If you take a look at Grasshopper Group they are actually spinning off new companies based on the concept of building tools for startups. They solved our phone problems by building grasshopper They launched chargify to solve our billing woes from a SAAS model.

I still think solving one problem lots of business face is such a great direction for a startup as they are revenue driven from day one and most likely eat their own dog food. They are taking frustrations or opportunities within the industry and building and selling a solution for a problem that exists in the market place. All while making money!

Think about all those little things you need as a business (Billing, Shipping, Time Tracking, etc.). In terms of a platform, one size almost never fits all. So targeting smaller niches or tools that are interchangeable with other platforms actually expand the pie and allows for a better approach.

An interesting spin on this concept would be AppSumo, offering deals for these types of startup products. Once you signup, you get to view some of the deals like the epic deal they offered to startup’s for sxsw. You can view past deals once you put in your email. Be sure to use the same email or you will signup multiple times.

Building a business is hard enough, but with the right tools you can build it faster, cheaper, and better then you originally thought. The more startups that leverage tools rather then building them can focus more on their OWN product and JFDI.

1. Clear Containers – If you are in to technology you most likely like to watch movies. DVDs are something I have been trying to migrate onto a digital platform or just leverage iTunes and store it on another hard drive. As any tech guy knows DVDs can take up a fair amount of space and how many times do you really watch that DVD. I highly suggest to invest in plastic containers – use these bins to store your DVDs and other tech gadgets (camera, usb card readers, etc.). In addition rather than using boxes during the move, use containers because they last longer and if you get the clear see through kind, easy to find your DVD within a pile. In addition, containers are way better than just boxes as they are weather proof to some degree. I know from a few past experiences with flooding of the apartment above me, I was able to maintain all my DVDs! A moving box would have ruined all the DVD boxes. If you are like me, a tech guy who has tons of DVDs, Books, and old gadgets – leverage containers and keep them safe. Also great for saving space when stacking them in closets. In addition I know from the transition after college, containers are great way to move stuff – bring back and move more stuff. Boxes tend to be good for only one or two trips back and forth.

2. Buy it again – I know this kills the eco-side of me inside, but I think when products cost less than $20 – you may want to think twice before you keep moving with it. In the tech world I know personally I have owned 3 iPhones (iPhone, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4) and that’s only 4 years! You are constantly upgrading and buying stuff again, much like moving. If you move cross-country do you bring the same toilet plunger or just throw it out and buy a new one? Sometimes you want to carve out a budget for moving on top of the cost of movers. For me, this was stuff from shower curtains to hangers. This tactic is also used when traveling, I know I will forget stuff and/or not pack everything, but having a few dollars budgeted also gives me the opportunity to pickup a hoodie or shirt from a destination. I think the best story when it comes to buy it again would be working with an entrepreneur who will remain nameless, but we worked together a few years ago. Basically when traveling he would bring clothes for the next day, but that’s it. We actually ended up having to go shopping a few times where he would have to buy clothes for the next few days.

3. Maintain the move – If your business is growing so fast that you keep having to find bigger office space, why do you unpack everything? Similar with moving just think if your planning to move in the summer, 3 months until you need to move start packing up your winter gear and store it. I also tend to use my luggage for storage of seasonal clothes. By starting early you spread out the packing and you know how much stuff you have. Getting back to topic #1 containers – I have maintained the move with a container box of DVDs that sits in my closet. It may not be the best way to showcase them, but easy to move.

4. Find people to compliment your weakness – in business if your not a tech savvy person but building a tech heavy application, you need to find your tech cofounder before you can even get started. This process should be the #1 goal. As for moving, save time/health and hire a legit company. Bootstrapping can be good and a great way to get a minimum viable product (MVP) or initial boxes moved, but are you really going to lug a couch, bed, or desk up that 4th floor walk up, put in the truck and then walk it back up another 2 or 5 floor walk up? I know moving sucks as I have done it a LOT. It wasn’t until this past move that I finally hired a company, I would never go back. It’s well worth the money especially if you think of what doctors bills cost if you hurt yourself. As for a startup – just think what an acceleration program could do to your business – think of how saving time like hiring a company could expedite your move process

5. Refactor your move – In the development world you want to refactor code from hard to read or hacked together functions/classes to verified and test approved code that won’t keep you up all night. Moving is a time to reflect on what you really need and what you really NEED to throw out. All those papers, books, DVDs, etc. think in terms of 3: Keep, reflect, throwout. As for development – think in terms of features: Should I improve this, will this affect ROI, and will people complain if I kill this feature.

Any way, enough about developers/coders – it’s time to optimize that code. I have built a number of products the past few years and have really started to think about the optimization that SHOULD go behind the code, or lack there of. Just think of a simple checkout page. Should you capture the email before they complete the order for an instant email campaign? Do you validate the shipping address before or after the order has proceeded. There are many things to test when it comes to ecommerce as well as a web application, but who REALLY does this? I get sent links to Which Test Won every time there is a new post (thanks Nelson), but I have to wonder, do companies really invest this amount of time and money into optimization. I guess what I am really asking is what companies out there are doing true A/B testing to improve conversion. Are they taking it the next step further and integrating all this testing knowledge into their products while bugs and fixes are simultaneously happening?

While attending Distilled SearchLove I got to listen to Mat Clayton of MixCloud who discussed a lot about testing. I got the chance to pull him aside and understand how testing is looped into development. One of the ways they do this is leveraging 3 states per feature. Global, limited, and disabled. I am sure this is where Dave McClure would chime in to preach about how you should always be able to kill features and drop an Fbomb, but it adds to the complexity. When you are building something for the first time you are most likely not going to get it right. Why not build in features to test your assumptions and see if it works. On top of that, build a throw away as fast as possible to get something live and out the door. Worst cast, you can disable it and move on. Building out this process to disable features and test assumptions is at the core of a lean startup, but the big question is… is it part of your current business development roadmap?

Building in a simple test platform within your features is a LOT easier when you start development rather than trying to retrofit them post launch. Although I am a HUGE fan of building 2 – the first one is a learning experience that you throw away – one of the only lessons from CS class at UVM I always think about.

So who is building in testing as part of development besides MixCLoud? Are you testing your product while it’s being developed and killing features no one uses? Taking it a next step further, are you testing links to features that don’t exists but could be built out or on the road map that would help improve a conversion/goal/ROI. Just think before you even code a feature, drop a link on a segment of users, see who clicks and throw a “feature not available yet” in there. This will give you some numbers and a baseline on whether users want it and/or if it will help your conversion.

With Adsense and a few clicks you have a entire platform for serving different ad sizes you can customize to fit on your site. Google changed the ad serving space dramatically both for the good and bad of innovation. With the latest panda updates Google is trying to fix a lot of the issues adsense has brought to playing field such as drive organic traffic and monetize with adsense, cough cough Demand Media cough. Google was not ready to kill the cash cow of content ads, so they improve their algo to remove sites and focus on brands killing off those small sites that are banking on arbitrage.

Since 2008 I have started to dive deeper and deeper into online marketing moving away from the standard path most computer scientists take as a software engineer. I have also been a huge 4 hour work week/Tim Ferris Fanatic as I was always under the impression I wanted a one man band business that made me money while I travel, enjoying the lifestyles of the nomadic and residual income. In the past 3 years I have learned a lot about business. Businesses may start from an idea to a minimum viable product (MVP) in a weekend, but it can takes years to build a sustainable business. Noah from Appsumo has built a million dollar business, starting with just one email and grew a list to over 500,000 within a year. He also doesn’t have unlimited funds for marketing, although I am sure Facebook and Mint have treated him well. I recently got to meet him at Search Love and quickly realized I am thinking too small, I need to think BIG, like Apple Stock BIG!

Spending a lot of time keeping up with the latest startups has allowed me to see the newer technologies out there, especially with online marketing, yet rely on old school systems, like cookies.

Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) and cookie pools are and becoming the next step in online marketing and are having a major impact on both paid and organic. Google has been making a LOT of changes this year when it comes to SEO, including an update to protect users by using https, which will not pass the referral to the website. Rand has since posted about Google Keyword Referral and how it’s a load of crap. On every one of the sites I own, one of the top 3 keywords is (not provided), fail! This update is OBVIOUSLY to target companies who do search retargeting. User does a search, save refer/keyword data in a cookie on users computer. User visits a site and the 3rd part ad serving system reads the cookie, matches the data, and the user now sees a more targeted ad due to this data. This is just the beginning…

Cookie pools are where companies can “market” to customers based on specific criteria (demographics, searched keywords, etc.) they have learned about the user from other websites leveraging a 3rd party cookie to serve to a DSP to reach that user online. It becomes even more crazy when you relate user data/cookie to an email or twitter user. Just imagine sharing all this data so a website visit could result in a @reply to a user who just visited the site and is still shopping/reading/etc. Is this possible, do companies do this and should it be scary or great user experience because now you are targeted.

User data from both search and behavioral as well as demographics plays a major role in terms of marketing to that user. Serving a banner and hoping for the best is inefficient as it’s not targeting, it’s not time to party like 1999. It’s time to take it to the next level with targeting, party like it’s 2099…

Speaking of targeting, I can not stand all these interstitial and sliding popups on news sites. Imagine all your favorite news sites with no advertisement. Seems like a pipe dream? If there is one thing that Facebook has taught is that users post up all sorts of useful information and now publicly! People are willing to give up their data for something of value, even if it’s small.

So let’s imagine userA is visiting an article on the New York Times about top 10 places to travel this summer. We know how these users are into travel adn most likely to spend money on traveling. Rather than NYTimes just making money with a banner ad, they should be charging the advertiser to allow for the dropping of a cookie. The advertiser could use DSPs to remarket the user and no one would know NYTimes was making money from this. The crazy part for me as an online marketer is the cost. From my current understanding NYTimes and most publishers do NOT charge different display rates if a cookie is dropped or not, why is this, ugh!

Okay, now back to the NYTimes, could they not only drop the cookie on the advertisers behalf, but provide other information, like pages they visited, demographic data because maybe userA was signed in and filled out the simple profile (male, age, income, etc.) a year ago when they joined. userA who then visits other sites could be targeting that user for travel sites and offer them travel deals. Hopefully someone at NYTimes is thinking on ways to make more money rather than trying to fit another banner ad on the page.

So there are 2 major differences with this revenue model. First, you can now have a clean UX/UI as you won’t need banners if you are dropping cookies and other demographic data you can provide to advertisers. Second, you can offer a lifetime on that user (unless they delete their cookies). If you are thinking big become the middleman. Meaning you can expire those cookies X days when dropped or better yet drop 2 cookies and limit the usage for clientX to userA data for online marketing with DSPs. In addition you could offer both AdFree or Banner Ad platforms for users who want to remain anonymous and users who want a better experience.

About 3 years ago I recall being at an event in NYC where a passionate entrepreneur was talking about how every startup can say they monetize because of Google Adsense, but it’s a pipe dream and the death of the banner ad is here. Serving non targeting banner ads is a waste of time, resources, and causing blindness (well ad blindness). The person at this event (wish I could recall his name) was so frustrated at companies that say their revenue model is advertisement aka Google Adsense that startups who spoke after his presentation would put their heads down in shame. Although advertisement is a big money maker, it’s very limiting and hard when your site gets below 1MM page views. Serving ads to traffic seems like a very inefficient way to monetize, you are just serving up an offer to someone who may or may not be interested. Banner ads have been around the block and back, the big difference now in 2011 than 1999 is targeting. You are not serving the same ad to a white male in North Carolina who likes hunting as a black female living in NYC. The event and presentation was even more interesting as it compared east coast to west coast startups much like rappers, east cost it’s about revenue – west coast is about the dream. Remember, startups that monetize via non-targeted advertisement are full of crap, IMHO. There is more to be sold than just ads, you need to think outside the box and data mining is just one direct, but there are many more.

Look at what Virgin America is doing to offset cost: Advertised Experiences, On Demand Movies, Brand Product Sponsorship, Upsells and cross sells. Offering a unique experience at a lower cost! Virgin is thinking outside the box and cleaning up, where as American Airlines … oh that’s right they are filling for bankruptcy.

Online products need to innovate to complete in the market today, not only as a product but also in terms of monetization. Everyone needs to step up their game. I know I know advertisement can be a HUGE money maker, just think of television. The cost of a super bowl commercial is crazy expensive, but think of the audience you can reach. This works great for products that have a huge distribution network like Budweiser or Pepsi, but not your startup and NOT most businesses. Although television is still cleaning up with advertisement, think about what targeting could do. Think about companies like FiOS – imagine rather than showing the same ad over and over, you are learning what individual watchers like or act on. Why do you think Hulu asks you if this ad is relevant, although targeting and violating someone’s privacy are two separate things Hulu, but I am sure they will learn.

Let’s move away from just advertisement and not only start to target and remarket, but take it the next step further offering details people want, like email Travel alerts for specific regions. This would be great for a person who wants to visit friends/family but doesn’t want to pay full price. Think of it more as a tool allowing you to add cities and get weekly email alerts for plane flights if they drop below $X. Now you could visit friends/family as you saw a deal come through rather than sit at home watching football all weekend. Building an email list and targeting users and learning what converts and what doesn’t would be a better model than writing blog posts about traveling and collecting those pennies from Google. So next step when you have to build out your business model, think of what else you could do to make money, non-targeted banner ads is the easy answer, but won’t result in a BILLION dollar IPO. Virgin America has MANY revenue streams, where American Airlines is about to go out of business.

So let’s go back to August 15th, I was doing a few manual checks of some highly competitive terms (targeting brands) when I found what looked like an organic sitelink. I saw it once, but then it disappeared on reload. A few more refreshes and a cachaca later, I was able to get back into the test.(Sidenote, I should have checked my cookies and used that to get back into the test, oh well). Now come Tuesday the 16th Google announced and update to sitelinks and boy what a change. Let’s dive into some brands.
Marriott

Nike – Can you click anything else than Nike?

Okay, now even my own uBlanket

These sitelinks are based on your navigation and suggest that you should have a LOT of top level navigation elements so you would have as many sitelinks as possible. My instant reaction would be to try and deep linking your top navigation pages, but still testing.

In addition, I am not sure if this was early or not, but I noticed Google is now using a few microformat data in their SERP. Let’s say your signing up for the SAT (like many high school students do this fall), Google “sat test dates” and you can see the dates clearly below the result
Sat, Oct 1 SAT Test Dates
Sat, Nov 5 SAT Test Dates
Sat, Dec 3 SAT Test Dates

In other news, I have been enjoying the Google Profiles (and Images) within the SERP. Thinking of some recent news posts (e.g. Skype + Groupme ) and a quick search later I see authors mugshots right there in the SERP. What stops you from changing your image to a big arrow that points to the right? Anyone?

It might not look great from a friends standpoint, but if it leads to a bump in traffic which gives you a bonus, do you think it’s worth it? Maybe its a bit … dare I say evil? With all these new changes I feel like Google is trying to incentive people to take advantage of theme, okay let’s not be evil and take a look as some other changes.

Last but not least, have you seen how Google has moved the Did you mean… ? and automatically substituted the correct spelling. I guess trying to do a bit blackhat and rank for misspellings is over, oh well.

I would love to get your thoughts on all these new changes. It feels like just last week Google Instant was forced on users and everyone was talking SEO.

Last month I got an idea spec’d out. I think it could be the next big thing, especially with the way the Internet is moving, IMHO. The problem is more on execution and whether I should build it. I’m sure I could sell it after spending a few months marketing it or even trying the whole raise capital route, but I have other commitments that keep me busy. Which brings in the next question, will I finish it.

This project, let’s call it BS. Project BS was mocked up and thought about to be outsourced so I would not be the weakest link. The intial focus is basic capital to build it, but the time it takes to market it is a whole another story that most entrepreneurs don’t consider. If you build it they won’t always come. Project BS can be built for a reasonable rate, but how does that affect my commitments as well as my time marketing it.

Think about it it in this way: You are offered time or money but you can only choose one, which do you choose and why?

After an awesome networking event last week – I almost want to give away the idea or see someone else crush it as it’s more of a thought than an empire. On a side note, I can’t stand people who need to find a cofounder/tech lead or need an idea for a startup. There are plenty of both in todays world. You can read a book and become a tech lead or search the internet as people give them away for free. If you need ideas let me know I have time. My problem is scale and execution, which should be almost all entrepreneurs problems. Do you know it will make money? What will be your burn rate be during the time to scale? And how will that affect your life and commitments? This basically boils down to what’s the opportunity cost? This makes me thing of my Econ classes at UVM, ugh!

Anyway, i am still not sure my plans for project BS, I know with summer I have a lot of traveling and relaxing to par take in. The focus is still on my “pay the bills” job and making amazing tshirt quilts. It’s crazy, for the first time I’m actually trying to plan out the next year of my life and stick to a plan. It’s weird ever since college I haven’t been living at the same location and this year I will be on year two, amazing. I guess it really comes down to cutting corners only delays the inevitable. It’s time to step up and crush it for 2011.

Back to the point. Should you build it? So you are thinking about your idea, but how can you prove it will be a success? Most startups fail within the first year! Why not validate your idea, but how? Start with mockups and an early adopter program. Focus on building an email list of people who would help shape this idea and spread the word when it launches. Set small goals and focus on a MVP – even if it’s just screenshots!

This brings me to my final point. There are a few ways to leverage and build a startup that can scale rapidly. I came up with four ways startup pays.

1. Sell before build – customer is investor, get credit cards and charge when launched
2. Freemiun – get people using it and building your feedback loop with hopes you can convert them to a paying customer fast
3. Tell the world why you are building it – ask community for help and get them to join in on it. Remember it’s often lonely at the top
4. Max out credit card and JFDI

With that, last but not least what do you plan to do with your idea? Will you build it, how do you test, etc. Ask yourself all the questions first and then JFDI!

Okay, back to the real story. So Google could own the education space in a real way. Just look at the Khan Academy. We now have a FREE online resource for almost every topic from K-12. Just imagine having the homework of going home and watching an hour of youtube. Granted the video will most likely be on a math, science, or some education video, but it’s engaging.

I have been so frustrated with the education space in so many ways. As more graduates enter the workforce, I have to suggest and encourage those students to improve the system, while making money. Build tools that can easily help a student and/or a teacher, district, etc. for future generations. I know I have an idea that has been baking for a while that I would love to get out there to not only help with studying but make it fun, interactive, and engaging. (more to come…if interested @johnmurch)

Just Think in terms of Building a Startup. Google could easily create videos on showing how to develop and write code that current middle school students could watch and learn to build things with their laptop. Get them starting young building ideas and projects that can help both economically and educationally. The chromebooks will enable students to build online, both good and bad. Google has been “aqchiring” startups to help build and improve the beast that it is. As of now, America is not only failing by not having educated students, but also with this no child left behind crap, students are graduating that shouldn’t and ruining the work place. Google can step up and train the workforce of tomorrow, today! Think about it, this dare I say one laptop per child would allow students to learn a wide range of skills from database architecture to software engineers.

Just think you could not only educate America but implement a system wide grading, feedback, games system to help with the entire education process. Integrate every student on to one education platform that not only learns what the student is good/bad at but provides that information to the teacher and parents. Just think about system that offers co-learning with video/interaction between students. Planning and scheduling could be automate with alerts and one on one learning with custom programs based on assessment tests. Better yet a student could not only get information about signuping for ACT/SAT but daily reminders for homework, projects, and even College Essays. This computer could be your gateway to education because there is so much online that could be funneled into a system to help education. Imagine an open sourced grade book that shows a constant update from the teacher and with parent notification. The technical skills are easy, someone just needs to do it and make it clean, simple, and easy. Then distribute it and get people using it.

I have been thinking a lot about studying and habits. While in High School I became CompTIA A+ Certified. A basic certification for PC Repair. I stumbled onto a simple desktop app that would ask you questions and you would just answer them and continue on. The hope was if you got it wrong, the next go around you would get it right. Granted there were a couple of hundred of questions, but I could sit there answer them and memorize all the answers. Now granted not all education is memorization, but imagine an engaging way to study.Just think farmville but educationville. How students could learn about history and score badgets, rewards, and study math equations by watching videos on youtube!

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) was a big WTF in my opinion. We were building laptops for 3rd world counties and forgetting that our own younger generation DON’T have access to a computer. Now with these Chromebooks I am hopeful Google will crush it and get States on board with these laptops for students. Get students blogging and writing as well as reading and engaging in real group exercises. America needs change in the education world and hopefully Google is ready to bring it to them on a silver platter.

We ended up grabbing a cinnabon, side note the employee couldn’t do math. I gave her 50.11 on a 8.11 item, so 42 for change but since she entered 50 and I then gave her the 11 cents after the register showed 41.89 and she looked like a deer with headlines on her. Ugh, is our school system failing us?

Ok back to the healthy food approach. Bob suggested why not have a deli, could it be that hard, or does healthy fast-food not scale? Are the margins on a bigmac versus a fresh deli sandwich that has bread, meat, cheese, and condiments that different?.

Thinking about this a bit more, Subway is considered the most healthy choice for fast food, basically a glorified deli. How can this be, seriously?!

Living in NYC you get to eat at some great food places as well as some divy types. Near where I live fun lunch spot named Switchfood is basically a gourmet deli located in Chelsea as well as a secondary location near wall street. It reminds me of Vermont sandwich company another glorified deli that can be a healthy alternative. So where does fast food and health leave you? Can healthy fast food scale? If I was going to get into the model of building a food company, outside of a Mexican chain food establishment in NYC as NYC doesn’t have good mexican food, a healthy fast-food business would be next on my list.

So with that, maybe McD’s can prove me wrong and provide healthy alternatives in the near future. America is FAT as the obesity epidemic of twinkees falling from the sky is killing us… or is it just the options of food while we travel?

Here is the concept/pitch: a small team at a mid-large business (or 1 talented guy at a startup) focusing on improving productivity. This could be automating reporting, expense calculations, or even just time submission. These tasks don’t take up too much time, but add up and should be streamlined in any business.

Recently I have become a Business Tool in a sense, focusing on a few tasks like this for uBlanket. Our process has become very streamlined since we started, but the tools to get the job done have not. These tools required hand typing or other semi-automatic tasks. Recently I have been coding away to help fix these features and now that UPS got their $H!% together, we now have a fully automated system for our process.

In the past at corporate positions I tried to automate myself out of a job. I can’t stand repetition when it can be done with a few lines of code. Unlike the 1960′s, everyone has a computer, better yet your dam iPhone has enough power to make some heavy calculations. All grunt work should be left to the machine. Problems are always occurring and in many cases, hiring a person is cheaper than defining the problem and getting it built in the short run, but what a waste. Businesses NEED to think long term. You don’t want a dog chasing tail problem for years. You want to learn as much as you can while it’s being built and plan for as much automation as possible when launched.

Back to this business tools department, the team should spend one month going to various arms of your company and solving one problem that can save time and/or money…. remember time is money

In addition, some of these items might be things that you “would like” but result in a larger understanding of problems both currently happening and future road blocks.

For example, say one of the problems to solve was to get a calendar (month over month) print-out of order volumes by each hour of each day. Seeing orders come in or month over month reports only gets you so far. Having a visual representation of the data (a full year of these reports) you can see various insights into the seasons as well as specific dates, days or hours depending on granularity. So maybe you need to adjust your advertising campaign to spend more Tuesdays and Sundays because those are the highest converting days for a customer.

If you are a startup, find a talented hacker to help the business side of your business become more automated. If you are a larger or mid business, hire a few hackers or reach out to your current employees with this pitch and see what you get back. Remember it’s okay to spend a few $$$ on R&D, especially if within a month you could be saving 3X$$$ in just labor!

I really wanted to bust out some thoughts that I had as it’s becoming very scary to be an American. 3 wars, bloated programs, high taxes, and seeing people making a living being a ass of themselves for millions of dollars (the ‘sit’, Johnny Knoxville, etc.) American Fail!

American’s need to WAKE UP.

Become a leader, make a real change today! We need to push back on our government and take them on the same way startups take on big business. I know I am going to be and pushing for some real Hope and Change (wtf Obama!) with this next election.

Tonight at Hoboken TechMeetup, I got a chance to listen to Alex Torpey a 23-year-old mayoral candidate, running for Village President in South Orange, NJ this spring! Talk about REAL CHANGE! This young up and comer is leveraging social and technology in big ways. Although I don’t live in South Orange, I am really excited to see what happens with him and how he can change politics for the better.

Hopefully I can do a mind dump tomorrow night and get more of this startup/big business government/politics comparison really going.