I don’t gamble, it’s just not worth is and it’s a waste of time… with one exception, Super Bowl Squares. Today while purchasing a couple squares I thought about how you have to be in the game to have any chance at all at winning.
My attention turned to our State Lottery. I don’t play the Lotto but what if I could just give $52 and have someone else purchase on my behalf one ticket per week for the entire year? I think I’d play then. You have to be in it to win it. The numbers or scan of the actual ticket would have to be published in advance and available on a website for me to monitor before I’d be comfortable. The legal work would be intense, this government gaming industry is highly regulated but could it be done? If so, could I build this service? Could I place proxies in each state to purchase tickets to folks all over America could play any lottery in any state? Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Free Product Ideas, New Projects
Taking that first step to start up a small business can be scary. Once you have convinced yourself that it is time to take action there is still the big question of “Where will I raise the money”?
My story starts with the desire to run a small OSCommerce (OSC) site. I had first been exposed to OSC somewhere around 2000 and fell in love at first site. I couldn’t believe that with this software and less than $10 per month I could open a store, accept credit cards, and begin making money in my sleep. After a while of toying around with various ideas I found my “widget” in Xeko. Read the rest of this entry »
There are five major avenues for how people arrive at your site.
Direct – A user types in your URL manually
Referral Paid – A user clicks a paid link or ad on some other website
Referral Free – A user clicks a link on some other website that you put there
Search Paid – A user clicks a paid link on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
Search Organic – A user click an organic link on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
All four areas need to addressed to maximize your potential. Here’s how you should be addressing these and what to expect. Read the rest of this entry »
I apologize for the two day gap in posts. I belong to a group called Octopus eCommerce (OctoEcom) a group of Marketing and Technology folk who meet once per week to discuss our eCommerce projects.
I have been working on building a public forum for our discussion over at OctoEcom.com. If you like the content and discussions here you’ll love this blog. Head on over and give it a once over. I’ll be heavily moderating all discussions on the site so feel free to drop me a line.
Below is a list of our initial Forums that will be developed: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: New Projects
Movement in the wrong direction is better than no movement at all. Times may be tough but you must have a plan, any plan, just keep moving or you’ll ride the downward spiral into oblivion.
At times forces beyond your control will send your business plummeting and there may seem like no way out. Sitting idle and hoping to find that magic bullet is the worst thing you can do. If you were a sail manufacturing company when the industrial revolution hit and steam ships took over you had a choice, find a new model for making money or hope this fad of steam power goes away. We all know how that one turned out.
A perfect example of this was the recent digital camera revolution. Two American companies Polaroid and Eastman Kodak faced complete annihilation as consumers quickly moved from traditional photography to digital.
Tags: Motivation, planning and goals
Nearly everyday I have a new idea for a product or business and as promised I’m going to begin giving them away. I have hundreds saved up and will begin dropping them at the rate of about two per week so check back frequently. These will always be published in the Ideas category of this blog.
I’ve spent many years in and out of datacenters all across this great nation of ours. Installing enterprise servers, network equipment and storage and there is one thing all datacenters have in common that simply drives all us nerds absolutely batty. Out-of-control messy Cabling!
waterfall of cables
Technorati Profile
Startup ecommerce retail shops come in many shapes and sizes so I’m going to give you some food for thought when considering what you may (or may not) want to investigate selling.
Working from my eCommerce checklist we’ll cover:
1 – Legal
2 – Weight / Value Ratio
3 – Market Conditions
4 – Competition
Tags: ecommerce class, How to Pick a Product, Online Retailer, Small Online Retailer
Imagine you are in Target on a busy December weekend with a basket full of toys for the kids, holiday decorations, and tons of other “essentials” when suddenly the lights dim, bouncers appear out of nowhere, and kick everyone out of the store immediately. Leave your basket! If you are in the middle of a checkout, stop where you are with your money on the counter and just get out! As you stand out in the cold wondering what just happened they put a sign on the door that says “Whoops, it appears we are having a system problem, please come back laterz”. Not know how long “laterz” is a few of you in the crowd stick around for 10 minutes trying the door again and again (pressing F5) when suddenly the door opens, the lights come on and the entire store including employees acts as though nothing just happened. By the way, the items in your basket were all put neatly back on the shelves.
Below is a summary checklist I have used during the final review of an ecommerce class I teach. In this class we take a small amount of start-up cash, collectively choose our “widget”, and sell it via an online retail store. This has not been specify written to address all options for online ecommerce however it should still serve as a good path for you to walk through mentally when considering any new project.
There are several factors that are key to coming up with a blog’s value, I’m going to briefly review how I go over them with a real world example.
In a nutshell I’m looking for the following: Age of site, Google Page Rank (PR), accurate traffic information (visits and pageviews per month), audience demographic, current members/users, newsletter subscribers, RSS feeds, and top organic producing keywords.
I’ll start by providing some screenshots of a blog I was evaluating recently and quickly work through them:
Target Blog
Tags: Blog Pricing, Page Rank, website traffic