i want to start a business, I just need a good idea

In all the years I have been in business I have heard this countless times and generally, the people who say it will never start a business.

You want to start a business, start a business.

There are two types of people who start business, business owners and entrepreneurs.

Business owners are men or women that may work in a field and decide to go out on their own. A guy works at a restaurant for years and decides to head out on his own and open a restaurant. While he may open a restaurant, he isn't going to open a internet marketing company and if the restaurant fails, he will likely go back to working for someone else. They generally go out on their own as they have a great knowledge of an industry and feel they can do it better.

An entrepreneur is someone who starts a business, what the business does is not as important as starting the business itself. An entrepreneur sees an idea that he likes or thinks he can do better and does it. Many times at the beginning, he does not have the knowledge in the industry but knows how to build (or thinks he does) a business. An here is the biggest difference ... if an entrepreneur fails, it is on to the next idea. There is no thought or going back to work for someone, it is just on to the next idea.

In all the years people have commented to me that they wanted to start their own business but didn't know what to do ... there was one person that I felt could succeed on her own. I realize that I am not the final say on who makes it and who doesn't but sometimes I really want to tell people, focus on your job, work hard and move up. Starting a business may not be for you.

Regardless, you want to do it ... do it.

I walked out of the office around 3 yesterday afternoon (saturday) and Jenn asked me a question about some products and I said I would get that taken care of this weekend. She then commented, "do you ever NOT work?" That is the downside of the internet ... have laptop, can work and often do.

Okay ... enough about business in general and lets talk internet. The beauty about the internet is that you can sell anything, through any channel and to many many people. But to do this successfully, you really need to have some basics knowledge of what is going on and what you are doing.

First of all anything you want done, anything, you can get done on eLance which is a community of freelancers. Coding, marketing, graphics ... anything. That is a great resource to use and do not be shy about it. So now anytime you say you don't know how to program or host ... you no longer have that excuse. I have gotten developers, graphic artists, writers ... all around the world on Elance. I have been ripped off and found great partners ... just like any other business.

But you need to learn some basic. Macromedia has a product called Dreamweaver, it is the bad coders dream (a coder is someone who writes html, javascript, asp ... ) product. It make you a star. While you do not need to be hardcode coder, you do not want to rely on some guy across the world to make minor changes to your site. You need to learn this.

Important Note: back up everything, you only need to forget this once and you will never forget again.

So now you can get anything you want developed, any website created, any code you want programmed. You are ready to go.

Well you need an idea ...

it is all about the data

This is definitely batting out of order as we haven't discussed anything about starting an internet company, what you need to know, what you need to sell ... but I need to point this out first!

Whether it is customers or potential customers or newsletter readers, an internet company is all about the data. The product or service can change but your company is all about the data. An email address can be worth 10 cents and a purchasing customer can be worth $80 (about what eBay paid for Paypal per user) and everything in between based on what the customers are doing. These are longterm thoughts but when you start, don't waste your first 10,000 customers by not getting all the info you can.

I was about to buy a company from a guy in Sweden, really is was just a pretty cool software product and the guy had over 100,000 users of this product. It was a free product but he had a lot of users. Turns out he gave away without even getting an email address so I passed on the deal. Why? With 100,000 users I could ahve remarketed other products, my products, an upgrade a newsletter ... endless amount can be done but I needed the data. I am sure I would have paid this guy $5,000 for the product on eBay (I buy everything on eBay) and data but it was worth a lot more if he had the data. Probably upwards of $20,000 but I do not think he ever sold it. All he needed to do was require a first name, last name and email address to get his product free.

From day one ... get the data. Get it by a newsletter, get it by requiring it prior to purchasing ... just get it.

Remember, just because you have the data does not mean that you have to send endless emails and annoy the customers ... but if they came to your site, they have some degree of interest in what you are doing.

I use a company called Skylist to manage my email lists ... great company, a little pricey but the guy who owns it, Josh Baer, has made a name for himself on the Can Spam side. His word is good so it helps legitimate marketers get into the big mail services like AOL, Yahoo and Hotmail. Very important and not very easy

More about this later, but get the data!

i am not much of a blogger

Honestly I never was much of a blogger, even during my days as owner of Blogster. The issue is that I am more of a private person and could never understand people posting their lives for the public to read. To each his own.

But I do like writing my thoughts and some might say I have a pretty good understanding of the internet as a business. So here goes, the main focus of this blog is going to be about the internet as a business. Thoughts, ideas, suggestions ... but they are all mine so do not steal them.

Who knows ... it may be a book one day. "How to make a million dollars online working only 80 hours a week." I am a realist afterall.

I need another cup of java before my first post.

Blog on ...

only when a lawyer gets involved

My apologies to my lawyer who happens to be my oldest and best friend (and a few other good guys that have mistakenly taken up this profession) , but some lawyers are just stupid.

My company is a marketing company and we have a main website for all of our product and individual websites for each individual product. The other day we found that someone with a similar product stole our website, made minor changes and was marketing it. The company did not even have the sense to remove all the code that referenced our website on it.

So I tracked down their "registered agent" as they did not have a phone and called him (he is a lawyer). Of course he would not take my call so I shot him an email. Friendly, asking nothing more than to have his client change everything that was taken from us. NO threatening language ... just a request to remove it.

Mr Lawyer emails me back, says client has taken care of it but the client simply removed the source reference to my site ... he left all of MY graphics that he stole.

This time I emailed the lawyer back with links to the graphics, source code ... really everything that is hanging his client but again with absolutely NO threat of lawsuits or anything. I simply stated to the guy that if his client had wanted our site, he could have hired us and for $500 we would have duplicated it for him.

Twenty minutes later I get an email ... the easiest solution is for my client to pay you $500. I will insure that he does that and get you a release form.

This was the ultimate in arrogance if you ask me. From the minute I started this endeavor, all I had ever asked for was that my graphics be removed. Heck, I never even threatened to sue him if he didn't remove them. But the lawyer immediately decided that it was best to settle. Settle what?

I have been sued over the years on numerous occasions (anyone who owns a company has) but to date, I have never sued anyone. The amount of time and focus that it takes is just generally not worth it. What am I going to sue this guy for ... a few thousand dollars in damages ... and how many hours would that take me?

So to cap it off, when I spoke with Jeff (my attorney) the other night I told him the story and his immediate response was, "you only asked for $500?"

Classic ...

Blog on ...

xmas party

For the third year in a row we had the xmas party at Old Calypsos. Nice place, right out in the intracoastal ... but I have to be honest, I am getting a little bored with it.

We had about 30 people, friends, family ... blah blah blah. Half my office is sick so other than Kevin breaking out the tequilla, it wasn't the wildest of times.

Every year I am expect to give a speech which I normally throw together the normal thanks you and couldn't have done it without yous ... but this year I actually had some thoughts. Clear focused throughts. But with everyone sick, I never got to it and the part that really pisses me off is that I won't drink if I need to give a speech, so I didn't and no speech.

Oh well, thanks for coming everyone (even though I paid). Charlotte and Lynn, two ladies that had been with me for over two years left for other positions. Yesterday was Amys last day as she continues to get bigger (she is due any day). It is up in the air as to whether she comes back although I would certainly like her to.

I consider Dec 1 our anniversary so we have just completed three years in business. After some quick calculations I figured that for three years, we have taken an order evern 6.3 minutes, every day, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Over 250,000 customers over that time. Pretty impressive from the $15K my mother lent me in Dec '02. (yes, I paid her back).

This pas year was a tough one for me businesswise. Lots of little things that took my focus but I think they are behind me now I am ready to wrap up 05 and get into 06. I have big plans and a renewed focus and goals. I feel good.

Well I am a little hungover since we went out for a few hours afterwards ... unlike me to do so but ...

More coffee and back to work ...

Blog on ...

i am the poster child

The bankruptcy laws were put in place in the early mid part of the 1900s and they were created in order to allow people who owed money for some reason or another to become productive members of society again. If you owe $100,000 and you make $25,000, you will obviously never be able to pay that off and thus why would you bother working knowing that you will spend your life in debt and never be able to move forward. Thus bankruptcy laws allowed you a fresh start.

Sept 19-20th, 1999 Hurricane Floyd wiped my business out (yea, me and hurricanes do not get along). I woke up the next morning with no business, no income and over $400K in debt ... overnight. I struggled for 2 years as I never wanted to file bankruptcy and could not accept the fac that it could be my only way out. Aug 2001 I filed and was free and clear by the end of the year.

Basically, I screwed people and businesses out of $400K and got to move on or at least that is how I thought about it for a long time.

Since that time, I started a business that generates millions of dollars a year in sales, pays way too much taxes (but I don't complain), bought a house and pay real estate taxes and employ 9 people and pay their salaries along with payrol taxes and have generated way more profits for other business than I "screwed" people out of.

I am the poster child for the bankruptcy laws. I am not proud of the fact that I filed, it took me two years to give in to the fact that it was the only way out of the debt I was in and become productive again. I did it and have done the best I can with it. So there!

So why this rant? I own a very nice apartment on the intracoastal in Delray Beach, Florida. When I purchased it last year the prior owners held the paper on it (owner financed). Well I have been now trying to get a regular bank loan.

Last night my mortgage broker called and told me that I had been rejected from a company we had gone through hoops for. In this case, I had a bankruptcy on my record.

I have built a multi-million dollar company in 3 years from a $15,000 loan that my mother gave me (and I paid bank three weeks later).

F--k you to that bank. F--k you to every one that has looked at my credit and said they can't do business with me or need prepayments. F--k you to all of you. I did what I needed to do to move on and f--k you for sitting behind some desk eating Dunkin Donuts in a polyester suit with a "reject" stamp thinking you have any idea what real business and real problems are all about. f--k you.

Not only will I remember, I have a very good memory. As we grow, I will remember you all.

Yea, I am pissed but I have to tell you, one more f--k you and I think I am over it.

Blog on ...