Archive for Free Advice
Starting before you start, is it ever too early?
Posted by: | CommentsOk, so you have started formulating your idea for a start-up, but you are not yet ready to announce it to the world. Is there anything you should start doing now so that when you do launch you are not starting from scratch?
The short answer is Yes.
Unless your domain name is going to give away massive secrets about what your start-up is you should already create a page for it so that it will start to get indexed in the search engines. Even better would be to start a blog and add a post every day. Should only take you about 10 minutes a day to write something, just make sure it is unique content and related to what your start-up is all about.
You may even want to talk about the process you are doing to start your company. I find it very interesting to read how someone takes an idea and works it through launching a company. Not only will it be fun for you to look back on, but it can also be very helpful for others starting businesses as well.
You should also start positioning yourself as an expert in your field. For Example: If your Israeli Start-up is about manufacturing a new and gourmet Hummus, then start writing articles about the art of creating a good Hummus. Send out recipes to different Israeli publications and blogs. Create a video of a delicious dish based around Hummus and always have your articles, videos, and posts link back to your website.
This way when you do launch you will already have some viewers and relationships with the press that you can utilize to have a successful launch.
You also should make sure you are using Social Networking to create a fan base or to spread your network. Make sure you have a LinkedIN account and that you are on Facebook and Twitter. Click on this link to see how to start using Facebook to get noticed.
It is never to early to start generating some buzz. You should be careful with releasing any information about your start-up before you are ready to let the world know about it, but as you feel comfrotable with releasing more information, you should let all your friends and fans know by using everything written above.
Keeping it simple, a key to entreprenurial success?
Posted by: | Comments K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple Stupid) has become a rule of thumb. Now this can mean in terms of your product design or in the layout of your website or in anything having to do with your business. You want customers to fully understand your product in the easiest way possible. When a client comes to your website you want them to fully understand what you are all about and how you can help them. Keep things clean and uncluttered. Make your website easy to navigate or your product easy to use. Keeping things simple, well makes things simple and people love simple things. People love to use products that are simple to use or visit websites that make finding things simple (Have you ever noticed how simple and clean Google.com is?). Now you may ask what about choices? People love to have choices! Do they? Sometimes, but sometimes they would rather have just a couple of basic choices. Do you need 15 types of coffee? What if you had a choice of just three? But what about when choosing a laptop or a computer? Have you ever gone to Dell.com? They have so many choices which means they must be serving everyone and giving everyone what they want right? Well maybe not. Guess which computer company is thriving even in today's market? Dell? No. IBM? No. Gateways? Heck No! Apple? Yes Yes Yes! Apple is thriving! Ok it may be mostly because of their iphone product, but have you ever noticed how clean and simple their products are? How easy they are to use? Take a guess of how many products Apple sells? 11! Think I'm joking? Take a look at this article from CrunchGear, it talks all about what they call Apple's secret sauce. Read the article and ask yourself how can you apply apple's secret to make your sauce cook.
and their simple product line is the key. Look at it. There really
aren’t that many products: One cellphone, four iPods, three notebooks,
and three desktop computers. Now look at HP’s, Dell’s, or even Garmin
and TomTom’s product lines. Apple does something different and
hopefully others are taking notes.
Not everyone was made to be an entrepreneur just like not everyone was made to sing
Posted by: | CommentsI know when I get up to sing (which most people are grateful is not often), I never feel like I'm in my zone. I mean I don't have a horrible voice, but let's just say I was not blessed with the musical talents of my famous cousins. So, from an early age I realized nor aimed for being a singer or a chazan. That doesn't mean I don't love to listen to music or that I won't sing when there are at least a few other guys singing together, but I know my limitations.
The same is true about being an entrepreneur. Not everyone is meant to be one or can even be one. Even though it has become popular to take classes in Entrepreneurship at the Ivy League Colleges, being an entrepreneur is more than just having knowledge and is truly not something you can teach or learn.
Being an Entrepreneur is something you are born with. It's one of those things that you either are or aren't. You can't teach how to go through a year without bringing in a dime, to not have enough food to feed your family, just to start your business and to see it fail 2 years later and then to start-up again another company a year later after having sold your wife's engagement ring to put the electricity back on. You can't teach having a never give up attitude, or what it means to be responsible for all aspects of a company, or how to handle employees who lives you effect everyday.
(It is very important to mention that one of the secrets of success of any entrepreneur is having a spouse that fully supports you. This can not be over emphasized since a true entrepreneur may go through several failures before finding his success.)
So if you are thinking about starting a business you need to first ask yourself if you have what it takes to fail. Do you have enough cash in the bank to go a year without bringing in a shekel and do you have the type of spouse that will fully support you even if you lose your money in the endeavor and would need to start again from scratch? Again, knowledge is nice, but you can't teach guts.
Here are some posts that are worthile to read:
4 Simple Steps to Minimize Failure For Your Next
Business Idea
Why your Web Start-up Will Fail
Purple Pizza! Free consulting to a pizza place in Israel, shame they didn’t listen
Posted by: | Comments
I get calls almost every week or meet people that ask me for business advice. I love helping out people and so even though my time is limited I always try to make time to help people out. So many times I see an advertisement and I shake my head saying what are they doing? Or I will see a business and think that if they would only do this. But because of time restraints and also because I have found that unsolicited advice is usually not taken very well I don’t often get involved. One time about a year ago an owner of a pizza place approached me and asked me if I had any connections for work in the States since his business was not doing so well. So I asked him why not concentrate on his business and made him an offer to sit with him and go over things which I did. After doing so I spent a few hours and wrote up a report advising him what he should do to bring up sales and differentiate himself from his competitors. I used the purple pizza method based on being a purple cow.In short I told him that he should be absolutely ridiculous about his toppings. Where his competitors offered about 8 different topping on average, he should offer 50 of them! And then I made up a list of 50 different toppings. His pizza boxes and advertising should list all 50 toppings and he should run a contest for most creative topping of the month award and each month feature that new topping along with a picture of the one who suggested it. He should create t-shirts with the 50 toppings on it and the phone number and give them out to kids. Toppings like ziti, pickles, falafel, pineapple, white sauce (think fettuccine), apple slices, pareve sausage, etc… I told him all he would have to do is keep a little bit on hand until he sees which ones are most asked for. Kids like crazy toppings and so if you were a kid and wanted to buy a pizza, guess which pizza place they would beg their parents to buy from? But unfortuntaley he did not take me up on my advice and he is still just trying to pay his rent. If you take the time, money and effort to start a business, be different!! Be a purple cow eating a purple pizza! Exspecially if you have competitors that are all basically selling the same thing. One of the best pizza places in Israel is in Modiin called Giant Pizza! I will take my family their for a couple of reasons.
- They have a mehadrin hechsher (opens themselves to more clients)
- They have a cool website (http://www.giantpizza.co.il)
- They have the biggest pizza slices I have ever seen!
- Their pizza is really good!
- Everytime I go there the owner is always there and he comes to shmooze with me and makes sure I’m happy.
- They make giant pizzas with pictures and even logo’s
They stand out! They are different! If only more pizza places in Israel would follow their lead, then the quality and chocies will get better which would lead to selling more pizza’s and creating happier customers!
Check out their video on youtube!
