My main company for over a decade has been Emerald Computers. It was a great business from 1997 until about 2003 but then the industry changed, and got much more cutthroat and less fun.  Also the profits dropped out.  I lost my passion for it.  Passion is a subject I have been thinking about a lot recently.  If you do not live your life doing what you have have passion for you are living a wasted life.  80% of people can not stand their job, they can not stand what they now do for a living.  20% of the people their work is their passion, and they love to do it.  For years I loved computers, not because of the technology but mostly because I could open peoples eyes up to what is possible and I loved that.  But my business did less and less of that and more and more of the grinding out work that was not fun.  When the passion left so did the profits.  I went from averaging 70 hours a week working my company in 2002 to about 30 in 2005 to almost less than 5 in 2007.

I always was thinking about Real Estate, how it is a business where you make real things that stand there for many years.  I know people that drive around a city and point out buildings they had a hand in making a decade before.  Also I LOVE the art of the deal, where you negotiate price and terms and come up with a deal.  It is like a huge game, trying to get the best for your side in every deal, nothing in business is more fun for me. Real Estate is the land of the largest deals, and the fastest way to make real big money.  You can be creative and make transactions by bringing parties and ideas together in unique ways.

Now the problem with real estate is that you need knowledge or you need money.  I don't have this type of money because my computer company took it all, and my knowledge is all theory.  I think I know at least 90% of what I know, but every time I think I have it all figured out I find out more I don't know.  Because of this a fear has set in so I do nothing, which is the worst thing of all to do.  When you do real estate with no money to invest you will find the deal every now and then but it is far from steady, so I wanted to have something that was more steady.

Because of this I started looking for a MLM, because before Emerald Computers, and even during it I made some good money in the world of MLM business.  With all the tools I have for online marketing and communications I figured I would have a huge advantage at any MLM that I would join.  So I spent a good deal of time looking into everything that I could do.  After looking for months almost all of the major MLM businesses that I saw were promoting a health product that they produced for $5 and sold for $50.  I figured out that I really don't have a passion for doing a MLM that is based on a health product, I think deep down that many of these don't work, and that even if they do I don't want to spend my life selling them, I have more important things to do.

So after a while I decided to work with a company called Nouveau Riche.  What they do is have a college right down the street from my house.  For 1 week every two months they teach a full week of really high quality classes about Real Estate.  I bought the CD version of these classes, they were good.  Next they provide a community of investors.  It all sounded really great, just what I wanted to do.  Then I really pushed it hard, trying to find people to invest with, trying to find people to pay to go to the college.  They had an event where you could invite people to and they would have a 6 hour sample of classes that were taught by the school.  I had been to them in the past, and they were great.  At the end they would have a short 30 minute sales pitch for the college.  This time there was new leadership and they promised it would be even bigger and better than before.  I was really excited.  I invited over 100 people. I got 40 people to say they would be there.  It was all going well.  Then on the day it was backwards, it started out with over two hours of hard sales, worse than if you went to a timeshare.  That was followed by even more sales, and then an hour of decent education, followed by 2 more hours of hard sales.  The people I had there all felt screwed, and lied to.  They wanted education and what they got was this junk.  After that day I have not gone to any meetings and have not talked to any leaders in the company, it was a bust for me.

So then I started looking a MLM that was for something that I could stand behind.  I set down some rules.  First it had to be something that was a good value, it had to save people money or make them money.  Next it had to be something that was product driven, I wanted to product to sell the company.  (One of my best friends Fred Coit is a big leader in Monavie and they have a great product driven company.)  But next I wanted to do something that I would have a passion for.  Last I wanted something with no marketing restrictions.  You many not know that most MLM companies have many restrictions on how and where you can market, and I wanted something I could hit heavy online, and be creative with my marketing.

After about 2 months of looking I finally decided on SendOutCards, they offered a product that was only 1/3rd the cost of the competition with better service, it was product driven meaning that most people in it only really promote the product.  I think that they are the BEST MLM for my style.

Now I am torn.  What do I do with my days, I have a computer company, I have a ton of time, energy and passion devoted to getting into the real estate business, which is my true passion.  And now I have this new business that is really fun and has a great product.  For the last two month I have been floating.  I have been like my 10 month old son, I focus on whatever seems the best at the time, but I may change on a whim.  Last week a typical day was for me to wake up and talk to a few computer customers, then talk to a real estate agent about some houses then call a few people and tell them about SendOutCards.  For the last few months when people ask me what I do for a living I really don't have a good answer for them.  I was at a meeting last Wednesday where I stood up and talked about Emerald Computers and SendOutCards, handed out flyers for SendOutCards and business cards for Capital Active (The Real Estate Company).  I must have seemed very confused to some of these people.

So this is where I sit now.  Emerald is the business that is putting food on my table, it is what I live on but every time I want to make money I have to trade large amounts of time for it. Sometimes it is easy and I get a call and make $500 in 2 hours, other times I make calls all day and make nothing.   SendOutCards could be a huge business and with two months of good effort I could have a team large enough that I could pay all my bills from the money it makes.  And Real Estate could make millions with ease and joy if I could get all the pieces to the puzzle together.

So my question for my readers, is this multitasking normal for someone who is a serial entrepreneur, and what would you do?  This is interactive so please leave a comment, I will reply to them.

For ITV, also add Wallace & Gromit, Artic Monkeys and Oasis... all have failed to get big traction in the US.

For ITV, the next big thing is to crack America. Or, has Dan missed a trick by not mentioning Simon Cowell? His formats are populist not posh and they are rescuing ITV as well as a heap of US TV stations stranded by the writers' strike. All good for Simon Cowell, but perhaps stemming an inevitable decline in TV?

It can be a commercial organization, not-for-profit or social organization, each start-up has its own way of building up and it has its own life cycle.

Below is the typical life cycle of an Entrepreneur:

Aspiration for Entrepreneurship

One day you get this beautiful idea and aspire to make your dream come true. The journey begins here. A journey, which is adventurous and most satisfying.

Is aspiration all enough?

Normally, it is good enough to realize your dreams. But, the commitment to your ideology plays a bigger role. Entrepreneurship is about contribution to the society, rather than thinking it to be a source of extended income. It is tough and it is a penance. Attitude is all what it takes to be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is about living in Risks. If you are a person who does not like taking risks, then you are not set for setting up your own organization. Entrepreneurship is just not about setting up an organization for profit making, but for solving a particular problem – be it commercial or social.

In short, the way I define an entrepreneur is:

E - Energetic
N - Neutral
T - Tough
R - Romantic
E - Elaborative
P - Passionate
R - Researcher
E - Empowered
N - Novice
E - Enterprising
U - Understanding
R - Rich

Energetic - Need to have energy to face failure.
Neutral - Never get carried away, you need to always be on ground to take off.
Tough - When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.
Romantic - Need to Romance with your Passion.
Elaborative - If you cant be straight forward, then the road ahead is bumpy.
Passionate - Eat, Sleep, Drink only your thoughts.
Researcher - Only when you explore, do you succeed.
Empowered - Empower yourself with Passion.
Novice - Because, every day is a new day.
Enterprising - Because, every day you need to be creative.
Understanding - If you cannot understand others, you can never solve their problem.
Rich - Attitude, Passion and Commitment to Succeed.

Identify the Problem / Need

If there was no problem / gap in life cycle bothering your mind, you definitely would not have aspired to be an entrepreneur. However, this is not the only reason for you to aspire. But, in most of the cases, there is a problem / gap in the life cycle which bothers your mind and you want to provide a solution / better solution to solve the problem better / faster / economical / convenient. Think differently to identify the problem. Just because the whole world or people around you are taking about mobile or web, just don’t fix your ideas only in that spectrum. Look around and you will find many areas which need better solutions.

One of my favourite examples is from the book Innovative India. An auto is a common mode of transport in our country; however, have you seen a change in the structure or working of an auto since its inception back in the 1980’s? NO. Bi-cycle’s, 2 Wheelers, Cars, Bus’s, Lorry’s and all have seen a drastic change in their life-cycle. But, an auto has hardly seen a change. Why? One main reason for this is because the competition is very less. There are hardly 2-3 companies which manufacture autos and all of them have been very contented with the design and working of their innovation. Try speaking to any auto driver; he would give you an enormous list of good to have things in the auto. Looks like a good problem? Try solving it J

My intention of quoting the above is to request you to look around. There are many trivial things which need attention and which people can benefit.

Probable Solution

When you have identified the problem, you definitely must have given a thought about a probable solution. Lay out and outline your solution. Put it on paper for you to evaluate.

The Bottom of Pyramid is one area you would want to concentrate while designing your solution. The concept of BoP elucidates that the need for better and optimized solutions for problems which are frequented by majority of people. Do not aim your solutions at a high level, instead have a humble beginning and make the impact.

When you are designing a solution and want your solution to reach the majority, focus on the Pyramid. Identify your potential customers and then plan your solution. This gives your solution a better mileage than what you anticipate.

Assess the Solution

Meet with people, talk about the problem and share your thoughts on how you wish to solve. You might not want to speak to everyone, but definitely speak to your friends / family / mentor’s about your ideas because, without evaluation, it is like jumping into the lake without knowing the parameters of the lake.

If you want to make toys, spend a lot of time with children and understand their thought process. Many a times, we think we are providing a better toy, however, when it reaches the child, you might not be able to attract him/her for a long time.

If you are building a security system for home’s, speak to as many people as you can and understand the nature of problems they encounter. Example, in villages, there might be a threat with animals coming into homes. In cities, it is just not burglary, but children or domestic help might be at home and parents want to secure few things from them.

The list goes on. What I want to iterate here is that spending a lot of time with the end-users will give you a deep dive into their thinking and you will benefit because, when you get to design a solution, it is easily accepted.

Practicality of the Solution

How practical is your solution? Is it trying to provide Mobile Commerce solutions or search capabilities in the rural areas? You might have the most cutting edge technology, but the target customers are very important. We are not debating if your customers should be based in rural/urban areas, but we are looking at the usage and practicality of the solution.

As an example, I can mention the platform ticket vending machine in railway stations which have come up in the recent past. Do you notice one common problem with them? They accept only one rupee coins and five rupee coins. And if you insert a five rupee coin for one ticket, you do not get back the change. What happened? The queue at the counter still remains the same, because many might not carry change always. So, what happened to the innovation, it simply added burden to the organization – the return on investment (RoI) is not met.

Build the Business Plan

The most important aspect of realizing your dream is to have your business plan in place. You will need to put it in writing as to how you would accomplish your goal.

There are many versions as to how you should write a business plan. I only recommend only one way – write your plan in simple words. Do not use jargons which are very common and a common person might not be able to read/understand. Be Simple, Manageable, Achievable, Result-oriented and Time bound (SMART) while writing.

Few important aspects which you might want to consider/have them mandatorily addressed in your business plan:

• Vision
• Mission
• Problem Identified
• Proposed Solution
• Financial Plan
• Road map (Building the Solution and Return on Investment)

What I mentioned above is the minimum. If you can elaborate and write more, there is nothing like it. A Business Plan is not a frozen document, but a continuous working document. So, keep re-visiting you plan from time to time and keep updating the same as your idea evolves :)

• Finance would have to be convinced about eroding bottom line all of a sudden and depend on incremental revenues
• Sales would have to look at booking incremental revenues and not in bulk, and the performance has to be consistent throughout the year as opposed to the peaks and troughs.
• Marketing will have to be oriented towards benefits and value proposition as opposed to product features
• Management will have to be convinced to live in a world where your end-user is not tied to your product
• Post-sales support need to be fully aware of the SLA commitments to the end-user

Aren't we really seeing that Customer is going to be the king! in a SaaS world.

I'd really like an interactive software program, so I darted toward the Rosetta Stone software that is so highly rated. After looking through the (Turkish) tutorial however, it seemed unnatural, repetitive, and confusing (not to mention expensive) given the full immersion approach. The tutorial jumped into conjugations early on without any explanation of how conjugation works. I don't know how other people learn languages, but I prefer to learn grammatical rules that can be applied to any situation I come across rather than forcing myself to memorize whole sentences for each subject or verb. I'm a language enthusiast (Spanish, Latin, Japanese, and Vietnamese) so I'm not scared of learning grammar and want a program that will reflect that.

Enter Fluenz.

If there were ever a group of educators close to my heart, its this young start-up team at Fluenz. Here's some of their philosophy:

The best-known and commercially successful theory for teaching languages during the last century was called "immersion." Its premise is that adults can best learn new languages by replicating the way in which they acquired their first language when they were children... Instead, we pulled together contemporary linguistic theories that would help us come up with a way to learn languages faster through a pragmatic, common sense approach.

And while good, beautiful design is often dismissed as irrelevant in education, we simply beg to differ.

They've used some research based models, but I like that they decided to actually go out and learn what the difficulties of learning a language can be from a student's perspective. Research is great, but sometimes research takes educators away from that important common sense angle. While they don't focus so much on age, they really seem to grasp the need for new and fresh perspectives on education. They also understand that form and style is just as important as functionality to today's market. My generation expects sleek mp3 players, seamless movie effects, and for every shopping trip to be an experience. Why should education be any different?

P.S. I'll do a review of the program when I get a chance to really work through it. Also, you can check out Fluenz' 26 year old front-woman and co-founder, Sonia Gil, here at her Myspace.

So recently, I've concentrated my efforts into doing so. One of the ways I've encountered (and I am certainly not the first) is through the use of Google Adsense. For those of you not familar with Google AdSense, basically what it is is a program that allows you to run Google advertisements on your website, in exchange for being paid for each visitor that clicks one of the ads. Simply stated, you earn money from relevant adds that Google places on your website. This is a great way to monetize whatever website you may have, such as your blog!

As stated on Wikipedia "AdSense has been particularly important for delivering advertising revenue to small sites that do not have the resources for developing advertising sales programs and salespeople." Many entrepeneurs are using Adsense as a way to make a passive income to supplement their business income.

I just wanted to pass this idea on to you, in hopes it can help you attain the passive income you've been looking for. For more insight, you can check out the main link here for Google AdSense.

As I've said in pervious posts, I'm determined to help others create a lifestyle that will make them more free to enjoy the finer things in life like family, time freedom and the opportunity to travel and live anywhere in the world.

To Your Success,
Dan

Dan Snow
407-507-4646

http://dansnow.p1drevolution.com
http://dansnow.gop1d.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/D79SN

Now, if you're very clever, the heading of this post tipped you off to the conversation taboo we're going to be dissecting. I will give you a hint: it is not introductions, or talking. Both of those are actually considered wise to use in a social situation, especially in tandem. Very difficult to introduce someone by blinking rapidly in Morse code.

The Money Talks

Rogues laugh in the face of social taboos. Usually we just do it for a lark, but this shunning has purpose, yea, and reason too. Don't get used to it; we think those damned monkey assassins put something in our chai again.

The Money Talks are going to be a week-long series on the dollars behind running a freelance business. We will use real numbers and set real goals. We will not shun away from stating actual dollar figures, as is usual, because the Rogue has noted that blogs that attempt to discuss money without actually, you know, discussing money, generally succeed in providing no useful information to new freelancers other than the sole thing they already knew, which is: You're on your own, kid.

The Rogue reasons that most freelancers have figured that bit out, and are just looking for a useful equation to help them along. We can do that. The Money Talks will attempt to help new freelancers (and old ones) figure out how much money they should be making, how much they should be charging, and what to do with the money once you've earned it. We will try not to get too off-topic so as to be easy to follow along. We cannot promise there will be no ninja jokes, though. We are hilarious, after all.

The Money Talks shall be held at The Lusty Weevil, the official pub at which the Rogue spins out these regular rants of demi-relevance. Pints all round are on the house for all participants. Debate is welcome; trolls will be shot on sight. Cupcakes are also welcome, but they better have real frosting.

The Reason for The Money Talks

Money is a topic frequently raised by bloggers - freelancers, writers, marketing folk - anyone and everyone who could offer useful information on money has blogged about it. Most of the time they're not useful, and I've figured out why this is. They're too damned polite.

Politeness keeps most bloggers from actually discussing numbers. (I don't usually discuss numbers either, but it is out of fear of the numbers themselves. Mathematicians are going to bring the apocalypse, you mark my words.) Most blog posts on money go something like this: I can't really tell you how much I make, or how much I charge, or how I figured it out. Politeness has bound me, and I don't want to tell you about my finances, and besides, it's all based on the individual. I learned the hard way, so should you. Tra-la!

They don't do this out of unkindness. They do it out of fear. Most freelancers I've met are actually pretty happy with how much they make and how they arrived at their numbers. They're not willing to share how they did their calculations because they fear that someone else, some evil internet person out there, will descend upon them and say, "You don't know what the hell you're talking about, those rates are too low, and it's unprofessional to suggest otherwise. Also, your business is a sham and I heard that you keep Care Bears hostage in your pantry. You bastard." Then their blog would be the subject of much misdirected anger, involving pitchforks and townsfolk, and all because they made the enormous mistake of discussing money.

I have considered the possibility of the townsfolk and pitchforks actually appearing, and I find it is a valid threat. However, seeing as my home is more or less an arsenal of medieval weaponry, I feel it is worth the risk. I shall go forth into the tempest, bare my little roguish soul, and take my chances with the beast.

(I like how you all tried to hold me back there. Very touching, that. You're probably going to forget my birthday too.)

Never fear, my denizens. I shall take precautions. Here they are.

Precautionary Measures for the Money Talks

We're going to be discussing my theoretical income. This income may actually become my real income at some point in the future, all going according to plan. Not discussing real numbers is what we do when we're ashamed to admit our income or would prefer that others not judge us on it. I intend to circumnavigate this by being just revolutionary enough to discuss my actual ambitions, and just ashamed enough to not admit what precisely the gap is between those ambitions and my current income. It is a fine line, and I walk it like an Olympic gymnast, my friends.

So when we discuss how to calculate your financial goals tomorrow (yes, tomorrow, this is a long post already), we will be discussing my personal financial goals. They will be real. They will involve numbers. You are free to change those numbers according to your personal goals, capabilities, and religion (ooh, looky there, I mentioned religion too. Taboos are going out the window today).

In order to calculate my personal financial goals, I will be using actual numbers from my personal budget. They'll include things like my rent, my food budget, and how much I spend regularly on meerschaum pipes (yes, this is a big enough expenditure that it warrants mention in a budget. You can substitute whatever you like in this category, no matter how weird. That's me working for you. You're welcome). These are numbers which should surprise no one and that I'm more than happy to put forward. They'll also (hopefully) make my calculations for a proposed income pretty darn accurate, and then I'll have blogged and balanced my budget, and we call that multitasking.

Yes, I'm using you as an excuse to calibrate my finances. I'm sorry if that makes you feel dirty and wronged. I will try to be funny while I do it, if that makes you feel any better, but I will totally still be using you.

Things I shall not be discussing are how much money I made last year, or last month, or this week, or ever. The past is in the past, people. That's why they call it that. We look forward to the future, where the money is. At least, that's what the leprechaun told me.

Remember How I Told You Rogue Ink Wasn't a Business Blog?

It is also not a formal ball. We are not at a long table with the King fore and the Queen aft. There is no china on the table and there are no gold-rimmed wineglasses. It is not sixteenth-century Versailles and there will not be courtly dancing later, and I note an extraordinary absence of pompadours. There is no reason we should confine ourselves to discussions that would be appropriate in those circumstances, especially when breaking those rules could give our fellow freelancers a leg-up on a difficult project. We are the denizens of the Lusty Weevil, people, and we say it with pride. We are a rowdy crew and there is no limit to what can be talked about over a pint of Guiness and a game of pool.

Propriety is dead at the Lusty Weevil, denizens. Join us tomorrow for The Money Talks.

If you subscribe, I'll tell you how much I spend on kumquats.

But, after you’ve delivered that first bit of information to your prospect, do you send him any further information?

If you are like most Internet marketers, you don’t.

When you don’t follow that initial message with additional information later on, you let a valuable prospect slip from your grasp! This is a potential customer who may have been very interested in your products, but who lost your contact information, or was too busy to make a purchase when your first message reached him.

Often, a prospect will purposely put off making a purchase, to see if you find him important enough to follow up with later. When he doesn’t receive a follow up message from you, he will take his business elsewhere.
Are you losing profits due to inconsistent and ineffective follow up?
Following up with leads is more than just a process - it’s an art. In order to be effective, you need to design a follow up system, and stick to it, EVERY DAY! If you don’t follow up with your prospects consistently, INDIVIDUALLY, and in a timely fashion, then you might as well forget the whole follow up process.

Consistent follow up gets results!
When I first started marketing and following up with prospects, I used a follow up method that I now call the “List Technique.” I had a large database containing the names and e-mail addresses of people who had specifically requested information about my products and services. These prospects had already received my first letter by the time they requested more information, so I used...

To read the full article visit:
WWW.BAMBIZ.BIZ - The #1 Open Content Business Platform for Entrepreneurs.

While it's NOT an internship (no academic credit), it could be the next best thing.

If you are contemplating a career change, pursuing a lifelong dream or passion, or just merely curious, Vocation Vacations is a fun and insightful way to start.  It's especially valuable for people interested in starting their own business, but who have never owned and operated a business before.

How it works:
Basically, you pay between $1,000 to $2,000 for a 1 to 3 day apprenticeship in the career of your choice.  This does not include airfare or accomodations.  But you DO get a "behind the scenes" view and full immersion into your prospective career field.

If you've been in business long enough, you can also sign up to be a mentor and host "vocationers" in your business.  While the site doesn't come out and say it directly, I'm thinking there's got to be financial compensation for mentors.  Could this be another way to create income for you and your business? To find out, apply!

By the way, I've started to read the founder of Vocation Vacations, Brian Kurth's new book, "Test-Drive Your Dream Job: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding and Creating the Work You Love."  So far, it's an interesting and worthwhile read, giving practical advice on how to pursue your dreams job, change careers, and work through fears, financial contraints, and other obstacles.  It also includes case studies of people who have participated in Vocation Vacations.

Enjoy!

My "rant" today is about relevance, which I define as targeting your app or service to work within the context of your consumer. Many internet-businesses focus on two things: building easy connections to other web-users and trying to prevent total breakdown when viral growth reaches a peak.

The fallacy in that mindset is that users are being treated like nodes, who connect back or connect to other users. A node, in a P2P network, is a static entity, one that doesn't move. A user is, typically, a human being, one that not only moves, but exists on a different plane, the physical world. A lot of web-businesses fail to make that distinction and it has created not only the reality that we are being bombarded with connections whenever we sit at our PC, but we are expected to be connected 24/7.

I alluded to this last year, when I asked "what place does the web take?" The point of that article was really about the relevance of the web to real life. According to a theory, there are three places relevant to people: the first place, which is home-life, the second, which is work-life, and the third, which is leisure. The web, through email, blogs, work-apps, twitter, media, has become a hub in all three places, but its consequences are both information overload and obesity, both caused by passivity.

When you look up the word "break," it's defined as "a period of time taken out of one's professional activity in order to do something else." If the web is work and the web is home, then the break should not be the web.

Relevance is, once again, having services be context-driven, i.e. being relevant or shutting up at the right time and the right place and for the right person. A pretty complex task, but that is an ideal to live for.

Let me give some examples. Both TheFilter and Last.fm are services that both passively monitor media-life and actively provide services (such as radio-stations and the like). When I plug in my iPod after a run (a third place-activity), Last.fm asks me whether I want to "Scrobble" my tracks, which it in turn uses to make recommendations. TheFilter is not quite there yet, but it passively scans my iTunes-behaviour and creates custom-playlists for me if I want. You may think this is no big deal, but you'd be surprised how few services make even that tiny step from the web to the desktop.

A bigger deal, in my opinion, is NearByNow, which allows shoppers to search the shopping-malls that they visit, not by searching every store, but by entering a search-term for a product on their mobile or via the web, and having it search the retailers' inventory. I wrote about it here before. This is just a first step, but especially in retail there's much room still for merging the web with the shop.

Some more examples are the Nintendo Wii, which brings a physical dimension to gaming, and even the MacBook Air and the Asus EEE, both of which are clearly designed to not chain users to a location.

Relevance is something that a lot of commercial and non-commercial services are battling with nowadays. How do you sell a good online that you need to smell, taste, feel, or try on? How do you integrate virtual friendships into real life? How do you limit the amount of noise that your online customers are exposed to? How do you "synergise" the power of the web—information at a finger-tip—with a fragmented physical world? How do you create business models based on both the online and offline behaviour of consumers?

Those are the real questions to answer, not only for the web to become truly mainstream, but for it to stop treating us "users" like grey square boxes with a blue light shining out of it. We, the kids, the workers, the retired, are people dammit, with muscles (not just in the fingers), mouths, and other senses. We were not put on this planet to read 12/7 and type the other 12.

The next liberation-age is, I hope, about freeing ourselves from the machines and living life again as the hybrid entities that we are, producing both physical and mental energy.

Rant over.

Vincent

(The picture is the cover of the book "Snow Crash"—still the most relevant book about a very possible future of the information age today… if you ask me.)

It's easy to think up a list of products you wouldn't market in a rest room. (Turn it into a parlor game and you could have fun playing it with your snarky friends, even.)

But you'd be scratching your, uh, head a long time before coming up with a product that's less stall-likely than Cinnabon, a brand so successfully built around the scent of its product. In other words, Cinnabon's "gift of aroma and taste," as the placard I found in the men's rest room Friday at this Delaware I-95 rest stop put it.

Contextual missteps like this can be significant. Even if you get the space for free (Cinnabon may have, as a concessionaire with the state), you still pay.

At that time, lesson learnt was to do marketing to your immediate or lowest hanging fruits...relatives. From there, word of mouth, recommendations etc helped built the network. Of course good service 24/7 was a must. "Support calls" were most active 9-11pm in the nights when dads and mums are using their own PCs at home but being able to "service" this them at these odd hours was what they really needed.

Guess from this short posting, the message to take away is define where is your niche and unique differentiation, what may seem traditional of selling PCs can be value-added with lots of services and personal support. Aim for your lowest hanging fruits to get you the 1st success as its always the most difficult.

In today's competitive society and all the negativities, the stressors involved, it is common human nature to fall short with worry and doubts. Having the proper emotional intelligence and the ability to think forward that "Anything can be possible" is positive for cultivating growth, inner strength and continuous progression through life. We learn through experiences, we learn through others and we learn for ourselves. There are many books, human nature of conversations that are expressed on ways and techniques. But in the end, it is only to your own making that anything can be possible if you possess the proper mental efforts.

Thinking bigger, and bigger and BIGGER...

Staying small is one's own choice, however we cannot grow if we do not put in risk. Risk taking can frighten many people. Whether they are simply too set in there ways, or naturally uncomfortable, undesired to grow. Practicing risk taking behavior is supported to moving ahead in life. It is how you view the experience, take it in, look back and revisit these experiences, learn from them and move on. Repeating the cycle is unhealthy, takes out of your precious personal time and remember that we only have one life so it is to one's own choosing how to live it well.

Pessimistic Views on Life...

Why it won't...Why it can't? How many times and rehearsed conversations from people have we heard that this won't work because...or I am not able to because...Perhaps it was just a bad day or perhaps we are simply just acting out in ways why it won't work. "No" is a regular response to these type of people. They have trouble imagining and visualizing. They are the types whom see failure as a predictable option. Fear and doubt create worry among these types. In the end, there isn't enough of a mental climate to create something positive. Pessimistic views tend to down play on the dreams, the ideas and creativity.

Optimistic Views on Life...

Possibility Thinking is focused on problems and ways that are positive. Dreamers of sorts. They see the "Anything Is Possible" point of view and keep working past experiences "Turning Water Into Wine." They are the ones who strive to achive, climb mountains, adventure, experience and explore. In a sense, a full life, resilience of never giving up one's dream. Success thinking in optimism makes anything possible.

Positive outcomes with optimistic thinking result in the following:

Overcoming Inferiority
Living Confident
Challenges To Problems
Facing Lifes Personal Battles
Evaluating Ideas

What type of life do you want to create?

When you are putting your life together we look to believe in creating success in career, in marriage, in family and in friends.

This is taken from what Adam May said about FLP and his life.... it's touching speech...

"Nine years working in the City as a futures and options broker made me realise that being in a stressful job and stuck in an office with a one hour commute at each end of the day was not the life I wanted. I began to reassess what was important to me and I found that my top priority was to be financially independent so that I could travel as much as I wanted, when I wanted. But at the time I couldn't see how I would achieve it in my lifetime!
"Eight years ago a good friend told me about Forever Living and I immediately saw it as the opportunity to change my life.

"Financial independence to me meant getting rid of my debts, having money in the bank, growing investments and creating a secure future for my children.

"Today, I have all the above. What's more, no commuting, no boss, no stress, a six figure income each for both my ex wife and myself, at least three months holiday a year, quality time with friends and family and I'm working with fantastic people helping them build their own future.

"I feel very lucky and very privileged to be doing something I love so much.

Adam May
London

This single factor, which is the lack of talent, that can do away with quality concerns in terms of delivering what the customer expects, is the most important criteria. For instance, if there is a star team that has been delivering day-in and day-out for a customer, and going by the trend of 15% to 25% of wage inflation, customer should be too happy to take a portion of the burden and retain their star team that would allow them to grow at a faster pace. This would ensure that the outsourcing vendor doesn't have to take a huge hit in terms of profitability.

Hence wage inflation cannot and should not be considered a threat to outsourcing and at the same time, there has to be a way to nurture talents that can make the difference for a customer. The more you sell on the cost-arbitrage, the faster would you become unsuccessful and lose out on multiple counts. Identify the talents, nurture them and make that difference to your customers. Then they would be able to relieve you of all or most of your burdens that arise out of wage inflation and strengthening of rupee.

This was something that was troubling me and I also read the findings of the survey conducted by syntel on outsourcing concerns with fortune 1000 IT executives. 33% have come out and said that wage inflation is their biggest concern. If the right talent is made available to them, would they even be mentioning about this?

Determine a basic need -> Create a service that satisfies it in the simplest way possible -> Open it up

check it out: http://mashable.com/2008/06/29/less-is-more-unlock-the-web/

krista: Andrew, I just got a call from the guys who are leasing us our space for the launch party.

me: so?

krista: They called to tell me that they demolished the location.

me: WHAT?!?!?

krista: Apparently they were planning on renovating and somehow the message didn't get through from the guy who promised it to us.

me: So what are they going to do about it?

krista: well they offered us a place a few blocks away instead but... it doesn't have electricity or toilets.
Suffice to say, we spent the next couple of hours figuring out an alternative to that... but the incident got me thinking about all of the crazy things that have happened with our startup over the last two years. So here's the beginning of my list, it's going to be a work in progress...

1. my co-founder, Dan, was hit by lightning while programming our Alpha. I found out that he was in the hospital and couldn't really see. After somewhere around 18 hours his vision came back. Apparently programming during a lightning storm is not a good idea.

2. Our launch party location was demolished as covered above

3. hmm ok maybe there aren't as many as I thought. Will get back to this list in a few

Firstly, I found it very offensive. To me there’s nothing cool about emulating the situation ill people find themselves in while in hospital.   Secondly, I’m certain that such an outlet in the USA, UK or Australia would be lambasted by the community and in the media. Is it different – sure. Is different always good? 

The interesting issue is this: What’s unacceptable in one  market, may be fine in another. The world is not a global village. Although we are experiencing convergence on a macro level, at a micro level, opinions and values will always differ.

Startups with global ambitions - take heed.

A way to give back to the community by creating jobs for local citizens

A hope to change the world in a positive way

Types of business:

• Entertainment: This includes film, TV, sports, theater, music, and travel.  Such business helps people be happy and enjoy their lives.
• Electronics: This include all devices that facilitate the transfer of information, whether it is a camera, a computer, or phone as well as cooking, health, and etc.  These devices again help people be happy.