For many entrepreneurs, venture capital is like oxygen. They need it to kick start and sustain their business during those early days. Many are keen to seek tips on how to pitch, attract more dollars and be noticed by the right investor.

Yet entrepreneurs invest little effort in sourcing the one venture capital they own – the name of their business. They often pick the first name that catches their fancy. Or names that sound cool, are different or meaningful only to them.

The brand can be the most valuable asset any business can possess. What’s more, it appreciates in value as your business grows. Remember, it is the only asset that stays with you from day one until you decide to sell off or cease the business.

Having said that, I must admit naming is a tricky business. The possibilities are many. You can use any number of approaches – proper names, descriptive names (what your product or service does), coined names, metaphorical names, trendy names, playful names, and so on. Each approach can generate scores of options. However, the choices are usually limited: the business name may have already been taken, a related domain name may not be available, and the name itself could be disliked by those who matter and don’t matter (after all, everyone has an opinion about a brand) or it may have an undesirable meaning in another language or culture.

It is important to distinguish between a brand and a name. In my view, a brand is not a function of marketing but the very foundation of a business. I believe brand strategy is business strategy. Brand perception is all based on how the business behaves. And, brand value is what accrues to the consumer and the business. A brand is thus more than a name, logo, tagline, or color scheme. Even so, a brand name must be able to leverage the full potential of a business.

Many consider branding (i.e. naming) as a creative task, not a strategic exercise. Strategy is seen as a clinical, almost boring discipline involving research and analysis while creativity is something that is exciting and glamorous. Yet strategy that is not creative cannot differentiate and will fail to create a competitive advantage. Similarly, creativity that is not strategic cannot deliver lasting business results.

How do you find a name that is both creative and strategic and why is that important?

Increasingly, I notice that brand names are becoming more and more bizarre – trying to be different but not necessarily differentiated. This is because it is no longer possible to find a name that is readily available. If you are a large corporation with significant resources, you have the dollars to establish a new brand name even if that doesn’t mean anything.

But if you are an entrepreneur, it is important that your brand name stands for something, or else you end up working harder and longer without ever building much equity. There is another reason why a brand name should convey meaning. Every time a customer, an employee, a supplier, a business partner or the community connects with your brand, it presents an opportunity to rediscover what you stand for, your core brand property or your value proposition.

Let’s take nudie for example. It is a clever brand name not just because it has some shock value, or was something unique in its category when it was first launched. All this, but more importantly, nudie represented a ‘natural state’ with no artificial trappings. It communicated the core property of the brand – 100% juice, no preservatives, no colourings, no added sugar, not from concentrate, a simple thirst quencher. Nudie thus became a metaphor for natural. Apple is also a metaphorical name but I forbid myself to indulge in any brand overkill.

iSelect on the other hand is a descriptive brand name which does the job of conveying several things all at once. It says that brand offers choice, it reinforces the power of the consumer (I select not you) and it suggests insurance in a subtle way. Thankfully, it is not another of those “i-hyped” new products. By being strategic and creative, a brand can imbue meaning and be different at the same time.

On the other hand, choosi uses the same principles although not as well — and importantly is unable to differentiate operating in a similar space.

I once did some qual research on the use of cycleways in Western Sydney. An important insight was the fact that cyclists and walkers are strange bedfellows. Neither likes the other to share their territory while recognising the inevitability of it. It was important to signal the fact that the pathway belonged to both pedestrians and cyclists and was intended to be a shared space. However, the cycleway brand didn’t help much. I suggested that they rebrand the paths as pedways as short for pedestrian way and pedal way tied to an emotive message about sharing the facility. I am yet to see that happen but I hope you can see how a little bit of extra thought can make any brand meaningful.

I could cite scores of other (more high profile) examples from my strategy consulting work or my creative naming business that use opposites, compound words, metaphors, playful words ….but all I want to leave you with is the thought that your brand name is your hidden venture capital. Invest some serious time in it before you launch your next business, product, service or feature.

Fingerprint reveals currency photo from Shutterstock.

Your Brand: Your Hidden Venture Capital is a post from: Fuel Your Venture

You probably know Chris Guillebeau, who really hit the radar in mid-2008 with the well-received release of his manifesto, A Brief Guide to World Domination. When it came out, I was a freelance writer and editor — as I had been my entire career at that point — writing pieces about the work revolution that was approaching, where the industrial model would start to become obsolete and people would increasingly act as free agents, working on their own terms from their preferred locations, as contractors, entrepreneurs and often a mixture of both.

But outside of the insular circle that was already reading these pieces, the average person was scoffing. I recall my in-laws, in particular, continued to condescendingly insist that I get a real job. It didn’t matter when my income outstripped theirs — it was still a silly hobby, a childish waste of time before I’d grow a pair, put on a suit, and start interviewing for jobs.

Just a few years ago, people were still laughing at those of us forging our own paths, regardless of how our bank accounts were doing. But now, the reality is starting to sink in: the modern age and all its tools has created a world where we can test business ideas quickly and cheaply and make our living on our own terms with relative ease.

The problem is that many of these people still don’t know how it is done. That’s where Chris Guillebeau’s newest book, The $100 Startup, comes in. With Guillebeau’s trademark mix of pure practicality, entertaining anecdotes and motivating pieces such as the opening Manifesto, The $100 Startup promises to show you how to gain personal freedom and make a living doing what matters most to you.

The focus of the book is on building microbusinesses. These are businesses that require a next-to-zero capital outlay, and have skills you can pick up without heading back to university. Despite the name, there’s no cap on income for a business to fit the criteria, but the goal is that a microbusiness will be just big enough to suit both your lifestyle and income needs, and no bigger.

This is what Guillebeau himself did — not for the first time — in 2008, when he started a blog, published a manifesto, and figured out what people wanted from there. He was most frequently asked about getting good airfares and traveling around the world, so his first product was an ebook called the Discount Airfare Guide. Today he sells a whole range of products that teach people how to dictate their own careers and take control of their own lives, which can be found at Unconventional Guides.

What will you learn from The $100 Startup specifically? For starters, how to identify the value that you can offer and test your business idea. How to nail your business plan, without producing some useless, novel-length behemoth. Chris talks about creating offers, launching products and marketing them the right way. And, finally, he talks about growing your business once it has been launched, how to franchise it, and how to determine how big you want to grow it and how to maintain that size.

If you want to fuel your venture without going through venture capital hell, The $100 Startup could be the book for you. Check it out.

Fuel Your Microventure: Chris Guillebeau’s The $100 Startup is a post from: Fuel Your Venture

A four leaf clover

Today I’m stepping in as editor of Fuel Your Venture, but because it’s Saint Patrick’s day I’d like to explore how the leaves of an old Celtic symbol can relate to the approach you take with your start up. Let’s take a look!

Faith

If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you’ve probably heard your fair share of ”so, when are you going to get a real job?”. And if you’re like most entrepreneurs, you don’t let it get to you … you push forward because you know what you’re working on is going to be awesome. It may not be for everyone, but it’s going to very exciting for someone.

Hope

It always surprises me to hear entrepreneurs reveal, “I didn’t expect this,” when asked about their success, because at the heart of every venture there’s someone with a lot of hope. If there weren’t, the venture wouldn’t last very long. You have to hope for the best, always.

Love

You’ve gotta have that passion if you want your startup to grow and take off … and the only thing that fuels passion is love. No one else is going to love, let alone care, about your project … so the love better be coming from you. If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you aren’t making any money on day one … or day 30 … 60 … or even day 365, so you better be sure you’re in love with what you’re doing because chances are it’s not going to pay the bills in the early days.

Luck

The fourth, and most recognized virtue of the four leaved clover, is luck … and despite your hard work and talent, you’re going to need a bit of this as well. Talent and hard work will definitely get you places, but it’s the bit of luck that gives you the curveball you need. In most cases, you’ll experience luck because of your hard work. Ask most entrepreneurs and they’ll reveal that had they not made the effort to merit an invite to some networking event, they never would have met the person that took interest in their idea and introduced him or her to their associate, who eventually funded their venture.

Keep these four virtues close as you set out on your venture, as they’ll always guide you in the right direction.

Who is this leprechaun?

If you’ve stuck around this far, I suppose I better reveal a bit about who I am and why I’m stepping in as editor here at Fuel Your Venture.

My name’s Christopher Rice and I’m the editor over at Fuel Your Blogging. Though I’ve been blogging for a while now, I’ve always had that entrepreneurial spark people talk about. I began early … fourth grade I believe … by going door to door selling mistletoe I’d cut from trees and packaged to celebrate the holiday season. It was a hit … even triggering copycats in the neighborhood, though my packaging was better.

Blogging appealed to me because it was immediate and required little dependence on anyone.

As I grew as a blogger, I began creating premium solutions for the communities for which I was publishing. It was until recently I teamed up with my cousin and began a stand alone venture. I’ve already learned a lot, but I hope to continue learning and relaying that knowledge to you so you can make informed decisions for your own ventures.

Looking forward to exploring the world of the startup venture with you guys!

Connect with me on twitter @ChristophrRice

Christopher steps in as editor of Fuel Your Venture is a post from: Fuel Your Venture

Tech Education Today

The education of real computer science skills, that lead to independent creation and innovation, is utterly lacking. Over the past decade, a time that has seen amazing advances in technology and the scope of things that are possible online, education has turned backwards to focus on subjects such as writing documents in word processors, creating presentations, and basic computer use skills. However, a lot of children can already do these things; they learn them naturally through growing up with computers as well as being taught by tech-savvy parents and older siblings. So why are schools stuck teaching them?

Technology education should be focused on proper computer science skills such as basic programming, how computers work and learning to understand the hardware and software behind them. Learning these things would empower children to be able to go on and really make a difference. By teaching these skills we would be instilling children with a passion to create and innovate, and the knowledge necessary to do so.

Someone who recognises this, and has done something amazing to bring about this change, is David Braben, founder of UK development studio Frontier Developments. His solution has been to create an incredibly low-cost PC, to be given to children for free, in order to allow every child access to really understanding how computers work. David’s aim is to stimulate the teaching of basic computer science in schools, and to excite and produce passion in the same children that are currently left uninspired and ignorant about the way computers work by today’s ICT classes.

The $25 PC

The PC consists of a USB stick, with an HDMI port on one end and a USB port on the other. This allows the PC to be connected to any monitor with an HDMI socket, and then to a keyboard. Just like that, you have a fully-functioning machine running one of four versions of Linux, including Ubuntu, allowing it to handle web browsing and run office applications.

The hardware packed neatly into the tiny casing is impressive, punching way above the weight you might expect from something that can fit in your pocket or on a key chain. The 700MHz ARM11 processor is coupled with 128MB of RAM and runs OpenGL ES 2.0, which allows for decent graphics performance with 1080p output confirmed. In terms of storage, the PC uses SD cards, currently used by all the leading digital camera companies.

Raspberry Pi

David’s venture is called Raspberry Pi, and is part of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. This UK registered charity has been set up to promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level, and to put the fun back into learning computing.

The idea behind producing and distributing this ultra-low-cost computer is to be used in teaching computer programming to children. The Raspberry Pi Foundation hope that teachers, developers and the government (three groups of people who generally do not collaborate nearly as much as they should) will come together in order to put the PC into the hands of children who might not otherwise have such ready access to a computer.

Its accessibility and low cost are also hoped to encourage children to become interested and excited about what is inside this, and every, computer. They will be able to break it apart, inspect it, mess about with it, and tinker under the bonnet.

Teaching Innovation through Innovation

The hope is also that educators will build upon this cheap, accessible device to come up with new, exciting ways to teach the real skills necessary to use computers to their full potential. The Raspberry Pi is perfect for school and college courses to be built upon, providing the means to inspire children to learn a bit of programming and to understand their computers better.

With innovative ventures like Raspberry Pi, we can encourage and enable schools to shift the way in which they teach computing. Hopefully this change will move towards teaching children deeper knowledge of the computers we use, and providing them with skills of real value. Also, the excitement that such projects will inspire could lay the foundation for the next generation of passionate and creative programmers.

Do you think the $25 PC has the potential to change computing education in our schools? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Images courtesy of CriticalGamer.co.uk and RaspberryPi.org.

The Importance of the $25 PC is a post from: Fuel Your Venture

When I asked Brian how he convinced investors to back his company at such a young age, a time when most enterprising minds don’t have the credibility to attract clients let alone backing, he chalked it up to building relationships.

Wong is quick to give credit to the mentors who have been instrumental in providing him with advice and introductions. He references Matt Van Horn, who recruited Wong to work at Digg, Chris Redlitz of startup accelerator Kicklabs, Eghosa Omoigui of Intel Capital and prolific venture capitalist Mark Suster.

The art of building the right relationships, says Wong, is all about hustling, and opening up once you get an introduction. Certainly not run of the mill advice in an industry where a cloak-and-daggers approach to new ventures is the norm.

Brian’s first venture was Followformation, a production of the company he started to offset the costs of his university degree. The service is a Twitter directory of sorts, making it easier for users to follow others by interest or location, and garnered a lot of attention when it launched in 2009.

Wong has since shifted focus to a new project: Kiip.me, a mobile advertising platform for Android and iOS devices. It’s a novel twist on ad serving: get the user while they’re on an endorphin high after earning an achievement in a game, and offer them a real-world reward for it — perhaps a free product sample for killing a certain number of green pigs.

It’s for this project that Wong earned his title as the youngest entrepreneur to secure venture capital. He takes the record from Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg, who took funding from True Ventures — also one of Wong’s investors — at the age of 21.

Brian believes that mobile advertising is the next gold rush, and that attacking it from a unique angle as Kiip.me does is a sure way to provide a return on investment for his venture capitalists. We’re watching with interest to see what Wong makes of his first funded venture and how it pans out for his investors.

Image Credit: screen capture from this Kiip video.

Brian Wong: The Youngest VC Funded Entrepreneur is a post from: Fuel Your Venture

Herold has just released a book — Double, Double — and in it you’ll find more than 200 pages of practical advice with the goal helping you double profits within three years.

The book covers strategies on everything from hiring to marketing to productivity, and a quarter of the book deals with the crucial subject of leadership, which Herold believes is a defining factor in the success of any business. As he says in the book:

“As an entrepreneur, your attitude and actions dramatically affect the company culture. If those around you understand the roller coaster you are riding, they will be better prepared to enjoy the ride and help you focus on the Painted Picture.”

But Double, Double isn’t just for established businesses. Cameron says the principles within apply just as much to making the first dollar out of a new venture as they do to doubling the revenue of established companies.

“If you are an entrepreneur and want to be the leader of a $500,000 to $50 million company, you have to focus intently on everything you do to grow quickly and successfully. Everything must be on target and geared toward that specific growth goal. This book will show you how to double your company’s revenue and profits through the simple, actionable steps of focused planning, focused building, and focused leadership. These are systems that every early stage and mature company needs to know,” says Herold.

Herold offers a free chapter for download at the book’s website, and it can be purchased in bookstores or from Amazon with a list price of $22.95.

Cameron Herold in Double, Double: It Comes Down to Focus is a post from: Fuel Your Venture

According to the Startup Roots website, students are immersed in a 10-week fellowship program in the San Fransisco Bay / Silicon Valley startup community and will meet CEO’s and executives at the most innovative companies in the world. A weekly speaker series features industry CEO’s, Venture Capitalists and thought leaders talking on a variety of topics ranging from the history of startups to to how raise money for a company.

Why are summer internships important to students? Founding member Himani Amoli explains, “Experience follows you forever. Working at a startup, you’ll undoubtedly work on substantial projects that contribute to the growth and direction of the product. Whether its product marketing or feature development, these are tangible experiences that you’ll be able to speak to for the rest of your life. Many of the other summer options won’t be able to provide this.”

Early-stage startups with a viable market opportunity and full team are encouraged to participate in the program. Startup Roots can be leveraged to help find and match startups with, what they describe as, elite student interns. Their internship program may also be integrated into existing programs within your company. Find out how.

Startup Roots was founded by Himani Amoli, Gagan Biyani, Andrew Chen, Lou Hong and Ajay Kamat. Prior to launching Startup Roots they worked for industry leaders at Accenture, Microsoft, TechCrunch, Brocade Communications, and Deloitte Consulting.

The Summer 2010 program has already begun but for additional information you may follow the StartupRoots blog to learn more about their Summer 2011 program.

Matching Interns with Startups: Startup Roots is a post from: Fuel Your Venture

Last week TechStars held its “Demo Day”, the final step in the incubation process. The Demo Day gave the startups the chance to present their work to over 300 potential investors in an 8 minute pitch. When asked about the event Liam Davis-Meade, CTO of ScriptPad, a service that turns digital devices into prescription pads for doctors, referred to the final day as “a weird mix of exhilaration and relief, tempered by [the fact that] now the real work begins. It was the first step, a big step, in a long series of steps.”

While the Demo Day is the climax of the program, the real value of TechStars is found in the three-month process as a whole; as the co-founder of Rent Monitor, who develop management software for landowners, likened the process to getting an MBA in three months.

All of the founders worked in the same workspace, receiving instruction from TechStar’s Mentors, in fields such as legal, business development and finance. David Cohen, TechStars CEO, said that mentors are brought on through personal connections and because they know they are “awesome”.  While several founders referred to the mentors (Eric Reis, Don Doge and Dave McClure to name a few) as the most valuable assets, they also praised the value of working with the other founders. The relationships built between the companies even paralleled, by ScriptPad’s CEO Shane Taylor, to a fraternal bond.

Seed accelerator, angel groups and start-up pitch events have become increasingly popular over the past few years with the success of Y Combinator and Techcrunch50 (newly re-branded as TechCrunch Disrupt). These programs have opened the door for early stage startups and investors alike. John Laramie of ADstruc, an outdoor billboard marketplace and TechStars graduate, credits these programs as the “driving force behind mentoring, supporting, and launching successful companies.”

Below is a list of the companies that took part in the TechStars 2010 Boulder class:

ADstruc

ADstruc is an advertising marketplace for outdoor billboards. Ranging from Times Square wallscapes to billboards on the back of bicycles ADstruc looks to become the Google AdWords for the large outdoor advertising format.

BlipSnips

BlipSnips is a tool for adding interactive annotations to online video. These annotations make it easier for viewers to share specific moments in content, engaging the viewer and those they share with online.

Kapost

Kapost is a social publishing platform that allows the audience of a site produce content for it. It currently works within blog frameworks such as Wordpress and Drupal. Watch their commercial to get a sense of what Kapost offers here.

Omniar

Omniar is a visual search platform that can be utilized through an open API and is currently open for beta testing.

Orbotix

Orbotix, formerly Gearbox, is an advanced toy company. Currently their flagship project is a ball controlled via smartphone. They are currently looking to develop beyond the simple ball game with their API.

Rent Monitor

Rent Monitor is a management dashboard for landowners to manage their properties and simplify the process of running their business

Round Pegg

Round Pegg is a service aimed towards finding employees that will fit company culture and eliminate the mess a miss-hire causes.

Spot Influence

Spot Influence is a curated search engine where users are provided information from the top influencers of their desired topic. This is done primarily through social media keywords.

ScriptPad

ScriptPad looks to turn digital devices, currently the iPhone and iPad, into digital prescription pads. The elegant solution to messy handwritten prescriptions that may be filled incorrectly while digitally documenting the process.

StatsMix

StatsMix is a customizable dashboard for companies to display data and analytics for their websites and APIs.

Vacation Rental Partner

Vacation Rental Partner is a management tool for those who rent out their vacation homes as opposed to hiring a management company, keeping control in the hands of the owner and minimizing cost.

TechStars Graduate 11 More Startups is a post from: Fuel Your Venture

Between 1980 and 2005, virtually all net new jobs created in the U.S. were created by firms that were 5 years old or less. Robert Litan, (VP of research at the Kauffman Foundation) 

As we consider the economic upheaval of the last couple of years, the questions are clear and daunting.  Where should our priorities lie? What do we promote and what do we stand behind?

If you believe Litans research, our economic future lies with the startup and the humble (or not so humble) Entrepreneur.

Ask a dictionary and you might walk away believing that ‘an entrepreneur is a person who has possession of a new enterprise, venture or idea and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome.’ – To those of us who live it, its more than the enterprise.  Its more than money. Its the drive to pursue a vision, a passion for the unknown, mixed with a slight addiction to the risk. I cant help but smile at Roy Ash’s take… “An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.”

So a petition has been started (by the Grasshopper founders)  with the Kauffman Foundation’s support, to create a nationally recognized Entrepreneurs’ Day as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week – starting November 19th of this year and every Friday of Global Entrepreneurship Week thereafter. They need a million signatures.

According to organizer Siamak Taghaddos – Entrepreneurs are America’s real “bailout” in the sense that by investing in them and their ventures, we would stimulate a real economic turnaround. Whether or not you agree with the politics, entrepreneurship is a vital part of any economic stimulus – so why did it seem like no one was talking about the lack of investment in the future of entrepreneurs? (you can read about more of his motivations here)

Never ones to miss a marketing opportunity, the grasshopper team have created a beautifully executed mo-graph video for the movement.  So take a few minutes to be reminded about what it means to be an entrepreneur. Then head over and sign the petition.

Although on the cheesy side, I cant help but feel that a day to remember the people who have done big things and more importantly dreamt big, is exactly what the world needs right now.

Join the entrepreneur movement. Stimulate the economy. Spread the word.

http://entrepreneursday.org

The Economic Answer? Entrepreneurs’ Day. is a post from: Fuel Your Venture

Do you have an idea for a great new web site or web service that helps solve a real problem or provides useful content or a helpful service? Do you want to move forward, but aren’t sure how to get started or if you even should? I discussed this question with Kevin Hale, co-founder of Wufoo, and asked him to explain how Wufoo came up with their idea and how they went from idea to actual product.

Kevin, who was involved in the original idea for Wufoo and how did it come about?

The company was founded by Chris and Ryan Campbell and myself. In 2003, I was doing some writing and design for a small division at a research university when I met Chris, who was doing some web application development there. Chris introduced me to his brother, Ryan, who at the time was still a student and writing all the database programming examples for his professor’s computer science textbook. For about a year, we talked constantly about how frustrating it was to build these really boring forms and databases for our employers, who failed to appreciate how much tedious work was involved just to create something simple as a contact form or an online survey.

I think we can all relate to similar frustrations we encounter in our jobs, and many times, though we think of helpful solutions, it’s difficult to get past just talking about it, and actually get started on building something. How long did it take between when you had the idea until you began to take action on it and how much decision making went into deciding it was a good enough idea to proceed?

While we thought about the idea around 2005, we didn’t start writing the first lines of code until after we got accepted into Y Combinator in January 2006. We knew right away that it was a good idea, the trick was figuring out how to architect our time to give us the opportunity to just sit down, focus and build a prototype. While we started off on the bootstrapping route, it wasn’t until we got funding that we were able to work on it full time.

Many startup teams find themselves in the situation where they work a full time job while trying to build the startup, and they also have to bootstrap it as well. Do you have any advice to startup teams in this position?

Successful bootstrapping is all about discipline and stamina. Every scenario I’ve ever heard is some variation of coming home exhausted from regular work and figuring out how to muster additional energy to do more work. There’s no secrets from what I can remember from our own experience and from what I’ve seen others try. It pretty much sucks. Especially if you like anything else interesting in your life…like family, friends, hobbies, relationships, etc. My advice is that you remember your motivations and do what you can to stay positive. I honestly believe that if you figure out how to dedicate a solid few hours of work every single night to your side project, there’s no way it doesn’t manifest into something. It might not go exactly as planned, but something always happens. Oh, and document everything. People are voracious for the products of productive people. There is some wild fascination by all of humanity about those moments that show how things happen behind the scenes. That knowledge and more specifically that kind of sharing attracts not just an audience but potential fans—people with an intimate understanding of your process, justifications and roots. That’s invaluable.

What were the first steps of action you took once you decided you wanted to build Wufoo?

On the steps of the Austin Convention Center at SXSW Interactive 2005, all three of us were talking after a day of panels and we decided that there was absolutely nothing separating us from any other successful person at the conference. That’s when we decided to start a blog and that lead to a magazine that we charged for, to help us moonlight program at nights. Eventually, we got inspired, scored some seed funding through Y Combinator and built something that liberated us from the land of the cubicles.

It sounds like the first thing you had was confidence, which is something I find lacking in a lot of individuals who wish they could build a product or a service, but don’t feel they have what it takes. And yet, as you said, there really is very little in skills and experience that separate those who succeed from those who never start, other than the commitment to do so. You said you decided to start a blog first. Was that in order to build credibility, an audience, something else? How long did you run the blog before starting to build Wufoo?

All of the above. It’s not even our formula. We heard this strategy for the first time from Jason Fried of 37signals fame at a session at SXSW many years ago on doing big things with small teams. They started their relationships with their users with their blog Signal vs Noise long before they built Basecamp and we all know how that story is going (hint: well!). Anyway, we ran Particletree for about a year before we got into Y Combinator.

I know from experience that sometimes the most difficult part of getting started with an idea is choosing the name and the url for it, and some teams also have to decide what platform to build it on. At what point in the process did you choose the name and the url, and decide on the technology platform?

The name came up some time after a few weeks of coding. One of the people accepted into Y Combinator at the time was Beau Hartshorne, the creator of instantdomainsearch.com. He did all this crazy algorithmic domain name availability matching system and was able to give us a list of 5 letter domain names that were still available. We all went through the list and Wufoo just jumped out at me. I really liked it because it was a combo of two bands I really liked : Wu-Tang Clan and Foo Fighters. I kept saying over and over and eventually it stuck. The platform was based on what we knew well at the time from working on Particletree, our web development experiments blog at the time.

When during the process did you bring on other members to the team or involve other people to help you build a product ready for launch?

So we started writing the first lines of code in January 2006 and we launched later that summer in July of 2006. It was still just the founders then doing all the development. We did, at the time, outsource our server management to a boutique company based in San Francisco at the time called Bitpusher. They handled all of our infrastructure, hardware and networking needs since that wasn’t our strong suit. Because we were (and still are) a small team that desired to stay a small team, we didn’t hire for almost two years.

What are the advantages of staying small? What would you say to Founders and CEOs who want to hire a large team right away in order to speed toward the final product?

Honestly, best of luck to you. And I mean it. I don’t believe in the idea that there’s only one correct way to build a company. Companies that make a lot of revenue tend to be big companies. So if you want to make gobs of money, there’s a pretty strong correlation there. A few things that we like about staying small is the discipline it places on everyone to make the most of our resources to serve a large and growing audience of users, the very intimate and positive culture we’ve been able to develop that we’re very proud of, and because we are a company that offers a profit sharing plan with employees, the math works out in our favor if we keep it small.

Did the original idea go through many changes from what we see today?

The initial vision of Wufoo was actually as an ASP content manager with the ability to allow for unlimited inputs and reversible forms, which means they could be used for both backend management and public submission. Basically, the worst elevator pitch ever described. As we wised up, ASP turned into PHP and we tried to narrow our focus to form building.

What forces helped you to ‘wise up’? Was it bouncing your ideas off of others, or just you zeroing in on it as it came together?

Well, PHP was open source and therefore free and for a startup that’s a big thing. Plus, they have a great community that’s easily accessible and so that was also part of the calculations over a language like .NET. The form building angle actually came from Paul Graham, one of our investors who serves as one of the partners over at Y Combinator. What we kept describing required a lot of words and that’s terrible in a pitch situation. Since our focus was creating a UI to design the front end easier while we magically take care of the backend, it just made sense to distill it down to what makes sense from the user perspective. Content Managers, Database Application Creators, Spreadsheets and Form Builders are really all variations of the exact same concept and principles. How you choose to describe yourself is really a marketing angle and at that time, the space was ripe for something new in that category.

When and how did you decide on which features were necessary for the initial launch?

In the beginning we started off with this giant grocery list of all the features we could ever think could go into Wufoo. Fortunately, we had a very real deadline created by Y Combinator that required us to have some sort of working prototype to show off to a room full of investors in three months and so that kind of constraint resulted in us removing almost 50% of the features on that initial list right away. The next deadline we made for ourselves came out of wanting to give an exclusive to TechCrunch on launch on July 5, 2006. To reach that date, we paired down our ideas to the most basic things we could think of to get a user going from build form, view entries, edit entries, design styles and create reports. That came out to something like 30 features I think. That said, we weren’t super specific and were still over zealous about our ambitions and skills and so we actually had features on that initial 30 that we didn’t finish until just this year (4 years later!).

I think its very difficult for us founders when we are passionate about providing a solution to a problem to stay focused on the essentials. You mention that a hard deadline helped you stay focused and that reminds me of building PeepNote for the Rails Rumble. We had a very real deadline of 48 hrs from when we started, and throughout that time we continued to drop features that weren’t as important. We were very aware that some product had to be launched by the end or we were out. I think deadlines like this can really help teams focus, but, not everyone is competing in a competition as we were, or given a deadline by investors as you were. Do you have any suggestions for startup teams who don’t have an externally forced deadline, but still need to resist the urge to add endless features, and take far too long to deliver a product?

You’re right, constraints in the form of deadlines really help people focus their energies down to the essentials. Not much advice to give if you’re having trouble with feature creep. Most people have some sort of ticking clock in place that’s usually tied to funds if not an event in time like meeting with a room full of investors. For people worried about cutting out too many features, I feel like you can always cut something down to one really well-executed feature. Many software ideas starts as such an embryo. I also don’t believe that software is ever truly “done” and so you can always take solace in the fact that users will always ask for more features and give you opportunities to expand upon your creation. I honestly believe waiting for the big launch is a silly idea especially in this age on the web. The life of your app only just begins when your users can have at it. To me, everything before that is just posturing and guesses.

What advice would you give to someone who has an idea and has decided they are willing to commit to staying with it and put in the needed time to make it happen. What are the most important next steps to take after the idea is there? What shouldn’t they do right away that maybe you see people get distracted by in the beginning?

Get it out there to real users. Critiques from other designers and developers are rarely accurate or helpful and so I think that desire to refine before launch is over expressed in most founders. If you’re planning to make money off the app directly (like with a freemium model) I highly recommend having that ready to go and out there with prices right at launch. There’s this great advice from Joe Kraus, the guy behind Excite and JotSpot, who emphasizes that you have to beta test your business model along with your software. What I don’t think people need to worry about a lot in the beginning is speculation. Lots of arguments happen in the beginning of most startups based on postulations, hypotheses and predictions. I find those discussions usually lead to wasted energy arguing about possibilities that can’t be proven at the time. I definitely prefer to worry about decisions based on realities and can end with some kind of action item that will lead to an answer. I think what you have to realize is that arguments like those arise out of a lack of information and when you can get to the point where you can use data and revenue to make decisions about direction and focus, those discussions are so much less stressful. I’m always recommending people staying away from the future and keeping themselves in the present by making sure that what they work on is accompanied with measurement and observation. This way, when questions about the future come up, they can extrapolate instead of postulate.

Great suggestions Kevin. Thank you for sharing your experience with us. The Internet startup community seems to be corner-stoned by some really helpful individuals, who truly want others to succeed and are willing to share their experience and lessons learned. I think that in the end, this helps others reach their dreams and accomplish their goals, and helps grow the Internet startup community to even larger numbers. Thanks for your time.

Kevin Hale is the Co-founder of Infinity Box Inc, a Y Combinator seeded company. His responsibilities include safe guarding and designing the user experience of their online HTML form builder, Wufoo, which was ranked by Jakob Nielson as one of the best application UIs of 2008. He also writes about interface design issues for the web development blog, Particletree and served as Editor-in-Chief of the web development magazine, Treehouse.

Getting Started: How Wufoo Went from Concept to Launch is a post from: Fuel Your Venture

In their own words:

TechCrunch Disrupt is a three-day, single-track conference and startup competition to immerse you in the debate about what’s changing in media and technology right now, what’s causing it and what we need to do about it to survive and thrive in real time. TechCrunch Disrupt gathers the leaders and innovators of the technology and media industries to give you deep insights into the creative destruction happening right now. The big changes. And the subtle trends.

Tablet computing. Smart phones. Real-time conversations. The geo-stream. The evolution of advertising. Rich media platforms. Software in the cloud. And social media. All of these things are connected, and are converging in different ways.

We’ll bring the experts together to talk about what’s next. And why.

***

There’s more than advice, guidance, and networking opportunity on offer. Over the three days emerging companies will be competing in the Startup Battlefield, showcasing their talents and new designs of both hardware and software. One of them will leave the conference with $50,000 to continue to grow, create and succeed in their field.

In the real startup battlefield, beyond the conference, things are constantly changing. TechCrunch Disrupt will immerse you in where media and technology are heading, how not only to make your company survive the changes, but how it can thrive by moving forward and being the change instead of being lost in the rush. At the event you will hear from some of the best in the business, who have been there and done it, and can help you to do it. Check out the confirmed speakers and secure a place by booking tickets here.

If you’re in New York City this weekend, before the Disrupt conference starts in full, check out the free TechCrunch Hack Day – being organised by Chad Dickerson (who held the first Hack Days at Yahoo, now CTO of Etsy), Daniel Raffel (Yahoo) and Tarikh Korula (Uncommon Projects) and Jonah Brucker-Cohen (Scrapyard Challenge). Work with others to create and build something new, hardward or software, and work long into the night to get the chance to present onstage to over 2,000 people. Registration for the Hack Day begins Saturday 22nd at 1pm, 570 Washington Street (between Houston and Clarkson Streets), 2nd floor, New York, NY 10014. Find more info on the Hack Day here.

Everyone can get something from the TechCrunch Disrupt. Be one of more than 1,000 innovators gaining market insight, developing new business, and moving forward with every change in the industry. Listen to executives from high-tech and media sectors speaking of the industry, but grab the opportunity to speak with them and network, developing new business ideas and being part of the latest thinking. Technologists will be seeing what the competition is up to. Startups will gain incredible exposure, with funders from all over the US, and find opportunities everywhere to take the next step. Disrupt will support your innovation. Investors will be there too, seeing the trends and products, getting in there before the competition does. New and exciting business and innovation will be exposed to press, bloggers and policy influences from every corner of the industry.

Dates & Times:
Saturday (tomorrow), May 22nd – Sunday, May 23rd, 2010: Hack Day (Registration begins Saturday, May 22nd at 1pm) 570 Washington Street (between Houston and Clarkson Streets), 2nd floor, New York, NY 10014

Monday, May 24: “What’s Going On?”

Tuesday, May 25: “How are Platforms and Content Evolving?”

Wednesday, May 26: “How do You Find Your Audience –and Make Money?”

Speakers include:

Tim Armstrong (CEO, AOL)
Nikesh Arora (President, Google)
Ron Conway (Founder, SV Angel)
Chris Cox (Vice President, Facebook)
Dennis Crowley (CEO, Foursquare)
Jack Dorsey (Founder, Square; Co-Founder, Twitter)
Eric Hippeau (CEO, Huffington Post)
Ben Horowitz (Partner, Andreessen Horowitz)
Vic Gundotra (Vice President, Google)
Frank Quattrone (Founder, Qatalyst)
Avner Ronen (CEO, Boxee)
Andrey Ternovskiy (CEO, ChatRoulette)
Fred Wilson (Partner, Union Square)

You can learn more about the TechCrunch Disrupt conference here.

‘TechCrunch Disrupt’ Starts Tomorrow in NYC is a post from: Fuel Your Venture

So in the spirit of success, Fuel Your Venture has created a list/directory of companies providing this unique type of funding and mentorship for the earliest stage start-ups.

Although populated with some amazing incubators, we see this directory as a work in progress.  If you know of a company we are missing, submit it as a comment or email us directly at editor@fuelyourventure.com, and we will add it to the list.

Ycombinator
Location	Mountain View, CA
Key People	Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris
Founded	2005
Focus	Software and web services
Cash Investment	$5,000 plus an additional $5,000 for each founder
Equity Stake	2-10%
Website	http://ycombinator.com/
Contact	info@ycombinator.com
Notes	Ycombinator is one of the earliest of the seed-stage incubators. Based out of Mountain View, CA, Ycombinator hosts two classes of companies each year. Companies must relocate to Mountain View for the three month duration of the program. Ycombinator provides office space and mentorship to participants of the program. The program culminates in an investor and demo day. Graduates of Ycombinator include Reddit, Loopt, Justin.tv, Scribd and Dropbox.

Techstars
Location	Boulder, Colorado; Boston, Massachusetts; and Seattle, Washington
Key People	David Cohen, Brad Feld, Jared Polis, David Brown, Shawn Broderick
Founded	2006
Focus	Technology oriented companies (web based and software)
Cash Investment	$6,000 per founder up to three founders
Equity Stake	6%
Website	http://techstars.org
Contact	info@techstars.org
Notes	TechStars was founded a year after Ycombinator. Companies must relocate to the Techstars location for the entire three month duration of the program. Past graduates include IntenseDebate, Socialthing, Brightkite, DailyBurn and ignighter. The program culminates in an investor and demo day. Over 70% of TechStars companies have had success outside of the program, either by raising outside funding or becoming profitable.

DreamIt Ventures
Location	Philadelphia, PA
Key People	David Bookspan, Michael Levinson, Steven Welch
Founded	2007
Focus	Any idea that can be developed into a product in three months
Cash Investment	$30,000
Equity Stake	6%
Website	http://www.dreamitventures.com/
Contact	info@dreamitventures.com
Notes	At the end of the program, companies pitch to potential investors at a demo day. Although younger than Ycombinator and TechStars, DreamIt has funded successful companies, including SCVNGR, NoteHall, and SeatGeek. Read our recent article about DreamIt for more detailed information.

Capital Factory
Location	Austin, TX
Key People	Josh Baer, Sam Decker, Bryan Menell
Founded	2009
Focus	Technology
Cash Investment	$20,000 in cash plus additional products and services valued at more than $20,000
Equity Stake	5%
Website	http://capitalfactory.com
Contact	http://twitter.com/capitalfactory
Notes	The program ends with a demo day in which companies pitch to potential investors. Previous classes included five companies, including PetsMD.com, SpareFoot.com, and Cubit planning.

Shotput Ventures
Location	Atlanta, GA
Key People	David Cummings, Sanjay Parekh, Allen Graber
Founded	2009
Focus	Capital-light web companies
Cash Investment	$6,000 per founder up to three founders
Equity Stake	5-10%
Website	http://www.shotputventures.com/
Contact	info@shotputventures.com
Notes	Shotput also provides mentoring and a demo day at the end of the program but doesn’t provide any office space. Shotput requires companies to relocate to Atlanta for the duration of the three month program.

LaunchBox Digital
Location	Washington, D.C.
Key People	Julius Genachowski, Sean Greene and John McKinley
Founded	2007
Focus	Technology oriented companies
Cash Investment	$15,000-20,000
Equity Stake	6%
Website	http://www.launchboxdigital.com/
Contact	theteam@launchboxdigital.com
Notes	LaunchBox provides office space, mentorship and a demo day at the end of the 12 week program. Participating companies are required to relocate to Washington, D.C. for the duration of the program. Previous graduates include JamLegend, TapMetrics and unblab.

BoomStartup
Location	Salt Lake City, UT
Key People	John Richards, Robb Kunz and Josh James
Founded	2010
Focus	Tech startups
Cash Investment	$15,000
Equity Stake	Not stated
Website	http://www.boomstartup.com/
Contact	http://www.boomstartup.com/?q=contact
Notes	BoomStartup is mentorship-driven. It provides office space in Salt Lake City as well as services to help startups. The incubator hosts a demo day in September for member companies to pitch to potential investors.

Springboard
Location	Cambridge, UK
Key People	Neil Davidson, Simon Galbraith and Amir Chaudhry
Founded	2009
Focus	Business-to-business software
Cash Investment	Varies
Equity Stake	None
Website	http://springboard.com/
Contact	amir.chaudhry@red-gate.com
Notes	Springboard is an ‘accidental’ incubator founded by Red Gate. Springboard provides mentorship and office space in Red Gate’s offices. Springboard doesn’t take any equity in the companies they support. Past participating companies include PagerDuty, TidePowered and MetaAlternative.

Excelerate
Location	Chicago, IL
Key People	Sam Yagan, Kapil Chaudhary, Kelli Rhee, Troy Henikoff
Founded	2010
Focus	None stated
Cash Investment	$15,000-20,000
Equity Stake	5%
Website	http://www.exceleratelabs.com/
Contact	http://www.exceleratelabs.com/contact/
Notes	Excelerate is a ‘bootcamp’ for startups and provides mentorship, office space in downtown Chicago and access to potential investors. Companies are required to relocate to Chicago for the duration of the 13 week program.

SproutBox
Location	Bloomington, IL
Key People	Marc Guyer, Mike Trotzke, Brad Wisler
Founded	2008
Focus	Web based applications
Cash Investment	$10,000-15,000
Equity Stake	25-40%
Website	http://sproutbox.com/
Contact	Phone: 888.417.9341
Notes	SproutBox is a development focused incubator. Sproutbox selects four companies a year to be a part of a 10 month program. SproutBox provides office space and services worth between $200,000-250,000 in order to ‘mitigate initial distractions’. Participants must relocate to Bloomington for a minimum of three months during the development phase. SproutBox provides access to potential investors at the end of the program.

NextStart
Location	Greenville, SC
Key People	Michael Mino, Kim Dawson, Kristie B. Byrum, Neil Grayson, Rick Heller, David Setzer, Peter Walschmidt, David Wyman, Robert Fletcher
Founded	2009
Focus	None stated
Cash Investment	$5,000 per team member ($10,000 maximum per company)
Equity Stake	5-10%
Website	http://www.nextstart.org/
Contact	Phone: 864.370.3038
Notes	NextStart is an incubator based in Greenville, South Carolina. The program provides mentorship and office space for the duration of the summer program. NextStart culminates in a demo day at which companies pitch to potential investors. The program takes between 5-10% equity.

GoodCompany Ventures
Location	Philadelphia, PA
Key People	Garrett Melby, Chris Bentley
Founded	2009
Focus	For-profit social enterprises
Cash Investment	$0
Equity Stake	0%
Website	http://www.goodcompanyventures.org/
Contact	http://www.goodcompanyventures.org/about/contact-us/
Notes	GoodCompany is an incubator that’s specifically focused on “socially conscious entrepreneurs who can make a difference.” GoodCompany doesn’t provide any money to participants and doesn’t take any equity, but it provides mentoring, support, and facilities. The incubator also facilitates a first investment round. Participants are required to attend weekly meetings at the GoodCompany offices in downtown Philadelphia. The program culminates in a demo day at which participating companies pitch to potential investors.

Betaspring
Location	Providence, RI
Key People	Allan Tear, Jack Templin, Owen Johnson
Founded	2009
Focus	Technology and design from web services to physical devices
Cash Investment	Average of $20k per team
Equity Stake	6-8%
Website	http://betaspring.com
Contact	info@betaspring.com
Notes	Competitive entrepreneurial teams from around the world come to Providence, RI, for our intensive twelve week program. During these twelve weeks, we help teams transform themselves into functional, fundable companies by providing mentorship, kickoff funding, and immersion in an intense startup community of like-minded entrepreneurs. At the end of the program teams have the opportunity to present their company to investors from the Boston, New York corridor during our Demo Day event.

Did we miss anyone?

We would like to make this a comprehensive resource for startup incubators everywhere.  If you have one to add to the list, please submit it to editor@fuelyourventure.com

We are looking for feedback

Have you worked with any of these incubators?  Have feedback? Share your experience below!

The Ultimate Startup Incubator Directory is a post from: Fuel Your Venture

DreamIt is not unlike other localized incubators, such as Mountain View (CA) based Y Combinator and Boulder(CO)’s Techstars, which provide funding and essential services for early stage startups. Teams aren’t expected to have a business plan — only a great idea and a solid team. The program provides a team with up to $30,000 in startup capital, coaching from top mentors, complimentary legal and accounting services, connections to the startup community and office space in Philadelphia. At the end of the program, DreamIt hosts a Demo Day at which participating companies pitch to potential investors.

Although young — DreamIt funded its first class in 2008, with some graduates already achieving notable success. SCVNGR, a location-based gaming company, raised $4 million from Google Ventures and is already cash-flow positive after only a year; NoteHall, an online marketplace for college notes, was featured on ABC’s show ‘Shark Tank’ and received funding as a result; and SeatGeek, which forecasts sports and concert tickets, was a finalist at TechCrunch 50 and secured $500,000 in Series A funding.

“Our first two classes of DreamIt companies were exceptional,” said Mike Levinson, one of DreamIt’s founding partners. “We expect this year to be our best class yet. We will have more applicants than ever before, impressive new mentors and a more vibrant community of investors keeping an eye on our companies.”

Since the notable success of Y Combinator, incubators fitting the small seed funding, mentorship- and community-driven model are starting up all over the country. There are funds in San Francisco, Boulder, Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta, Austin, and Salt Lake City, Utah to name just a few. This is an important step forward for the startup community. New incubators, increase the opportunity for startups to get funded and succeed, by providing a vital ingredient: connections. If the current trend holds, we should see a lot more of these popping up in other population centers over the next few years — and it’s only a matter of time before one appears in your backyard.

Startup incubator ‘DreamIt’ ramps up for a new round is a post from: Fuel Your Venture

It may sound silly, but when you look at the success rate of startup businesses you will realize that these fears are mostly justified. All company owners know they want to market and want to take their product or service to the masses, they just aren’t sure how best to do it. Luckily for them, the basic principles of marketing a new venture are easy and can be effectively done by anyone.

Build the Foundation First

Before looking to drive massive amounts of traffic to your website it is necessary that you build the website itself correctly; throwing up a pre-made Wordpress template will get you nowhere fast. The website’s goals must be defined, followed by proper organization of the content and user experience.

If your primary goal is to have your users sign-up or register you must concisely convey information that shows the visitor why your product or service is useful to them with clear calls to action that direct the user to a simple signup form. If your focus is on ecommerce, making it easier for the user to see, add, and purchase your items becomes the utmost priority while a blog or otherwise content-driven website would best benefit from optimized typography and readability. Your venture is unique and your website experience should reflect such.

Do Your Basic Keyword Research and Implement It

By implementing the most effective on-page SEO, search engines are able to properly list your website in their results pages and drive visitors interested in your market to you. Your first step is to read Google’s on-page SEO guide – this teaches the basics of SEO and allows you to comfortably implement a SEO strategy.

Using Google’s Keyword Research Tool, you can look up relevant keywords to your venture’s product, service, and industry. By analyzing interchangeable terms (e.g. “USB drives”, “flash drives”, and “thumb drives”), geographic keyword phrases (e.g. “USB Drives in Denver”) and the number of search queries the terms have had, you can define a series of appropriate keywords and phrases you wish to target. Then, by employing this research you can create keyword themed pages using the Title, Meta Description, Header Tags and Body Text to make those pages relevant for a term in the search engines; however, always remember that users come first and SEO second.

Learn Google Analytics

When running any online marketing campaigns it is essential to track what kind of traffic and conversions you are getting as a result. Take the time (or if you don’t have time, find someone) to properly setup Google Analytics for both your website and your marketing campaigns, then make use of UTM tags to track the ROI. Being able to say, “X campaign is working for us, but Y isn’t” is the single most valuable tool you can have when marketing; this keeps your costs down and your conversion rates up.

Start Engaging

With your website and analytics properly setup, you’re officially ready to start driving traffic. Many ventures’ first thought is, “Let’s do social media! We can brand ourselves and go viral! We’ll be huge!” but this is the wrong approach. In most cases, you do want to implement social media into your marketing campaign, but make sure you understand the following before starting:

• You do not control your brand, your customers do.
• Social media is about engagement, not the number of followers you have.
• “Branding” is not a quantitative measurement – measure actual ROI.

Furthermore, carefully select which social media avenues are most appropriate for your venture and focus on those. Some ventures will benefit from using anything and everything in the social sphere while maintaining a quality presence in them all, but most cant. The last thing you want is an empty presence where people are asking you questions but you are not there to respond.

Find Consumers with Twitter

Due to its versatility, Twitter is a wonderful medium for nearly anyone to begin their social media endeavors. After creating an account, you can utilize Twitter Search to search for the terms related to your venture and look for people using your competitors’ products. Send these people personalized messages informing them of your product or responding to their complaints about another product and how yours may be a better alternative. It sounds a bit cut-throat, but the click-through rates will prove that it is a viable technique (remember, measure with Google Analytics!).

Approach the Blogosphere

Find authors that have done write-ups on your competitors or round-ups of some of the best tools/services in your market and then approach them with your venture. Let them know that they may want to include you in their next round-up article or do a feature; you can even sweeten the deal by offering a promotion for their website’s visitors – make it valuable for them to mention you.

Let the Press Know

Services such as PR Web and PR NewsWire are wonderful, inexpensive ways to broadcast your press releases to thousands of quality news sites. If you aren’t comfortable with writing an effective press release, it may be best to hire someone since this is your big potential step into the limelight. Even if your release doesn’t get picked up by many journalists, a few quality articles that mention your product or service could be all it takes to start a fast-growing word-of-mouth campaign.

Endnote

As you can see in the aforementioned methods, you can effectively market your new venture without spending a great deal of time or money and it requires little to no expertise in marketing. The tools are widely available on the web for getting your marketing campaign off the ground; it’s simply a matter of using them properly. I hope this article has helped you and most of all, good luck!

Are You Marketing Your Venture Effectively? is a post from: Fuel Your Venture

How They Make Money

Grooveshark: What’s Feeding the Frenzy? is a post from: Fuel Your Venture