Category Archives: Bootstrap

My Rapid Development Test

Bootstrap, Business, concepts, Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, Marketing, MLM, Money,

Let me tell you a quick story about part of my week.  I think this is how true Entrepreneurs operate.

On sunday I was sent a spam email for a service that looked fairly interesting.  For $39.95 per month it was interesting but I am cheap so I did not buy.  I forwarded the link to my business partner, mostly as a joke, saying “Look how easy it is to make money online.”  When he saw the page he thought I was right, and he asked me if we could do the same thing.  I thought about it for a few seconds and figured “Why Not”   So on monday afternoon we told a few others about our idea.  They really liked it.

I then wrote a plan of how to program it, it used some PHP and some other things that were above what I could do, so I wrote a project for it and tried to get a free lancer from Asia to it.  I had many freelancers talk to me about it but it seems that none of them got it, so I started thinking about how I could do it myself.  So all tuesday morning I worked on coding, and by tuedsay afternoon it was done.  I still had a few glitches and by wednesday morning it was totally complete.   We emailed it to a few people and they were loving it.  On wednesday we had our first customer at $20 per month.  Thurday we added a second.  On friday we talked with a guy who is confident that he will help us sell 50 sites.  We gave him a free account.  Now it is friday night, one more person just signed up for $20 a month.   I figure at this rate we should have 50 new people a month or MORE.

So lets recap.   We went from idea to profits in under 72 hours.  We have zero cost other than our time, and have $60 per month coming in already with much more to come.  I will keep you updated and in a few weeks give a total of how many people we have.

Rapid Development is the key to all of this, most people I know would not just jump in, they would hesitate, and then never do the idea at all.  That is what I would normally do, but that is why I have a business partner that likes to get thigs done.

One Simple Change that will rock your world.

Bootstrap, Business, concepts, Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, Investment, MLM, Money, real estate, The World, , , , , ,

I am sure that you have noticed that the media, and what people talk about has really become a bummer recently.  I mean all that I hear is doom and gloom.  It is a fact that the economy is slowing down and things ARE going to be much different in many different areas in the future.  Two main areas will be the availability of credit and the profit margins that companies have.   Many companies simply are too inefficient to stay afloat in this time.  Many companies will close and make all their employees go home, others will cut costs by eliminating employees, both of these factors will result in much higher unemployment.    Bills will go unpaid, people will be evicted, and the masses will feel generally negative.

So what can you do about all of this, for yourself and for your business?  Well the truth is that you must change the way you think about all of this.  Here is the real situation, there has been a shift happening for a while in the way business is done, the way money is made.  Knowledge is the key, creating a better system to do something and then implementing that system is the road to wealth in America now.  It has been so for a long time but the majority still can not see it.  In a time of change, like the one we are going through, there is unprecedented opportunity everywhere.  The larger the crisis the larger the opportunity.  And we are in a huge crisis, it is most likely that the opportunity will never be larger in your lifetime to make serious money, have serious success or to change the world.

So here is the basic change that you need to make.  Every time you hear someone say “Challenge” or “Crisis” or “Recession” or any of the other negative things you hear every day, constantly think “OPPORTUNITY”. Think about how the change has displaced old players and has make openings for you and your business to move forward.  When you hear about how someone can’t get a new car because of the credit mess, think about how money can be made keeping their old car looking like new.  When people talk about going out of business or they are clearing out their inventory to make payroll think about what a good deal you can get, and how you can buy more than you need and then mark it up to others once the sale is over.  (I do this on Laptops, buy at the clearance sales, and sell after the sale is over, or online to those that don’t know about it.)  When a company goes out of business you can look at the strong companies in the same industry and you have just found a good investment.  Best Buy is going to do great in 2009 when Circuit City is gone, that was the thorn in their side and it is gone.  And what about all those people who are out of work?  Well MLM sign-ups are at record levels, everyone is looking for an opportunity to own their own business, and people are putting much more effort into building those business.  Because of this so many new MLM companies have popped up, but many of them are not very good, please read about what makes a good MLM here.  When you see the real estate market just think about the fact that in the long run housing always goes up, and many cities have already started to show signs of recovery.  You can easily find houses that are great deals, get a tenant in there, and have much larger positive cash flow than has been possible for over two decades.  I know people buying houses with 20% down for under $120k and having payments less than $600 a month, then they rent it out for $1,200 a month.  Rental prices have not seen the drop that ownership has had.

So in every area that I can think of there is huge opportunity for the person and company that can see what if going to happen, figure out the correct change to make and implement that change quickly.  During this time you will need to break some ties with your old cash cow that has been paying your bills for the last few years, and focus on what is going to make you money in the future.  Many people will never be able to do this.  I know a very rich and successful guy who has not changed the way he has done business in years, his company has recently had to move out of two of their buildings, fire half the people and make some other huge changes, but they did not change the core of their business, and their business focuses on Luxury Construction supplies in Arizona, and I fear that this is not a market that will come back before this company is out of business.

So look for the opportunity in every crisis, embrace change and reap the rewards.

How to get office or retail space on the cheap

Bootstrap, Business, concepts, Entrepreneurship, real estate, , , , , , , ,

In the last decade I have chosen office or retail space for quite a lot of businesses. Much of this is about Arizona but it should mostly ring true for most of the nation.

Of course, if you have the credit the BEST space is one you can buy.  If you have enough cash and credit to buy a building 3-6 times larger than you need and then rent out the rest you are very lucky and this should be done whenever you can.   I know many businesses that decided to buy and they rent out the rest of the building for more than their entire mortgage.  Remember, the same is true in commercial as in residential, when you rent your cost will always go up but when you own you lock in your mortgage payment at the start, and you are paying it back later and at the same monthly rate for the term of the loan. (Usually)  I also know a few business that, after 10 years or so, hit a bump in the road and were able to take out some of the equity in their building to keep their business going.  Lack of access to credit is a quick way for a growing business to fail, or for an entire economy to falter.

Now if you must rent you still have many options.  You are the one picking the building so you get to pick your neighbors.  Spend a day talking to them before you lease, ask them how the foot traffic is, ask them about the amount and types of customers they have.  See if they sell products that will attract customers that may buy your products.  Back in 2001 I located a computer store next door to a cad software and training company, during the first few years we received many of our customers from them simply because they needed a computer to run their cad things.  In 2006 that company moved away.

You also get to pick your landlord.  I have found time and again that you really want a local landlord, the smaller the landlord the more they need you and also the more willing they will be to break the rules when and if you need it.  Also they are much more likely to be helpful if you get behind because they need you.  If you are dealing with a property management company with distant owners they don’t care if you live or die really, the property management gets paid both ways.

You also get to set the terms of the agreement.  Many landlords like to hide tons of little details in their contracts.  One even tried to tell me what hours I needed to have a store open.  Another told me where we could park.  Before you sign the contract you can negotiate on anything you like, and most of these clauses are easily removed.  But one thing that has saved me tons of money is agreeing to take units as is in exchange for many months of free rent.  Many landlords will pay people to fix up the space but if you are willing to take it as is you will get exactly what you want and you can save thousands of dollars.  In one example we got into a location in 2004 and received 4 months of free rent in exchange for taking the unit as is.  All we needed to do was paint, put in new carpet and run our networking cables, which would we have had to have done no matter what.  We got the carpet 24 months no interest, we had some of our employees paint the unit and our total immediate out of pocket cost was less than 1 month of rent.  We now had 3 months for free, leaving us money to get some nice furniture and such.  Another term we always have looked at is about competition.  We don’t want someone to open up who is going to take away our customers so we make a long list of things we do and put in the contract that no one else who does these things can move in. Another clause that we put in that is helpful is the first right of refusal.  Basically this states that if the units adjacent to yours are empty and someone is looking at renting it that the landlord must call you and tell you that someone new is getting ready to move in, you then have 48 hours to decide if you want it or not.  This is very important if you ever plan to expand without moving.  If you foot traffic mostly comes from an anchor store you should also put in a clause saying that if the anchor store goes out of business you will receive rent at half price, and after three months you have the option to dissolve your lease at any time in case you want to move out.  We used this clause once in 2006, and it saved us a ton of money when the albersons wanted to leave, we got out of the lease 2 years early.

Getting a buyers agent is a great idea, the landlord is going to pay for one no matter what so don’t just call his agent, get one of your own who will work for you and have them talk to the landlord.  They will fight harder and you will end up with a much better deal in the end.

Once you have the unit there are a ton more ways to save money, more on that in another blog.

Trade shows, a great source of leads, without even paying.

Bootstrap, Business, Computers, concepts, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, , ,

Trade shows, Fairs, Home Shows and such are common all over the nation.  For a small amount of money you can have your small business seen by the masses that come by your little booth.  They can talk to you, and hopefully buy your stuff.

But what if the product you sell is something that mostly businesses buy?  This makes a problem for you, if you get a booth at the show almost everyone who comes by will not own a business that you can sell to, you will spend a lot of time and money with little return.

I looked at this as a bootstrapping entrepreneur and thought this way.  There are 100’s of businesses at this show, most of them have the owner or decistion maker stuck in their booth and on a slow day they have very little to do.  So I figure out which day will likely be the slowest then I go there, I take my business cards and some flyers and start talking to business owners.

Today I went to a home show, I saw a few existing customer but I spent most of my time looking for companies that I could talk to about my products and services.  Of course I sell computers and web design.  Over 20% of the companies I talked to had an imediate need for one of my products or services.  I got their cards, wrote notes on the back and left the event a few hours later with 15 companies that I can call and do business with.  Where else can you make so many quality leads in such a short time, for free while having fun?

I have been doing this with great success for a few years.  A few times I have even had people write me checks on the spot.

So if you are lacking for leads for your business consider this as a great bootstap way to make some instant customers.