I just installed the TwitterFox plug-in. I’m starting to learn a little more of the value of Twitter. Maybe it’s cause of this article and reading up on the how and why of Twitter. Great read BTW. I just turned on updates to my phone from a few local Tech folk that I’m following. Good thing I have unlimited text messaging or else I’d be in trouble. Some folk really like to update their Twitters feeds quite a bit…

This past Monday night at the Upstate Entrepreneur Forum we had 2 great speakers. One was Peter Waldschmidt, one of the founders of TetraData and current founder of Gnoso. The other was Carl Sobocinski the founder of Soby’s and a few other great restaurants in our city. They spoke about how they founded their companies, the early trials of a start-up, the creative financing, etc. Great inspiration for those that are looking or are in the midst of creating a sustainable business.

It’s people like that that shows how great it is to be in this country and to start a company when all you have is a vision and the passion to succeed. It’s also great to have these guys here in Greenville, SC too!

Cool tech tidbit I learned from Troy Tolle @ DigitalChalk today. A good Java developer can become a good C# developer in about 2 weeks. The languages/syntax/processes are that similar. Question is – do you come to the dark side and go C# or vice versa? I think a good developer should know both. You can then name your price when it comes to great gigs.

Speaking of C#. I’m looking for a good number of solid C# and ASP.NET developers. From entry-level to Senior level developers. I can put you to work tomorrow. Literally.

Last night in the Startup Zone they had 2 companies. One was BigBlueHat.com. Ben Young and Brad Garrett were showing off their new Blue Ink CMS platform. I must say it’s very very cool. If you are looking for a great SaaS platform then give these guys a shout. I’m a little biased when it comes to BBH since I’ve known Ben for a good while now. I know his work, his entrepreneurial spirit, and his creativity. He thinks outside the box and their latest version of Blue Ink is definitely cutting-edge IMO.

The company was WeSeeYouMirror.com. Rick Matney, the President, was there showing off the product. Talk about cool! It’s one of those “Why didn’t I think of it before?” type of products. Check out their website for more info and to buy one for your car. I’m thinking that I’ll probably be getting one sometime soon (after November when the baby arrives…)

Anyways, that’s just a quick rehash of last night. Met some new people, networked a bit and got a few leads. Oh, and found out they server Coca-Cola too! Wee!

So was it a success? Most definitely. I really enjoyed learning a lot about the board game industry – from dealing with wholesale distribution houses, to retailing and shipping product all across the US. Did the company turn a profit? Yes, albeit a small one. The online board game industry is a very low margin business (about 10-15% net margins) and the competition is pretty high. Will I ever do this again? Maybe not board games, but other products yes. I already own my resale license and have the infrastructure in place for another store. In fact I’m working on something right now, but it’ll be a while till I can get it off the ground.

If you want to see my current inventory list you can access it here. As I sell games I’m removing them off the spreadsheet.

You know starting and running a business, even if it’s an e-commerce one takes a lot of planning and hard work. Even bootstrapping a small business like the one I did with the games takes a certain amount of financial resources and time to get it up and running.

The nice thing about this country is that it’s so easy to do it, anyone with an idea, a plan, and the gumption can start a business. That’s why I love this country and why I love being an entrepreneur.

So today I get this email -

“Fellow Firestokers,

Congratulations! The idea you submitted to the New Ideas for a New Carolina Business Idea Competition has successfully advanced to the next round of judging. With so many innovative and inspiring ideas from around the state, our judges had a difficult time narrowing them down to the best and brightest. But it had to be done, and so they did. The results? 50 Firestoker Finalists

As one of the Top 50 Firestokers, we are extending to you a complimentary registration to attend the ThinkTEC Innovation Summit on June 4 and 5. Come to find out the winners at the Awards Ceremony on the evening of June 4. Come to hobnob with some innovators. Come to learn, grow and see South Carolina’s future. To find out more about this exciting event visit www.thinktec.org.

As these are special invitations, you cannot register online. To secure your spot, please contact xxxxxx.

Congratulations again and thank you!

In awe,
The Dream Team
SC Launch!
FastTracSC
New Carolina
ThinkTEC”

Wha?!?! I quickly fired off an email to the person listed as the contact and sure enough, it wasn’t spam. My idea is in the Top 50! Wowzers!

Now I’m stoked.

Question is..do I go to this summit?

Still in awe about the possibilities.

Of course there might have only been 50 ideas to begin with hehe

I really enjoyed meeting quite a few new folk and exchanging business cards (aka networking). It was nice to be among people passionate about entrepreneurship and bringing it to the Upstate. I’m planning on being a regular to these monthly meetings in the future and after hearing what is coming down the pipe for the forum this should be an exciting year!

Tomorrow night is the GSATC Tech After Five event. It will be my first tech networking event with the GSATC and I’m excited about the possibilities to network with new people there as well. I’ll post some thoughts on that event on Thursday hopefully.

Well, lunch is done (Yay for turkey and honey wheat bread!) and I need to find a great Sr. Systems Administrator. Why is that when I find a great person, they’re not willing to relocate to this area? Such is life I guess. Makes it more challenging and fun (I hope).

Last year Google jumped on the merchant processing train with Google Checkout and to drum up business they offered free merchant processing for all of 2007. I had initially been using Paypal for my e-commerce credit card processing but was unhappy with the high cost of doing business with them so when I heard about Google Checkout I was intrigued and decided to give it a whirl.

Am I glad I made that switch! Not only have I had free merchant processing in 2007 but I have also saved a good bit of money by not paying a 2.2% transaction fee on all my orders. At the end of January 2008, Google went back to their standard fees structure but they do have a way that you can keep from not paying any fees at all. That is by using Google AdWords credit. For every dollar you spend on  Google AdWords you get a $10 credit in Google Checkout. So for instance you spend about $100 dollars a month in AdWords that would translate to $1000 in free merchant processing. Not bad eh?

It’s a great incentive to keep using their service. I know that I will keep on using it for all my processing needs. One of the things I really enjoy is that I don’t have to worry about storing and securing credit card information.  Customers can put in their information securely and it’s all handled by Google and I never see it. I just get the end results – the revenue – and happy customers knowing that their credit card info is secure. Plus my e-commerce host has great API integration with Google Checkout.

If you don’t have an e-commerce site I still recommend Google Checkout. Why? Well, say you do small mail-order or person-to-person business and don’t want to mess around with checks and cash. You can always e-mail your customer the invoice and when they get the e-mail all they have to do is click the pay link and voila! Payment through Google Checkout.

Hope this helps some of you aspiring e-commerce folks out there. One of the greatest challenges of running an e-commerce business is the credit card fees you get slapped with. Google Checkout is a way to help alleviate those concerns and save money too.

Have a prosperous week and go make some money!

Got a tip? Send it in!

If you live in the USA starting a business is pretty straightforward. Just find a good idea, write up a business plan, think it through and go for it!

Anyways, I’ve started (or helped start) a few businesses over my 30+ year lifetime and here’s my breakdown on how things went.

1. Sari-Sari store – I started a small store in the Philippines selling candy and stuff. I think I made money but the attention of an 8 year old doesn’t last too long when all his friends are out playing.
2. 8th Grade Enterprises – Sold some novelty fireworks, stupid toys, and a knife in 8th grade. Bad idea but good money. I suggest you do not go this route.
3. Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) – I participated in two mainly. One was with a company called Equinox. Wow. Talk about a mistake. I got out before everything really tanked and recouped most of my money. The next was with Amway before they re-branded themselves Quixtar. Overall it was a really good experience. Did I make any money? Nope. But I did make some good friends, I learned how to network, I learned some self-confidence and persistence, I learned that MLM wasn’t my bag. I enjoyed the overall process of Amway. In fact I still am using the microwave I bought through the program. MLM is something that is very viable and you can be very successful at it. I won’t be talking much about it here but I will say that you need to really do some research and evaluation if you ever decide to jump into this arena. It’s hard work and there are a good number of unscrupulous people and companies out there that just want to build their down line without investing in helping you succeed.
4. F1 Network Solutions LLC – An IT service and consulting company that a friend and I started in 1999 or so. Only lasted for a year or so as I had just started working full-time at a new job and my business partner moved out of town. It was definitely an eye opener. I learned how to incorporate the business, forgot to file my taxes (which the IRS helped me out on when I realized my error), took on jobs that were way out of scope (networking DOS systems comes to mind!), and working around a full-time job. We dissolved the company about a year after launching. Were we profitable? Hmm, not really sure. We did a few jobs but never kept good records.
5. eBay Auctions – With my parents being in the Philippines I’ve experimented and imported some items from over there to sell on eBay. Mainly Kamagong wood carvings and some small decorative art. I did have some limited success on the venture but not enough to warrant more investment at the time.
6. Triple C Technologies, et. al. – Under this umbrella corp we had at one time a distribution company, a software development company, a security company, an e-commerce and retail store. Was in business for almost 5 years. Had a lot of fun. I wasn’t an owner but did have a lot of input on company direction. I learned a ton in this business like how not to do customer support. How to learn to say no to a job that is too much to handle. How to work with a variety of vendors (especially those across the ocean!). How to deal with a variety of employees and all the HR headaches that comes with having multiple employees. I helped take this company from $0 revenue in 2003 to almost $2 million in the 5 years it was opened. It doesn’t sound a lot but it was from our viewpoint (the industry we were in had horrible margins). I’ll probably be blogging more on my experiences here in the future.
7. ChumpmonkeyGames.com – My current project. I started this online business in October 2006 to help spread some board game love to others and it has taken off way more than I had ever hoped! I’m not complaining either. I use Shopify for the e-commerce platform and Google Checkout for all my merchant processing. It’s a great solution for a small or just starting out e-commerce business. My 2007 sales were about 180% more than the 2006 so that’s a good start I guess. Based on numbers I’ve seen for 2008 this year is looking even better. More to come here!
8. ?? – I have a few ideas that I’m working on business plans for but these businesses will require some decent investment capital to make it a reality. Hopefully in a few years I’ll see some of these come to fruition.

What have you started and how have you succeeded (or not)? Just cause you started a business and it didn’t take off don’t get discouraged. It happens. Just learn from the mistakes and keep on plugging away.

As soon as I publish this post I’ll be finding a nice e-card to send to my wife at work. We tend to not spend money on each other for Valentine’s Day. Kinda cheesy if you ask me. Hey, the 50% sales on the day after are great for stocking up on candy though!

So I haven’t made a penny yet from blogging but something I think I will do is post monthly revenue/income figures. Why? No reason in particular, a lot of other blogs do it (yeah, I’m following in their steps) and I think it’ll be fun to see traffic and revenue increase from the base of 0 (which it is currently at right now) to hopefully something decent within 12 months.

So by February 13, 2009 my goal is to have made… *drumroll*

$1,200.00

Think it’s doable? I do. Stick around and watch it happen!

I’ll also try to post some other stats as I find them. For example the current ranking of valien.net on Technorati is 4,446,976! Aw yeah! I can only go up from there (I hope )