Support Your Startup with CafePress
CafePress has been a life-saver for getting my other ventures off the ground. I didn't mind making an initial cash infusion to get the apartment sites off the ground, but that's all I would have done. Taking a big drop in pay to get my own thing going was bad enough, but had I needed to make regular investments from my own funds to keep things going would have meant the end a while ago. Thanks to having multiple CafePress shops I've haven't had to use any personal funds whatsoever to keep things afloat. If you're trying to get your own venture started, and could use an extra revenue stream to get things going I recommend opening your own shop. Focus on a niche that you know and that's under-represented. You just need to be able to come up with a few designs and then do some pay-per-click advertising. CafePress does the rest. Now that my apartment sites are starting to bring in their own revenue, the extra CafePress revenue just means I can get things moving even faster. If you do decide to sign up with them, use this link so I can get a referral credit (every dollar counts!).
- posted by Drew @ 11:56 AM  

 
Meetup - The Entrepreneur Meetup Group
I've been hoping to make it over to one of the Seattle Entrepreneur Meetup Group's get-togethers listed on Meetup.com for the past 8 months or so. They're meeting today, but I'm just not sure if it's a good idea yet. I'd hate for someone to hear specifics on what I'm doing and then decide to create some additional competition. Not that competition is all that bad. So far I've outlasted several others who've tried to emulate what I'm doing with the apartment sites. Of course, their attempts all sucked. My worry is if someone with great talent and deep pockets tries to do the same thing. I am of course lacking one of those attributes. Right now the sites aren't at the level of maturity where I would feel comfortable in even hinting at some of the secret sauce of my enterprise. Maybe sometime soon I'll feel I've created a significant enough barrier to entry. I think there might be some benefit of meeting with others who might be in the same boat. Not only from helping with business issues, but also working mostly on my own means I've only met a handful of people since moving to Seattle a year and a half ago. Maybe in the next month or two... Besides, I can't make it to today's meeting because I'm trying to be good about hitting the gym 6 days a week and it's at the same time as my workout.
- posted by Drew @ 4:56 PM  

 
Television Advertising on the Cheap
I found a cheap way to advertise on TV today. Spot Runner has a catalog of a what seems to be a hundred or so generic commercials for a multitude of industry segments. First you select a market and then choose your industry. You then are able to view handful of pre-made commercials. Once you find one you like, you enter in your business name, phone number and website and they'll add it to the narration in a couple predetermined insert points. They also ensure that the commercial you choose hasn't already been used in the markets you selected. When I tried an apartment related commercial in the Ann Arbor area I was quoted $300. On top of that I would need to pay for air-time. For a $1000 budget I could get a commercial to run quiet a few times on the cable channels. Of course for a $1000 budget I could do a ton of search engine ads that would specifically reach my target audience. I'll be passing on Spot Runner, but if you've got a business that targets a wide demographic I would consider it.
- posted by Drew @ 12:05 AM