When the Apple iPad comes out in a few months, I am sooooo at the front of the line. Yes, I am a full-fledged Apple-fanatic but honestly, when I first saw the iPad I really didn’t think I needed such a device. Over the last few weeks, I have done a 180, and now I wish I could go buy one today. I dream of owning one and how it will make my life complete, and possibly make me look taller.

The top 5 reasons I need an iPad as an internet entrepreneur:

1. I don’t like laptops: they are hot, the screens are small and I loathe the keyboard. Don’t even get me started on the trackpad, or whatever that annoying “mouse”-like thing is called. To me, they are big, cumbersome and awkward.Did I mention hot?

2. Although I love my iMac, it is lacking in one major thing … portability. It sits here all loverly in my office, but it is only useful when I am actually here. Which is not often anymore, see number 4.

3. So I need portability, that’s what my iPhone is for. I can tweet, check email, update Facebook and all sorts of other things, but the screen is small. Like really, really, really small. My eyesight is not what it used to be (probably from sitting in front of the iMac for 18 hours a day,wearing contacts and not glasses) and the thing is just too damn small to use for any length of time. It is perfect however, for playing Plants vs Zombies. And taking pictures (see #4).

4. See that tiny, sweet baby? The baby who is now crawling far from the places where we put her down? The baby who loves to chew on wires? And spends 3/4 of her day antagonizing the dogs? And seems to want to eat dog food? Yeah, that baby. She is creating massive amounts of havoc in my work mojo. In fact, I believe she eats my work mojo for breakfast and I don’t see it for the rest of the day. I can no longer get anything done. She is teething and has a cold, so naps are sketchy at best right now. That little girl, is the very reason I need an iPad, so I can get things done while being with her in a room without 400000000 wires.

5. While I am hanging out with the awake baby, as we do “the circuit” by moving from room to room to play with “new” toys, I can be doing things that will allow multi-tasking, like updating my Facebook Fan Pages, tweeting, participating in forums, answering emails, mild editing with the new Pages or Numbers apps for the iPad. All the little fiddly stuff you have to do during the day, and when she has her naps, is when I can get my serious, content-creating work done.

Will the iPad improve my productivity? I think so. Do I live in a dreamworld? Perhaps. Will my life be complete once I get an iPad? Possibly not. Will it make me look taller? Sadly, at 35 I am realizing I just may not make it to 5′ 1″, but my birthday is nicely tied to the release of the iPad, and dearest family, I will not take no for an answer.

What makes me want to write a blog about internet entrepreneurism? What makes me qualified? Hold on to your seats for the very exciting Christie Ingram, Internet Entrepreneur story. OK, it is not exciting, it is more slow and steady, maybe exciting if you love the children’s story the Tortoise and the Hare. If you have been at this internet game for any length of time, it is probably a lot like your story.

I can be described as a serial entrepreneur, I have tried a lot of things, made a lot of mistakes, had some successes and learned a ton along the way. Each one of my failures, or un-successes have given me the knowledge or skill to try the next thing.

It started in the early 2000s, my health problems made working outside of the house impossible. I know there are a lot of people out there, who like me, because of an illness, started their own businesses so they could work in the robe, take the time needed when not feeling good and not having to feel guilty about calling in sick - again.

My husband and I were always what I call “scheming” – dreaming up business ideas. We had been doing this since before we were married. We were both bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, and dreamed of having a successful company one day.  He was working full time at a bank, but he definitely wanted to work for himself one day. Suddenly, we had our chance …

We started off with an e-commerce store, which was fun. My husband built the store with Zen Cart. We sold pretty little gifts and accessories for women. I learned about meta tags and traffic and buying and all sorts of things. I also learned that Canada Post charges a lot more to ship than the USPS and since most of my customers where in the US, I was losing money fast. That really sucked, I was good at buying things that became popular, I loved it, we had customers, but was still losing money. Booooo.

During the e-commerce phase, I started learning more about getting traffic and affiliate marketing, thanks to the Thirty Day Challenge. I thought it would be awesome to use my love of makeup to create a site that had affiliate links and create a free social networking site (again, my husband built it, this time using Ruby on Rails) about people who loved makeup or wanted to learn about it. I created YouTube tutorials and had a great time, but the amount of time I put into it and the amount of affiliate sales (the $$$) did not equal out. I learned two very important lessons, first, research your market … it is a buying market or is it 12 year old girls searching for how to info. Secondly, it is better to build up a site and then incorporate a community aspect afterwards – the old cart and horse.

And that brings us to Ingram Internet Enterprises, that is what “our thing”. We create web apps for small businesses, both custom apps and apps we create and have customers (like Wigify, our affiliate marketing app / network). We are both working full time on it, at home, although we do have separate offices on separate floors.  He handles the coding, the  building of the apps and support, and I handle everything else. It is working out really well and it is so awesome to finally be living our dream.

I am adding this blog to the mix, because I feel there is a lot to talk about in the world of internet entrepreneurs. There are so many different ways to have a web company, there are lots of things to apply of all of us. This is not a “how to make money online” blog, I want to focus on the issues we face, new products and services that may help your business, interviews with other web entrepreneurs and just plain awesome stuff.

What I would love to hear: How did you get your start on the web? What kind of posts would you like to see on this blog?

Why start a blog? There are millions of reasons that people start a blog. People start blogs every day, and after a few posts, or a few weeks they give up. People start blogging because they feel like they have something important to say and want to get it out there.

I starting blogging here last year … and then stopped. You may start a blog and then your life goes all wacky.  Last year our daughter was born and who has time to blog when you have an infant? People with 5 nannies, that’s who. No time to blog, no time to shower.

Now I am ready to start blogging again, I am in the right frame of mind, I have learned a ton over the past year and most importantly, I have learned where I have gone wrong in the past.

If you think you may want to start blogging, ProBlogger has an excellent set of 23 questions to ask yourself in the post Is a Blog Right For You. That post was written 4 YEARS ago, but it is still as relevant today.

Don’t Make the Same Mistakes I Did

Blogging takes commitment and focus. Focus is needed in two ways, the first is to keep you on track writing, but also you need to chose a focus for your blog that is both narrow, yet wide. Your niche must be for a specific group of people, yet wide enough you will have plenty of sub topics to write about. I did not get that mix right the first time, my blog was like a cocktail mixed by a 5 year old.

When I decided to start blogging here again, I brainstormed a list of over 100 post titles I could write. Not only will brainstorm possible topics let you know if you are on the right path (if you get stuck at 7, you might want to switch the focus), but you also get to save that list and use them for the next 100 posts. Don’t you just love two-for-one exercises?

A blogger has to be a good writer … or at least want to be a good writer. Don’t even start blogging if you don’t want to write, or learn how to improve your writing. Do you like writing? Do you like editing? Oh, ouch, that’s a place where I went really wrong.  I would slap a post out, without proofreading it, without editing it, without having any real goals for the post. This is not a good way to blog. This is sloppy blogging – slogging. Readers want to have well thought out posts that have had time, thought and energy put in them.

Let your posts marinate for a few days, revisit them and see how you can improve them. The only way to successfully do this, is to have a few posts scheduled in advance, so you can tweak and alter them until they are just right. I am working on this post on Thursday, but it is not scheduled to go out until Monday. See? I am a new blogging woman!

I have also found new people, new blogs, new books that have opened my eyes and allowed me to grow. Lots and lots of cool stuff has been happening and I am excited to share it on this blog.

And here I am, back, focused and ready to blog. Although my blog doesn’t have a name so the topics can be a bit fluid, I really plan to focus on Stuff for Internet Entrepreneurs. Not only biz related stuff, but “lifestyle” posts too.

This blog may be for you if you like to read about:

• techniques like seo, link building, traffic generation, getting customers, building your list
• social media
• blogging
• gadgets and tools
• mobile web
• people involved with Internet Marketing, e-commerce, web design & coding, web applications & sites
• working at home, working by yourself, working with a small team
• working in your pajamas (which I do 99.9% of the time)
• working with kids

If you are not into that sort of thing, slowly back away and we will pretend you were never here. If you are, then stick around, subscribe to the RSS feed and I can’t wait to read your comments and suggestions.

To show I am not longer a sloppy blogger, I have edited this post many times. It is drastically different from it’s first draft.  Don’t be like I was, and embrace your inner Editor. I am not perfect, and I make many, many typos, but it feels good sending something out into the blogosphere that I really worked hard to make “just right”.

Now, let’s start blogging!

What have been some of your blogging mistakes?