

If you are publishing on any platform your content is a prisoner to the whims of a business outside your control. Whether you use Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, MySpace your content could go away at any time.

How to Backup Your Content Posted on Other Platforms

If you are a content publisher you can avoid this doomsday scenario by developing a publishing workflow where content originates on a device you control.

  • For long form content (i.e., blog posts) you can write your posts on your computer or iPad and upload it to your platform of choice. I often do this because I like to write in Markdown on my iPad and Mac. So, even if you were posting to MySpace you still have all of the originals locally.
  • If you wish to post photos from your phone, install Dropbox and have it backup all of your photos for you. Then, if you use Instagram, Hipstamatic, or just the built in camera the Dropbox app will create backups that will sync onto your computer.
  • Install WordPress on your own webhost. It’s not really that hard and if you create a regimen that backups your WordPress database you can easily move from one hosting provider to another without losing your data.
  • Status posts – if you are publishing to Twitter you can periodically get an archive of your Twitter posts.

Social Media sites and photo sharing platforms are great tools for exposing your content and brand to the world. Use them like any tool; assume they will break and have a backup plan if they do.

The Best Way to Fund a Small Retail Business

20 Ways to Fund Your Small Business

Image Credit: BusinessLowCost.com ~ Click image to read related post

Without a doubt, the best way to fund small businesses is through your own private investment or non-repayable grant funding. Putting your own money into the business means you don’t need to answer to anyone and you are free to make decisions good or bad. Non-repayable grant funding is obviously cheaper and carries less risk than investing your savings so if you have the time to enter into a lengthy grant application process, you could benefit from much lower costs and a risk free venture. [Read more...]