Pure Play

Dublin Milkman - like this a lot. Sunday Bliss

Back in the day there were milkmen - and still are. But not as many. Kieran Loftus emailed me about his new startup - which brings affordable luxury to those of you living in Dublin.

How could you not want fresh bread from the Bretzel Bakery, a newspaper (and milk) delivered on a Sunday morning. All it needs is a fresh espresso and this could be heaven.

 

For the moment it is fixed - Sunday, 1 litre, 1 loaf, 1 Sunday Times

Simplicity is good. And who knows where it will end up.

Check it out at http://www.dublinmilkman.ie/

keith

Want to outsource the management of your recurring subscription management?

We are doing that with the upcoming dbTwang Guardian launch and there is no such thing as a perfect solution in this emerging market segment.

At some point I will do a complete post on this - in the meantime have a look at this shared s/sheet from Damon Cortesi - linked here. A great and quite detailed analysis of some of the obvious players (recurly, spreedly, chargify and CheddarGetter) well as some more loosely associated services which cover elements of the requirements.

keith

Quick thank you to Richard Hearne, Red Cardinal for his optimisation advice.

Since myself and Fintan got back from a day long sales workshop last Tuesday with Enterprise Ireland we both knew that we had to revisit our not-yet-even-launched revision of the dbTwang.com home page.

We worked on a whiteboard for a while and came up with a strong visual which communicated our key message quickly. Went through a couple of early iterations (with feedback from Mary McCarthy and Ken McGuire - thanks both) and then it went to Richard who for the last couple of years has been spending more and more of his time working with clients to optimise home and landing pages for better conversion results.

4 more iterations and the difference is very noticeable although I will not share it until we launch in a week or two (pending merchant account being in place). When I do share I will post a couple of the iterations and the changes that were made.

The final version is more cohesive, more "on message" and easier to scan and absorb quickly.

Nice one Richard :-)

keith

The best of my recent twitter links @ 18th June 2010

Twitter is a medium where sharing is easy (at least with the right tools) and when I am browsing my blog feeds in the mornings I use the iPhone app MobileRSS (very, very buggy) to share out to my twitter account (@keithbohanna). I also retweet ontopic items.

@pricingright Use of Information Priors in A/B Testing: Full post here

Rags Srinivasan works in the field of marketing strategy and pricing. You may not agree with him all of the time but his posts are good. This one tackles a particular part of A/B testing

@VentureBeat - Guidelines for potential angel investors Full post here > having been on the receiving end this post is good

An experienced angel investor, Will Herman, who has 30 completed investments to date since 1994, shares his learning to other Angels.

@spiderworking 4 Great Facebook landing pages: Full post here

From Amanda Webb comes this post on Facebook landing pages she likes - and a 50% off offer on building one for your business

@readwriteweb - The Startup Toolkit: A Canvas For You to Sketch Your Business Framework Full post here > based on Steve Blanks approach

A deceptively simple implementation of a tool for helping startups get their head around the key elements of their business model. Borrows liberally from Steve Blanks "The Four Steps to Epiphany"

GTD Times - Things and OmniFocus for GTD Full post here > are you on Mac and want to get a GTD tool? Indepth on 2 of the contenders

For GTD wannabe's this post compares two of the more popular software tools on the Mac platform - Things and Omnifocus. I've tried both and Omnifocus is my preferred choice.

@ioninteractive Conversion Rate Optimization Gurus to Follow on Twitter (separating the amateurs from the experts) Full post here

I have followed each of them but not reading for long enough to judge how good their streams are. However this appears to be a treasure trove of wisdom for those of us who have a professional interest in this topic

StartupCFO : Mark MacLeod - SaaS pricing: Push your base version Full post here > throwing cold water in 37signals direction

Pricing guidance is always of use - Mark is an experienced CFO and he shares some of his experience here

keith

Facebook Connect - List of links & resources to help decision making

While I love using the internet and enjoy the rapidly changing dynamic of sites and social media I was reluctant in V1 of dbTwang to consider engineering Facebook Connect into it. Want to reconsider that now and starting by looking up resources to help us make an informed decision.

Here are some of the more useful posts I found.

Simple visual guide

This slide show answers some basic questions quickly.

http://vizedu.com/2008/12/facebook-connect-explained/

UPDATE: Good list of resources: http://blog.kissmetrics.com/facebook-connect/

Yike - no email address

These two posts address this explicitely - when a new user joins your site using FB Connect you do not get access to the email address they use on FB. This is a deliberate decision by FB and understandable - yet it removes an effective communications medium for the3rd party site owner. The getaround appears to be that you ask the new user for their email once the FB authentication is done.

http://www.sachinrekhi.com/blog/2009/01/19/does-facebook-connect-deliver

http://www.cmsmarket.com/forum/index.php?rb_v=viewtopic&f=38&t=110

Update - a reference here to the users real email address being made available to 3rd party site

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1999822/if-facebook-connect-user-changes-email-will-i-be-notified

This is the FB blog notice of this - from Feb 2010 they facilitate the 3rd Party request for a new users email address during the authentication process

http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=355

The Commercial/Business case examined - Does it work?

The conclusion appears to be yes - implementing Facebook Connect increases conversion rates (signups) and social interaction on a site.

http://www.businessinsider.com/six-months-in-facebook-connect-is-a-huge-success-2009-7

http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/09/60-million-people-a-month-use-facebook-connect/

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/11/10/connect-brings-jibjab-1-5-million-facebook-users/

http://gigaom.com/2010/02/01/subtract-the-swearing-and-dave-mcclure-has-a-point/

Privacy issues explored

If you thought privacy and data ownership was a minefield try tracing the implications when FB Connect is used. My takeaway - there are issues here, somewhere with no clear picture of exactly where or when they will change given Facebooks preoccupation with tweaking those privacy terms and settings.

http://www.ddmcd.com/connect.html

http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/community/features/interviews/blog/does-facebook-connect-result-in-shared-ownership-of-data/?cs=34735

http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/CommentView.aspx?guid=5332da5a-14a9-4ef0-87a7-5dabcbbf7b11

Beyond new user account signups

Integration using FB Connect means more than just the account set up - you can spread the FB virus throughout your site allowing a new user to find their FB friends who are users of the site or share their site activity back to their FB profile.

http://www.simplyzesty.com/facebook/5-services-facebook-connect-effectively/

http://mashable.com/2009/01/12/facebook-connect-implementations/

FB Connect - the Facebook guide for developers

http://developers.facebook.com/connect.php

FB Connect - Geek Q&A

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/facebook-connect

FB Connect - Rails integration

http://blog.yangtheman.com/2009/08/23/how-to-integrate-facebook-connect-with-a-rails-app/comment-page-1/

http://madebymany.co.uk/tutorial-for-restful_authentication-on-rails-with-facebook-connect-in-15-minutes-00523

Welcome additions to this - aware that there must be many more concise and useful resources out there.

My conclusion after a number of hours reading the above - once again Facebook is proving almost impossible to ignore with the scale of returns overwhelming concerns around abdication of core user data to the gorilla in the corner. Bugger.

keith

Conversion and back to basics

from a venturebeat post by Bruce Judson entitled: The start-up chronicles: My Website’s not working: Now what?

In undertaking this effort, I made the decision to look hard at two different types of sites: BillShrink.com (which, from a broad perspective, offers a service similar to ours) and SlideRocket.com (which is in an unrelated industry).

Here’s what I learned from them:

1.     At both sites, visitors know exactly what each service does and how it works within the first 10 seconds of landing.  While these sites may offer complex services under the hood, they hide that. The user experience is straightforward.

2.     Both sites move the user forward with a growing sense of anticipation. Prospects grow curious about “what happens next”. This is unquestionably difficult, but it may be the key to success. Creating curiosity among today’s jaded consumers is a monumental feat.

I liked the post a lot - it is worth a read for anyone who grapples with the complexity of webservice design and build processes.

keith

Got a subscription/freemium business? Free webinar 14th Dec

I spent about 180 euros on a report last week -

 

and having digested about 2/3's of its pages it was worth the price.

The business behind it are holding a free webinar on this topic next week - more details of the report and the webinar: Subscription & Membership Site Benchmark Report

From their site blurb on the report:

Top 10 Subscription & Membership Site Questions Answered:

Created as a *practical* resource for online content publishers, this Report features exclusive, new research answering your most pressing business questions, such as:

#1. How profitable are typical subscription sites, and how long does it take the average site to reach profitability after launching?

#2. What percent of total site visitors should take my paid subscription offer? How about my free registration or email offer? What are conversion rates for trial offers?

#3. Should I be publishing as a "hybrid model" with several revenue streams aside from subscriptions? What specific types of non-subscription products and offerings -- such as advertising -- are worth our time and effort, and which are not?

#4. Which are the most effective Internet marketing tactics for subscription sites right now? How about social marketing tactics? How about offline marketing such as TV, telemarketing, and direct postal mail? What's NOT working?

#5. Is my site's search marketing up to par compared with other sites in my niche? Should I invest more in PPC and/or SEO?

#6. How many months do average month-to-month subscribers last for? If I offer both annual and monthly subscriptions, what percent of buyers normally take each?

#7. Are double-digit credit card decline rates normal for subscription site transactions these days? How do B2B subscription site card declines compare to B2C offer declines?

#8. What sort of renewal rate is normal for annual subscriptions? What about group subscriptions? How about B2B vs consumer sites?

#9. What's normal for pricing in each major topical niche? What's normal for trial offers -- how long are trials and should they require a credit card?

#10. What are the brand names of 550 typical subscription sites -- and what sorts of challenges do their own executives say they're battling to succeed?

Wish they had an affiliate model :-). UPDATE - they do, I joined. So the links above are to an affiliate link.

Keith

New CEB grant types from 1st January - much more flexible

This is the first information I have seen on the new City and County Enterprise board grants:

Priming Grant

Maximum -50% of investment below €160,000, or below €300,000 if projects clearly demonstrate potential to graduate to Enterprise Ireland and/or to export internationally.  Where part of the investment comprises employment, a maximum of €15,000 based on €40,000 salary per full time job created shall apply, or scaled back grants for lower paid positions, with €7,500 for jobs at minimum wage.

Business Expansion/Development Grant

Maximum – 50% of investment below €160,000 or below €300,000 if projects clearly demonstrate potential to graduate to Enterprise Ireland and/or to export internationally.  Where part of the investment comprises employment, a maximum of €15,000 based on €40,000 salary per full time job created shall apply, or scaled back grants for lower paid positions, with €7,500 for jobs at minimum wage.

Feasibility/Innovation Grant

Maximum-€20,000 or 60% of investment below €33,333.

These are a lot less restrictive than the old Capital and Employment grants and the feasibility grant is now 4 times the old maximum level.

It will be interesting to see how the flood of grant applications will be managed by the boards - these new ones will mean a lot more potentially eligible businesses out there.

Contact your local CEB for details - but be warned that there will be areas of uncertainty for them until a couple of months in when they see how their evaluation committees assess applications using these grant heads.

keith

Great blog post series on customer validation/conversion/metrics

Via recommendations on Google Reader I signed up to ash maurya who is a founder of CloudFire (dead simple photo/video sharing for busy parents).

He is working through the build and validation of a paid-only service for media sharing and he has started a series of posts to share his experience in detail. Amongst the people he references is Sean Ellis who is leading day 4 of iGAP, I am really looking forward to that session.

There are some really great details and learning in there - thanks ash.

keith

Free 81 page book: guide to software pricing

From Startupcfo (a ning based community started by Mark MacLeod) came this - "Don't Just Roll the Dice" by Neil Davidson.

It is wide ranging and covers everything from psychology to competitors and fairness with an advanced section with stuff like site licences, bundling and free trials.

While it does apply to good old fashioned software it also covers SAAS (software as a service). 81 page pdf download from his site.

keith

Startup Metrics for Pirates - AARRR

Dave mcClure is good, this is his talk from FOWA London

Startup Metrics for Pirates (FOWA London, Oct 2009)

View more presentations from Dave McClure.

keith

Quick burst of Freemium and Growth Drivers

From Om Malik today comes a post on the continued emergence of freemium as a business model. His post starts like this:

Earlier this year, I asked the readers of this blog and those who follow me on Twitter what the one app was that they couldn’t live without. Among the most common names offered up were Evernote, Remember The Milk and Dropbox.

Since then, those three apps have become indispensable to me as well. And they all happen to be benefiting from the business model championed by venture capitalist Fred Wilson known as “freemium.”

Read the rest of Om's post here.

And from Venturebeat came one on how to get focused on growth for your business. Eric Ries started with a warning:

Every startup needs to “pick a major” among three drivers of growth. It’s simply too hard to focus on more than one. This choice has to be made at the level of strategy, because the tactics between involved in each driver are quite similar.

Startups may pivot from one driver to another as they experiment. But failure to identify a clear driver of growth leads many entrepreneurs into dangerous territory.

Read the rest of Eric's post here.

The first one is particularly interesting for me as regular readers of this blog will know. dbTwang.com is being built with a freemium model in mind yet at least half of the conversations I have with other entrepreneurs about it are with them telling me it will not work.

We think it will - and as with all startup founders while we are very carefully soliciting feedback and advice which we do listen to and incorporate from time to time we are also sticking to our guns on the core of the business.

And that core (for the moment) retains a freemium element.

keith

Customer retention - t'is a narrow line between success and failure

Andrew Chen writes great posts on the general theme of freemium, conversion and retention. In a recent post he explores the impact of small changes in customer retention percentages on overall customer numbers.

What he does not touch on (the post is nicely self contained as it is) is the impact this has on the life time value of a customer/user and the backward ripple effect on the max price per customer acquisition.

An extract from his post:

.....retention-focused features are very powerful because they let you create dramatic improvements in all the important metrics, across the board – be it pageviews, total time usage, revenue, etc.

This means that you can, just as people do with addressbook importers and the like, put a tremendous amount of time into a whole host of retention-driven features like:

• A great product and value proposition
• Targeted notifications
• Fresh news and content on every return
• Desktop app-integration (which has a much lower rate of uninstall)
• The number of friends on the site (the more that are there, the more notifications can be generated)

All of the above contribute meaningfully to this user retention number.

His full post linked here, have a read.

keith

This Thurs: Content Monetization: 3 Models that Work

I wish it was in Ireland but it is not - this one happening in LA. Dealmaker run some great events in California.

From video to music and games to news, everyone and their mother is looking for better ways to monetize online content...and it's starting to pay off.

New monetization models are taking shape as consumers rapidly embrace virtual currencies, micropayments, free to play, premium content...and more.

In this Strategy Series, you’ll get to sit down with executives and entrepreneurs who are leveraging new monetization models and kicking butt along the way...

Speakers:
Keith Richman, CEO, Break.com (linkedin profile)
Paul Yanover, Executive Vice-President & General Manager, Disney Online (linkedin profile)
Larry Fitzgibbon, EVP, Demand Brands/ Demand Media
Ro Choy, Chief Revenue Officer, RockYou (linkedin profile)

Moderator:
Jason Nazar, CEO, Doctstoc (linkedin profile)

More information and to register: click here

Date and Location:
Thursday, July 16, 2009 | 6:00PM - 9:00PM
Zune L.A. - 8275 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90048 (Venue)

keith

Colm Lyons, Realex Payments @ IIA Congress

Started with some words on current situation and recent comments from Mary McAleese which showed rare leadership (rare from anyone in the political space). She said continue to grow, continue to scale and keep aiming to expand outside of Ireland.

From Colm, focus on the recovery. Have absolute belief that you will suceed. Realex have made fundamental changes in last 2 years to move into being an international business.

He then spoke about successful Irish Internet businesses who sell some of or a majority of their services overseas. Directski.com, avvio.com, cartrawlor.com, chainreactioncycles.com (who employ 270 people and who doubled t/o in the last 6 months'ish). Ezetop.com who do not operate in Ireland at all (phone topups for expat communities in other countries).

Realex continue to increase their monthly turnover and have record months.
He gave example of a new service they have just launched for Virgin Atlantic on Tuesday - a global opportunity for them.

Spoke about the Leadership For Growth program with EI, wasn't sure about it going in (he failed his Leaving and did not have faith on Academic learning).

Some of their internal building

Strategy Statement:
Goal, Scope, Competitive Diff, Logic

Values:
Behaviours (their 60 staff took part in the development of their values over a 2 day workshop). Why is this important - because the values dictate how the people behave, their approach, how they do their job. Colm reckons this is a key differentiator in a technical service space.

Some of their values: security, innovation, careers not jobs

He spoke about having people in place who are relevant for where you want to be in 2 years time. Hence Russion Lunches.

He finished off with Internet Growth Alliance where a number of entrepreneurs wanted to build something to support Irish Internet businesses who want to scale. www.alliance.ie

He thanked his colleagues and friends on Realex.

Great talk, grounded and inspiring.

Q. How to enter new countries
A. They serve a common business Market regardless of location. And service it with local presences.

Q on issue of getting merchant ID's
A Colm spoke about risk of CC's and the issues that causes. In other countries they have started to work with credit transfers used to pay and initiated by the account holder - push not pull. He hinted that such a product will happen in Ireland (this year?)

Q what in Ireland exists to support an early stage Internet business
A Colm said it is fragmented and there is a need to challenge businesses earlier in the growth cycle.

Keith

25k CEB Grant for backend/site development confirmed

This was great news and helps us a lot with our Angel Investment round (which BTW is going really well :-) ).

We received a grant of 25k (12.5k repayable) for use in the development of our website service and backend. Interestingly the 12.5k is repayable over 5 years whichcommences 6 months after final drawdown. It is conditional on us raising our 140k which will not be an issue.

Thanks to everyone in Kilkenny CEB who helped with the application - this one was tough for them to get their heads around and their support is really appreciated.

keith

The effect of headlines on conversion rates

From Marketing Sherpa comes this presentation on subject lines and landing page headlines to examine and quantify what works when it comes to converting customers.

http://www.marketingexperiments.com/images/multifiles/articulate/webclinic-09-10-08/player.html

keith

Obviously..

..if banks and financial institutions are going to have a Government cap on their exposure to losses then there will also be an upper cap on their profits.

Stands to reason. Blindly obvious. Goes without saying.

Although it applies here as much as anywhere else this is a general comment and not specifically aimed at the Irish situation.

keith

Gunmetal Grey

Having absorbed the influence of bands such as New Order when I was growing up I happily dress in 5 shades of black. And I never wear white.

It would be great if business decisions were as clearcut. Pricing an online service for one. Myself, Fintan and Gerry debating this at present. My take is to go for 10 dollars a month and use this affordable but not low price point as one of the validations elements of our marketplace.

Fintan and Gerry want to price it lower which is valid, it should increase subscriber numbers faster.

I reckon it undervalued us but can see the advantage of their approach.

Any thoughts?

Keith

Nice coverage in the Indo today - thanks to John Kennedy for the piece

The full article on dbTwang is linked here. UPDATE - John mentions that we have closed the Angel round. Not yet - it is going really well but not over :-)

Excerpts:

While Bohanna admits he can barely play a guitar chord, the other members of the team are united by their love and respect for vintage guitars, which has driven them to identify an emerging business niche that could propel the start-up into global play.

“We are setting up a trusted marketplace for people who buy and sell guitars. At the moment the only place you can do that is eBay, which unfortunately is full of forgeries. Discerning investors would be very reluctant to buy a guitar on eBay. Our business model is to establish a marketplace where paying subscribers know they are part of a community of serious collectors.

“We won’t have straightforward advertising on the site, but will have sponsorship and premium subscriptions for access to the trusted marketplace with a lot deeper content aimed at collectors.”

"This is a global play,” says Bohanna. “We’ll be looking initially at the US marketplace where they sell three million guitars a year. This is followed by Japan.

keith

From Amanda Webb in the Organic Hamper Co

Celebrate Organic Week With Us.

Feelgood Organic Hampers, in collaboration with Healthy Living Health Food Store and Wellness Centre, Vendemia Organic Wines and Moyleabbey Organic Kitchen would like to invite you to an evening of organic delight.

• Have you ever wanted to know more about organic wine?
• Have you ever been unsure of what to cook for a guest who is Vegan or has allergies?
• Do you want to taste some of the foods that Feelgood Organic Hampers has to offer?

Then join us at Healthy Living, 54 Leinster Street, Athy, Co. Kildare on Friday 19th of September at 7pm.

The evening will combine organic wine tasting, organic antipasti, organic, macrobiotic, vegan, wheat free and sugar free cookery demonstrations, a three course meal, entertainment and a chance to win a Feelgood Organic Hamper.

Tickets priced at E25 are available by calling Amanda at Feelgood Organic Hampers on 059 863 8999
or from
·    Healthy Living, 54 Leinster Street, Athy, Co. Kildare,
·    The Moyleabbey Organic Farm Stall at the Athy Farmers Market
·    Café del Vino, The Butterslip, Kilkenny
·    The Feelgood Organic Hampers Stall at the Naas Farmers Market

A great opportunity for any foodies in the Carlow, Kildare area.

keith

Who Are You in RL?

Looks like many inhabitants of the zone known as Second Life are not too happy with the introduction of (voluntary) identity verification measures by Linden Labs. The introduction of the idea on the Second Life blog - post linked here - prompted a spirited discussion in RL (real life) with 157 comments at the time of my post.

Why am I posting about this here? Because ID verification is key to one of the core services which will be offered by dbTwang - a trusted marketplace for high value guitars. How other online services approach this topic and the mechanisms they are using is all part of the mix which is informing our approach.

keith

Moving with the times - Snow Patrol

I saw Snow Patrol at the U2 concert in Croke Park in 2006 and really enjoyed them - have since bought 3 of their 4 albums.

The news today on their 5th album is a great example of the music industry working with emerging technologies instead of suing the ass off music lovers. From Music Week:

The application, which will be downloadable online, will enable fans to access a raft of extra content including artwork, behind-the-scenes images and lyrics via the touch screen of their handsets, marking the first time a music artist has made use of the iPhone’s extra capabilities.

Looking forward to this :-)

keith

Post like this make myself and Joe happy

From Om Malik comes a post which contains references to the state of the online backup market (healthy) and the willingness of consumers (and micro enterprises) to pay recurring monthly subscriptions for services which provide them with value (growing rapidly).

In the article The CEO of Carbonite is quoted as saying "We’ve enjoyed 26 consecutive months of double-digit month-over-month revenue growth".

Putplace (CEO Joe Drumgoole) is a consumer play, as is dbTwang and both of us will be helping to develop the market for online subscription services which are aimed at consumers and not corporates.

keith

The Tuesday push goes for the Hollywood niche.

Make Film Together. Crewger.

That is the strapline and name of the webservice which is being featured on the Tuesday push today. This one is completely new to me.

Busy home page that does not do too much to give you reasons to join. In fact looking at it again and not a single benefit listed. This is interesting - do they get members anyway because of their focus so visitors who have an interest just trust that there is a point to joining?

Loads of Irish related film news and content here. 16 people listed in the Cast and Crew finder. On the way there I noticed a post dated 19th August which says that beta invitations have just gone out so this is a relatively new one on the scene. I guess this one will combine community with functionality - making it easier to get your film team together.

Good luck with it.

keith

Useful references for conversion of visitors into paying customers

Via Stephanie Diamonds blog I went to the site for a new book on Website Optimisation and downloaded the free chapter on conversion rate optimisation.

One reference there was to Fireclick - a web analytic service which makes available an aggregated benchmark index on this topic. Highlights for me:

Global conversion rates run at 2% more or less

Cart abandonment rates are consistently at 70%
(had an experience with BT the other day where I started to place an order online and abandoned it after 5 screens with no indication of where in the process I was. And having asked for full credit card details on screen 3 before the product/service decision/information had been taken! That is an absolute no no in conversion land)

Conversion rates for keywords, email and affiliates all higher than the global - from 4% to 6%.

Click here for the full index.

keith

UPDATE Dec 2011: My new blog which covers areas like conversion is here.

Shoes, can you sell them online?

I would say it is a struggle and many people I have mentioned the following site to say the same. However they have mostly been Irish and we have a different culture and way of life here from Americans.

Because Zappo's sell shoes (over 200,000 styles, check out their vegetarian section :-) ) and they are heading for a Billion dollars in turnover. They do excellent customer service and have amazing repeat business.

Look at this slideshow from their CEO which he gave at SXSW 2008.

Zappos - SXSW Presentation - Top 10 Lessons Learned in E-Commerce - 03 08 08

View SlideShare presentation (tags: tony_hsieh sxsw2008 ecommerce sxsw)

For those of you  who do not have the patience to get to the end here are some of their core value bullets which caught my eye:

• Deliver WOW through service
• Create Fun and a little Weirdness
• Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
• Be Passionate and Determined
• Be Humble

Some of those are going to inspire the dbTwang way of life :-)

keith

It seems so simple - some how-to PR tips

Via Damien I was pointed to Piaras's post 'PR Tips for Tech SMEs" where there is some great common sense from the inside. You should go to the post for the full story - here are the headings:

Take a Deep Breath
Your Communication Campaign is only as good as your Business Plan
Read the papers
Talk in numbers
Secure Company Profile Opportunities
Invest in Photography
Watch Editorial Calendars

All duly noted :-)

keith

12 Principles of Collaboration

Posting by numbers today!

Downloaded and printed  document last week that is worth sharing. A 32 pager on the topic of developing online communities. Some theory but mostly good basic and practical pointers.

Available from this page here: http://www.jivesoftware.com/clearstep/docs/DOC-1083

While you are there take a quick look around - the business concerned are developing an online community around the topics of both internal and external communities and collaboration.

keith

Looking to supplement your revenue stream?

As if readers of a blog like this would be endlessly preoccupied with revenue streams. Or even trickles.

But if you are go to to WebWorkerDaily 10 new ways to make money:

• Team up with Yahoo
• Sell freelance support
• Create and maintain social networks

.....go there for the rest!

keith