Money Tools: Crowdfunding

Most companies need initial investments to get off the ground.  But what happens when you think you've struck gold with a great idea and don't know where to look to get the financing to back you.  Now there's a solution and its been around for quite a while.  Crowdsource funding is becoming more and more of a legitimate option for people around the world to pitch to the world their idea and the best part about it is you don't have to give up any equity to receive the funding to make your idea into a reality.  

These outlets such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo are great tools for young or inexperienced business owners to turn dreams into reality.  We've seen phenomenal success from companies raising as much as $8.5 million in funding from over 60,00 contributors for a gaming console on Kickstarter.  Now this is definitely a success story and doesn't happen all the time but it proves that it works.  56,872 projects have reached their target funding and only 6,138 projects raised less then $1,000 (statistics found on Kickstarter's statistics page).  

There are a couple of things that you have to keep in mind about choosing a crowd funding platform.  Although Indiegogo and Kickstarter will gain the most traffic for investors you will also be up against the best competing campaigns.  You want to make sure that potential backers won't look at your project page and compare it to a project that is more appealing and therefore your money will be lost to your competition.  So you need to analyze your company or product and ask yourself if you can compete with the big dogs.  It might make more sense to run your crowd funding campaign on a site like Rockethub.  Rockethub is great because it is becoming more popular for backers and they have programs like FuelPad and LaunchPad that will help you market, connect, and collaborate increasing your chances of success.  

Also look into crowdfunding sites specific to your field.  Appbackr is a site strictly for application startups or Quirky crowd funding for unique inventions.  

Any way you slice it crowd funding is a great opportunity for producing financial backing and is a very promising strategy.  

Innovations That Could Save Our Planet

Similar to the motivation behind social entrepreneurship, consumers feel more comfortable buying products from or investing in companies when they know their money is also going toward a worthy cause.  A very popular trend with forming new businesses is creating products or offering services that help preserve our environment.  So while you’re pondering your next big idea, think about ways in which common products harm the environment.  There might be a way to achieve your dream and AND help the environment.  We scoured over AngelList’s list of Environmental Innovation Startups to find a few companies that may help inspire you to consider solving the issues that plague our planet while starting your own company.

      1.     Tumml – I know it’s cliché to put the number one followed company on AngelList as my number one choice but Tumml is the epitome of lending a helping hand.  They are attempting to help guide startups that will help revolutionize the next batch of great environmentally friendly products.  It’s more of an initiative than a company but it's a great example of looking at the big picture when starting a company.  This is a mission driven business and I love that.

     

      2.     InnSania – this company has developed a sanitary way to reuse water in bathrooms.  It comes in the form of a module and is still in a development phase but holds great promise.  This company not only aims to providing sanitation to underprivileged companies but it also conserves water.  Any companies with a dual mission like this one always have a greater appeal.

     

      3.     Weekend Swap – A great way to share your outdoor toys with others while making a little money doing it.  I’m a little biased because one of the founders is Zio Ziegler, one of my favorite artists.

      

      4.     Synodon – Synodon has a much more serious tone then some of the other companies I featured because they have created a product that can be attached to helicopters and can sense where dangerous gas leaks may be occurring. This video will help explain.

Is It Getting Cloudier?

In an earlier post I described cloud data storage as an introduction to what can be used for remote document access and how it can be crucial in starting a business. Now you may be asking, ”He’s not going talk about clouds more is he?”  Well excuse me while I kiss the sky but cloud data storage is an immensely larger topic than just accessing your Rolodex and calendar.  In fact, you could say it is the future of business.

While researching data clouds I ran across a several articles that all fell together like pieces in a puzzle.  A theme I discovered centered around starting a business or career that would prove to be lucrative and in great demand.

The first was 3-D Printing, either as a start-up company or as an engineer.  This is an industry that has only just scraped the surface of it’s potential.  Regarding future engineers one article talked about how these companies are going to need people who can design and maintain the printers.  The article was very clear when it said, “A lot of things they’ll be printing will be expensive so the wages you’ll receive will be very generous.”

As a start-up, another article looked at forecasts for the industry as a whole. By 2017 it could hit $6 billion worldwide and $11 billion by 2021, and this is after already seeing growth of 28.6% in 2012 alone.  Companies are already obtaining funding by crowdsourcing and the industry could literally become filled with businesses that started in the garage only to become a 3-D printing monster, figuratively speaking of course. Personally I’m waiting to see if someone designs a 3-D printer that produces more 3-D printers.

Ok, but what about the clouds?  Cloud data storage will be essential here as engineers need to share information across companies and start-ups begin to expand.

The next theme was Online Teaching.  As a career the specialist teacher is in growing demand as “millions of people want to learn about specialist subjects.”  The teacher in the brick and mortar classroom could change to become the one in a “flipped classroom” and bump their income dramatically in some cases.

As a start-up “ed-tech companies explicitly seek to dismantle traditional education structures.” The question of funding, as of right now, is taken off the table if you have a quality idea and business model.  Names like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are only the most well known among the numerous parties wanting to get behind great ideas.

As for the clouds, well none of these can even take the first step if students can’t get materials or if a company can’t share their data.  This will prove to be a booming industry not only for getting to students but the development of education apps will also grow in the flipped classroom but probably ever more so in the traditional setting.

The last thread is about producing the clouds themselves.  The cloud data storage as a start-up is an exciting and potentially huge next step.  Consider the question, as industries migrate to cloud data storage what will they do about securing their information?

In comes the newest product, Virtual Data Rooms.  “Think souped-up versions of Dropbox for the corporate user.”  VDR’s allow companies a much more secure lock on their information and records by the ability to set different levels of access whether it’s to the customers or the different levels of their own management team.

VDR’s as an industry is only going to expand, according to IBIS, from the $628 million in 2012 to $1.2 trillion by 2017.  The costs center around the quality of your IT team and software you design.  Capital is definitely out there seeking investment into companies since the primary industries interested right now are banking and law.

Right now the industry is very competitive and dominated by the giants like Google and Microsoft but for the futurists out there, the true size and scope of this market will allow for very successful niches to be carved out.

This is just the first look at what’s being done in what we’ll call the Cloud Industry.  Going forward we’ll discuss some of the current success stories of individuals and companies and try to find more common threads and trends.

The future of technology is indeed built within the clouds.

Write It Down! : The Importance of Long Term Goal Setting

Having dreams of starting and running a successful company is important, but where do these dreams exist in reality.  Those dreams will only exist as just that, dreams, unless you right them down.  By having a physical copy or a blueprint of where you see yourself and your company in three years is invaluable to your success.  

By forcing yourself to do this simple task 3 things will innately occur.  

1. You will be able to ask yourself the same question over and over when facing small decisions: Will this get me closer to my goal of achieving success?  If the answer is no then you won't waste your precious time doing something that ultimately isn't worth your while.  It streamlines your success.

2. You will acquire a sense of urgency.  I can't stress this enough.  Urgency is a great motivational edge that you will have over your competitors because while they are contemplating how to accomplish the vision that they have in their head, you will be able to visually project wether or not you are getting closer to your goals.  When you are not, you will be motivated to get back on track.  Vince Poscente elaborates on using urgency as a tool that can be hard to come by in his blog post on the topic (http://bit.ly/1kb26ZY).  I've found that this can be acquired fairly easily through long-term goal setting.

3. It will teach you that their are no quick fixes to a solution and that success takes time.  You will stop attempting shortcuts that will ultimately take you two steps back because you will ask yourself before you attempt to take a shortcut that in the long run will this decision ultimately hurt my chances of reaching my goals?  If the answer is yes you will make the ethical choice and do things the right way.

So how do you do it?

1. Be specific.  Set a goal that you can pin point and measure wether or not you are on track.  Look at the difference between the goals for a hypothetical fashion company.

Scenario 1: In three years my company will be selling its products in retail stores along the East Coast.

Scenario 2: My company will have earned over 1 million in net sales and we will have solidified 3 contracts with separate retailers to sell our clothes.

By using specific values in your goal setting you will be able to visually compare your current margins with where you have set your goals.  

2. Be introspective. According to Peter Vanden Bos (http://bit.ly/1jC5UjU)  this will help you understand how your business ticks, what do you do well and who does what the best.  This should and will be a process that may seem counter productive at first but, will ultimately make your company more productive.  It will help isolate strengths and weaknesses and point out where you need to improve.

3. Do it now.  This will be a recurring theme in this blog and that's to start today.  Don't make it a short term goal to set long term goals.  Do it now. Before contemplating what the next step should be sit down and physically create the vision that you want your company to become and you'll be that much more likely to get there.

Mother Was Right

In a previous post we discussed the damage that can be done to our online reputation by the indexing that occurs whenever there is anything posted online, regardless of whether or not you deleted it.  The next obvious topic of discussion is, how do you overcome any potential harm from the past?

Going forward, you should only place things on the internet that casts a positive light on you?  There are countless pages of advice and research you can comb through but it’s really quite simple.  The best approach is to consider it as paying it forward.

From this day forward you, me, and everyone else should follow the lesson our mothers taught us; “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”  It all comes down to putting a polish on our SEO, (what comes up when a search is done.) What do people see when they do a search in Google?

As Lisa A. Sullivan, digital media marketing strategist, puts it , People do business with other people they “Like, Know, and Trust.”  She goes further telling us we should go out of our way to say something positive whenever we can.  A word of caution here, that can be taken too far as well.  No one likes the schmoe who goes out of their way to compliment how the boss’ ridiculous hair looks in a picture when it’s the worst hair piece ever.

Following Lisa’s advice, there are 3 practices that apply professionally and personally; “Be positive, informational, and helpful.” It’s basic common sense really and all it requires is a little consideration and there are some more in-depth tips out there but for now here are the basics:

1. Blogging may be the most powerful tool available especially for your business profile.  By posting helpful, informational content you take great strides toward improving your SEO.
2. Connect with others out on the web that are also offering positive information.  By linking to their sites you are making the connections that matter.
3. Social media and work are not the best combination.  You should avoid “Friending” anyone from work if at all possible.  There’s just too much potential for damage there.  I’m betting a Google search can help provide an excuse when needed.
4. On social sites like Facebook only accept contacts from people you have met and believe you can trust not to do the stupid things we’ve discussed previously.

By connecting with others who are being helpful and using a reaffirming approach in how we conduct all business and personal interactions online we start to improve our image online.  I propose that doing these things in person and not just online would also do us some good as well.

Look To The Clouds

Cloud storage usage has grown exponentially in the last few years.  When starting or expanding a business the importance of mobile data access only increases.  Cisco projects the increase in global cloud IP traffic to reach 443 exabytes per month by 2017. That’s equal to 1 trillion gigabytes or enough to hold all words ever spoken by human beings 443 times.  The days of carrying boxes of files in the trunk are behind us.  

So what is the best fit for your needs right now?   For simplicity we’ll focus on document cloud storage and compare systems by their cost and the amount of space we can get access to.  I would caution against trying a bunch of different systems simultaneously.  It can be extremely frustrating trying to find a file among several different clouds

The simplest solution at the start is a look at freemium products; Apple’s iCloud, Google Drive, and Microsoft SkyDrive.

Apple has placed a major focus on their cloud with their recent OS upgrades, Mavericks on Macs and iOS7 on their mobile platforms.  

The Cost: You get 5GB free and then ranging up to $100/year for 50GB more storage (that does not include your iTunes collection.)

The Catch: Your documents must be in their iWork format; Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.  In and of itself not a problem but their can be glitches in style and formatting when you convert them.

Having a Google+ automatically gives you access to Google Drive with tons of document types and flexibility in how you can utilize their service.

The Cost: 15GB free then up to $120/year for 200GB

The Catch: All documents moved to the drive are converted to Google docs format but there does seem to be less hiccups working with Microsoft Office documents.

The Windows equivalent of iCloud seems to make sense for many as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.  Personally I don't use them but the argument can easily be made for their utility as they are more universally used.

The Cost: 7GB free then up to 207GB for $100/year.

The Catch: Not much of one as this is suitable for Mac users as well.

This is just the tip of the iceberg with a multitude of sync options like Dropbox, SugarSync, etc.  I have even started using the WD MyCloud with our home devices and have found it very useful albeit much slower.

The choices are indeed plentiful and we can rest assured there are more coming.  If it seems a little overwhelming sometimes we can take comfort in knowing that, with more competition in the marketplace we benefit from more options and better prices.

Gaming and Mobile Go Hand in Hand

If you're thinking of starting your business in the gaming industry you might want to consider mobile as a platform to launch your first game. 93% of app downloaders who actually pay for an app pay for mobile gaming apps.  Another statistic to be aware of is that the smartphone gaming industry is expected to double by 2016  and 76 of the top 100 grossing iOS apps are games.  So here are our top 5 mobile or tablet games to model your progressive gaming company after.

1. NBA Jam -Booooom Shakalaka. If you ever owned a Sega then you know this game will be a hit.  Modeled after the Sega console game it brings high flying action and excitement to a gaming industry that is becoming redundant.

2. Field Runners - For only three bucks this game is a bargain.  I might be a little biased because I love tower defense games and this is by far the best since Bloons 3. So for me it was worth every penny but I could understand why you might disagree.  Either way at least give it a shot.

3. GalaxIR - This game connects you with other players around the world right from your phone.  Only for Android but it reminds me a lot of old arcade action games and your goal is to defeat the enemy.  How much better can it get?

4. Third Eye Crime - Great storyline and reminds me of Splinter Cell only for your tablet and much more simplified.

5. Dragon Up - If you think this game is targeted towards 10 year olds, you're wrong. You get to use dragons to throw up on the towns people and gain points for it.  I love it.

Statistics pulled from: http://skillz.com/blog/2013/03/05/65-mobile-gaming-stats-to-impress-your-friends/

What Mark Burnett Can Teach You About Starting From Scratch

Mark Burnett - Television Producer

There are so many great ideas out there that fail everyday or never even lift off the ground because people with those ideas think that they need substantial financial backing to get going.  But, if there is anything I learned from Mark Burnett's book "Jump In!: Even if You Don't Know How to Swim" it's that you need neither of those things (a great idea or financial backing) to get a company going. 

Mark Burnett is an extremely successful television producer.  He has created and produced several successful television shows that most people have heard of including Survivor, The Apprentice, the Voice, the Sing Off, and a show that I'm sure many of our readers are huge fans of, Shark Tank.  It's a little surprising that he produced Shark Tank because to me its a little misleading for young entrepreneurs who are lead to believe that if you have a cool idea and are modestly successful that you need to get a big investor to take you to the big leagues.  If you told Burnett that he'd say you're dead wrong.

I say this because Mark Burnett started working as a nanny and selling T-shirts on the Venice boardwalk when he moved to America.  With little money he was able to grow his T-shirt business big enough so that when the opportunity came around he'd be able to pounce.  After competing in an extreme race over seas called Raid Gauloises he found his big idea, and ran with it.  He had enough money to buy the rights to the race and started filming it and airing it on TV.  Long story short (if you want the full story read his book) he learned that it wasn’t necessarily the excitement of the race but the story lines and personalities of the people competing that viewers connect with and therefore tune in week after week.  Survivor (and arguably reality TV) was born and the rest was history.

If you remember my opening statement, I mentioned that the majority of young entrepreneurs who want to start a business never make the leap because they don't have an idea or have no backing.  Well Burnett's story proves you need neither.  Start from scratch. Burnett sold T-shirts.  I guarantee he didn’t want to start a t-shirt monopoly when he started but he new he was entrepreneurial minded.  So he jumped in and started something, anything he could do to make ends meet and was patient until the idea fell in his lap. 

What to take away from this…

1.         If you don’t have a great idea for a company and don’t want to work in finance for your uncle, start something to at least make ends meet and do it well.  (sell t-shirts, mow lawns, build websites, freelance design, etc.)
2.         When the opportunity poses itself, take it, and don’t look back.
3.         If your business isn’t taking off like you know it can, look at what’s making it somewhat successful and focus on strengthening that aspect.

Who to Watch Wednesday: Social Enterprises

When looking to start a new business venture you may want to ask yourself if it's benefitting the greater good. An extremely popular realm of entrepreneurship right now are companies participating in Social Entrepreneurship.  These companies focus on making money while working towards solving social issues.  Many of these companies draw upon strategies scene in the non-profit industry which helps getting people to purchase products where they know there money also goes towards helping someone else out.  In this weeks Who to Watch Wednesday we'll look at the top four start ups that are utilizing social entrepreneurship that you may have not heard of.

4. UrbnEarth - This company is "a social venture and community dedicated to empowering urban dwellers to live a healthier lifestyle."  Their main product that they released late last year is called the UrbMat and is a mat designed to help people create gardens who live in apartments or cities where large gardens would not be possible.  The mat that comes in 3 different dimensions organizes your garden and provides the appropriate spacing for your vegetables to prosper.  The UrbMat promotes healthier living in urban areas, overall benefitting the community.

3. Who Gives a Crap? - This start up focuses on distributing toilet paper that is produced without harmful chemicals.  Three guys based their company on the fact that 2.5 billion people across the planet don't have toilets and they wanted to fix that. These dudes promise that 50% of their profits are donated to WaterAid, a non profit organization that will help build toilets in third world countries. 

2. Serengetee - This is not your average t-shirt company.  Serengetee is a clothing distributor that features fabrics and patterns from countries around the world. Every pattern, mostly featured as a small pocket on t-shirts, is associated with a non-profit organization from its originated country.  Part of the proceeds are then donated to that organization.  Serengetee currently supports over 30 different causes around the world and has donated over $50,000.

1. LSTN - Out of all the companies featured in this post LSTN has the slickest looking and most attractive product to buy.  The reason I like this company so much as a social enterprise is that it doesn't just donate money to a certain cause.  It works alongside another organization, in this case Starkey Hearing Foundation, to make sure that for every pair of headphones sold a person in needs hearing is restored.

How To Ruin Your Reputation Before You Ever Made It

If your considering taking the first bold step into the world of entrepreneurism, be it online or brick and mortar, something you must consider at some point is your reputation.  Now you may ask, ”What reputation? I haven't even started yet!”  

After that perfectly natural query give yourself a moment to consider what would come across to someone considering hiring you if you showed them some of those pictures from your “younger days”.  Then give yourself time to think about all those posts on Facebook where you simply clicked the “Like” button and they were, shall we say,  “less than complimentary” comments about someone else.  Now consider this, in our digital age anything that’s put out on the web stays on the web.  Even if you deleted it, it is still out there in the aether we fondly call the internet.  Gives a whole meaning to the world wide web doesn’t it?

This article is not meant to simply scare the bejeezus out of you, or maybe it is, but to give you pause and consider the consequences of your online actions be they past or future.  We had the opportunity recently to hear a presentation by Lisa A. Sullivan, a digital media marketing strategist, on how to protect your online and professional reputation.  She began with the question, “ Have you ever typed something to go on social media that you immediately considered deleting?”

A rather provocative question indeed but as she next stated, “No other opportunity like the internet has EVER occurred where you can be permanently labeled.”  She explained how everything we put on the internet is indexed and could be found if someone wants to put enough time and effort into it.  You could potentially be connected to someone else’s possible offensive behavior, even indirectly, by that innocent enough “Like” you put on someone else’s joke..  

Because indexing does occur the damage can happen when a comment you intended for your buddies who “get your humor” is somehow connected, directly or indirectly, to those that actually mean to do harm.  There are countless stories of people’s reputation being savaged online and Lisa shared some with us.  One thing that was made clear is, the internet is a horrible judge when it comes to measuring sarcasm and tone and, it cares not what your intention may be.

Now it’s hard to imagine a potential employer or investor judging you too harshly for that awkward college picture of you doing a keg stand that may be out there tagged deep on a sorority sister’s Facebook page.  However, If there appears to be a pattern to your online behavior like a ridiculous amount of compromising selfies or less than tasteful jokes between friends then, you get the idea.  Your image could become that of someone who could possibly be a liability for a business who is thinking about hitching their wagon to you.

It’s sad but true, we live in an age where you can get sued for anything and first impressions can easily be your last ones on the internet.  Why do you think HR departments have become so important in the corporate world?  At least half of what they do are take measures to prevent against possible damage from employees’ foolish behavior.  PR departments almost always feel like they devote too much time to damage control and not enough to promotion.

While we can’t change our past we can make a difference in how we go forward.  We’ll take a look at steps we can take to repair any damage that’s been done in another post but for now it’s best to always keep in the front of our minds the old axiom, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”