Leadership

5 Reasons why you should bootstrap your business

1. When you take someone else’s money you answer to them. This will force you to make decisions differently and sometimes not in the best interest of the company (your company).

2. Constraints force creativity. It’s really healthy to ask questions like how would we do this with less money? How could we do this with no traditional marketing? How could we do this with less employees?

3. You might love what you’re doing and want to stick with it long term. Which leads us to the next point.

4. If you take in investors they’ll want an exit, that’s why they made the investment in the first place. What happens if they want out and you want to stay in?

5. You don’t have anything to lose. Seriously, this is a big deal. You don’t have a ton of money to build a business, so you don’t have a lot to lose. Big companies have everything to lose. You don’t, you can take risks they can’t, take advantage of it.

Here’s a great free resource from Seth Godin on Bootstrapping.

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Business, Leadership

Entrepreneur or freelancer?

A freelancer gets paid when he works.

An entrepreneur makes money while he sleeps.

A freelancer says, "It couldn't work without me."

An entrepreneur says, "Only tell me what happened today if it was an exception."

A freelancer takes his time and trades it for money.

An entrepreneur takes other peoples money and takes risks with it. He then (hopefully) sells the company and gives them 10X their money back.

One isn't better than the other. But it is important to understand which one you are.

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Tech

How I replaced Google Reader with a twitter list and hootsuite

I used to love Google Reader. It was a wonderful tool that brought all my favorite blogs together in one place and made them easy to read and share. It was great…until it wasn’t. It soon become one more inbox that I couldn’t keep empty. My unread items soon numbered in the thousands and then the tens of thousands. I felt guilty every time I logged in.

It seemed like the right thing to do. Find a good blogger and subscribe to their feed. Right?

But let’s face it, there are very few bloggers who put out a great post every time.

I’ve found a better way. I very seldom miss important posts and I read lots of posts that would never have shown up in my RSS reader. Here’s how I do it. I let other people that I trust and respect put my reading list together (and they don’t even realize they’re doing it).

All you need is a twitter list and hootsuite.

Create a twitter list of the people who matter in your space (or just use mine).
Open that list as a column in hootsuite and filter it for the keyword “http”.

That’s it. Now you’ve got a list of links your sources deemed important enough to tweet about today.

Give it a try. You’ll be surprised at the variety of content this surfaces. And if there’s any bloggers you want to make sure you read add them to your list. If they write a good post they’ll probably tweet about it.

How are you choosing what to read every day?

Leadership

Don’t mind the gap

The gap is the space between things. We usually look at the gap as a bad thing. Something to be avoided. Something to get past as quickly as possible. The gap between clients. The gap between jobs. The gap in the economy.

But what if we looked at the gap differently? What if the gap is actually an opportunity?

An opportunity to take stock.

To reevaluate.

And even an opportunity to change direction.

As I look back on my life and career, most of the gaps that at the time seemed painful, actually led to new and much more exciting opportunities.

Five years ago when I noticed that some of my largest advertising clients were reducing their spend I was facing a gap. It was that gap that caused me to question the fundamentals of marketing and the way business is being done. This resulted in my starting a consulting firm to help companies address these issues. If it hadn’t been for that gap I might not be doing what I love today.

Don’t mind the gap, embrace it.

How are you looking at the gaps in your life?

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Business

The fundamental question of marketing

What can I do to make it most likely that customer number one leads to customers number two and three?

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Leadership

Are you remarkable?

If you're having to ask your clients for referrals you're probably not going to get any.

Why?

Because you're clearly not remarkable.

How do I know that?

Because if you were remarkable they'd already be talking about you.

My friend Jason Roshek is a remarkable realtor. I know, because I find myself talking about him all the time. He's never asked me for a referral, but I've probably sent a dozen people his direction over that last few years.

Think about it. By definition, something that's remarkable is worth talking about. If no one is talking about you, you're not remarkable.

So, if you want referrals, quit asking for them and start being remarkable at whatever it is you do. Trust me, it works. Just ask Jason.

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Business

Why I love Chris Brogan and you should too

Chris Brogan is the real deal. At a time when so many are claiming to be be social media gurus, Chris embodies all that we love about social media. He’s honest, authentic and accessible.

His blog (which on some days is even more popular than Seth Godin’s) is one of the few I try never to miss a post from (to subscribe to his blog via email click here). His posts are consistently insightful and revealing. I also love his willingness to expose his challenges as well as his victories.

Chris’ bestselling book Trust Agents (Chris’s affiliate link) is a must read for understanding the new economy and Social Media 101 (Chris’s affiliate link) is the ideal primer for those wanting to understand social media.

On top of all this, Chris is genuinely nice guy. A good husband. And a good father.

Plus he doesn’t mind when I steal his blog post ideas…again.

And perhaps my favorite thing about Chris…his day rate makes mine seem like a bargain 🙂

Thanks for being an inspiration to so many of us Chris.

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Business, Life

Air Warrior Series: How I pack my REI Tech Beast 22

My buddy Chris Brogan recently did a fun video post showing how he packs his spiffy Eagle Creek Tarmac 22 (Chris’s affiliate link). I’ll be honest, I want his bag.

But, since I don’t have it, I thought I’d steal his concept and share how I pack my REI Tech Beast 22 (not an affiliate link, but only because they don’t have one). It’s pretty awesome too.

(If you can‚Äôt see this video in your RSS reader or email, click here.)

Entertaining side note: Throughout this video I refer to the fact that I’m packing for a one day trip. Ironically, I was wrong. It was actually a three day trip, and I got stuck in Chicago overnight on the way home. Let’s just say that extra pair of underwear came in really handy.

UPDATE: I just noticed that the REI Tech Beast 22 is on sale through memorial day for $124.99

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Business

Fear of sharing (or Why Zuckerberg is right about privacy)

In the eyes of the mainstream new media Mark Zuckerberg can’t seem to do anything right these days.

What I love about Mark is that he doesn’t care what the crowd thinks. And I believe facebook is better because of that.

Rather than succumbing to mob rule, facebook takes its own direction. The direction that Mark thinks is right. And when it comes to privacy I think he hit the nail on the head when he wrote recently on the Washington Post’s web site,

If people share more, the world will become more open and connected. And a world that’s more open and connected is a better world. These are still our core principles today.

That’s the core of his argument. The more we share, the better off the world is. And I for one agree.

We’ve been taught to be afraid of lots of things we don’t really need to be afraid of. It’s one of the ways that society controls us.

I believe there are three really obvious areas that we as a society stand to benefit if we conquer our fears and start sharing information we’ve been conditioned to think of as private. Health. Money. Location.

Imagine if everyone’s health history was anonymized and available in a database. If you were diagnosed with a certain type of cancer you’d be able to go online and look at accurate data on what treatment plans were available and what the actual outcomes were. But we’re so busy worrying about our personal right to privacy that we’re missing out on this amazing opportunity.

Look at the information that services like Mint.com are able to give us because we share our financial data. If I know that my utility bills are more than the average in my part of town, I can take steps to save energy. In order to know that, we have to be willing to share our data. Something we’re not going to do as long as we’re afraid to enter our accounting information into a website. The truth is it’s much higher risk to hand your credit card to a waiter (who then disappears for five minutes into another room) than it is to put your bank username and password into mint.

And then there’s location. Thanks to ridiculous sites like PleaseRobMe.com, much of the population believes its unsafe to share your location on social networks. The truth is if someone wants to rob your house it’s a pretty safe bet you’re not home from 9-5, regardless of whether or not you checked in on foursquare. The first time you’re able to connect with a friend in a distant city or try a new restaurant because a friend left you a note in foursquare it’ll begin to make sense.

So, I think Mark’s right. The more we share, the more connected we are. And the more connected we are, the better place the world is. Let’s overcome our fears and share our way to a better world.

What do you think?

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Jon Dale

Husband. Father. Adventurer. Agent of Change.

Author Archives: jonpdale

5 Reasons why you should bootstrap your business

Entrepreneur or freelancer?

How I replaced Google Reader with a twitter list and hootsuite

Don’t mind the gap

The fundamental question of marketing

Are you remarkable?

Why I love Chris Brogan and you should too

Air Warrior Series: How I pack my REI Tech Beast 22

Fear of sharing (or Why Zuckerberg is right about privacy)