Getting Your Site Indexed Before You Launch

I've noticed that most people tend to wait until their site is launched to begin working on getting indexed in the search engines. With iPrioritize I made it a point to be indexed BEFORE I launched and it worked out great so I figured I'd share it with you guys.

The key to getting your site indexed in the big three (Google, Yahoo!, MSN) is getting links pointing to it from sites that are already indexed. When the search bots crawl those sites they will inevitably find the link to your site and your site will be added to their index. Follow these five steps a month before you launch and you'll be a step ahead of the game.

1. Register your domain name. You'd be surprised how many people wait until the last minute to do this. The sooner you register your domain, the sooner you can get some quality links pointing to it and get it indexed.


2. Put up a home page. Make a "coming soon" page with your logo, information about your site, and expected launch date. You can also add a form for people to sign up for email updates about your site. This starts building your email marketing list before you even launch. A great example of this is Walamu, a new student text book exchange business by fellow YE Rohail Rizvi.


3. Start a blog and sign up for Feedburner. Put up a blog at www.yoursite.com/blog. It doesn't matter if you use WordPress, Blogger, or whatever blog platform you prefer, just make sure you host it on your site. Make a few posts about your site, what people can expect when it launches, and why your site will be unique. After your first post, sign up for a Feedburner account. Under 'Publicize' in your account make sure to sign up for 'Ping Shot'. This will notify blogging directories of your posts which hopefully will result in a few links to your site.


4. Write a few articles and submit to directories. Regardless of what your site is about, there is certainly a topic relating to your site that you could write an article about. For example, if your site is going to sell fitness equipment, you could write an article about how to build a home-gym. Or if you are going to rate and review new cars, you could write an article about how to shop for a new car. After you've written and proofread your articles, submit them to article directories like Ezine Articles and iSnare. Be sure to include a description of your new site and a link back to it in the resource box. Again, this should result in a few links to your site.


5. Get a link from an indexed site. Steps 3 and 4 should result in some links from indexed sites which should then ensure your site to be indexed. But it can't hurt to get a few more on your own to be certain. When I launched iPrioritize, I linked to it from this blog a few weeks in advance, which I knew would ensure that it got indexed. If you don't have that option, you can ask someone with a blog or site related to yours to mention it. If you are a YE, I would be happy to mention your new business in this blog.

Getting yourself indexed before you launch gives you a head start on your SEO and will allow your site to have a more immediate impact. Why wait until you launch? Get started a month early and you'll reap the benefits when launch day rolls around.

YE Blogger Directory Launches

Last night I received an email from Nathan over at YE Blogger notifying me of their launch and that they've added my blog to their directory. It's definitely an honor to be part of such a cool project. I love the fact that Nathan and David over at MindPetals have taken the initiative to unite all young entrepreneurs. I only spent a few minutes at YE Blogger but the first thing that stood out to me was the RSS Feed with every members posts integrated into one. Right now that's over 100 bloggers in one feed - very cool.

How far are you willing to go?

I love thinking about the future. As a young entrepreneur it's exciting to think about where I'll be six months from now, a year from now, and five years from now. I have no doubt that my ventures will be successful five years from now if I'm able to persevere.

I say if I'm able to persevere because it's stressful to think about what I'm going to do for money while my businesses grow. I constantly hear of stories of successful entrepreneurs who run up thousands of dollars of credit card debt, sell their houses, and borrow insane amounts of money from family members. They really are willing to do whatever it takes.

I haven't been pushed that far yet, but I know the possibility exists that I will be. It can get a whole lot worse before it gets better. I think about my answers to the following questions ALL THE TIME and I bet you do too:

• Am I willing to cash in my 401K (the whole 1 years worth that I have)?


• Am I willing to sell my car and other possessions?


• Am I willing to beg every family member I have for money?


• If push come to shove, would I sell , SportsLizard.com to fund iPrioritize?


• If I had a girlfriend, and she asked me whether she or the business was more important, would I answer the business (I'd probably find some way to weasel out of the question by saying something like 'it's like comparing apples to oranges, you're both important' and then change the topic as fast as possible)?


• Would I run up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt?


• Would I *gasp* get a part time job to help fund my business (isn't this ironic that I think of this after I think of running up credit card debt...that's how much I don't want to get a job)?


• Am I willing to go five years without a vacation?


• Am I willing to work three days straight without sleep to meet a deadline?


• Essentially, to sum up, am I really willing to do whatever it takes???

As crazy as a lot of those things sound, you and I might need to do them to succeed. Certainly many entrepreneurs before us have done all of that and more. Whether or not you ever get pushed that far, I think it's important to feel that you are willing to go that far if need be. Just food for thought.

Book Review – Warriors, Workers, Whiners, and Weasels

Regular readers will probably remember my Expose Your Weasel post eariler this month about Tim O'Leary's book Warriors, Workers, Whiners, and Weasels. Well, I just finished it and it was AWESOME...so here's my review.

We all know a Weasel. You know, that person that threatens to take down your organization by using every sleazy tactic in the book to advance their careers regardless of how it effects others. Warriors, Workers, Whiners, and Weasels: The 4 Personality Types in Business and How to Manage Them to Your Advantage by entrepreneur Tim O'Leary takes a refreshing look at the different personalities we encounter and how to handle them.

The premise of the book is that essentially everyone fits into one of four personality groups – Warrior, Worker, Whiner, or Weasel. O'Leary defines each as the following:

Warriors, who confront change, see possibilities, innovate and manage to win!

Workers, who deal with the ups, downs and challenges of everyday corporate life dependably, and who can reliably implement the change and direction established by the Warriors.

Whiners, who get through life by complaining about everything they do, who profess negativism and dissatisfaction wherever they go, and blaming others for their own shortcomings.

Weasels, who lurk everywhere and threaten your career and life-goals through their own deception and insecurity and who spread these feelings quickly throughout the organization.

The book is designed to help you recognize what group you fit into, give you the necessary tools to get to the group you want to be in, and learn how to effectively deal with people in each group. The book really does a great job of forcing you to truthfully analyze yourself. O'Leary warns you that you might not like what you find, but also is quick to point reinforce that you are in control and that you can make the changes in your life to fit into the group that you desire.

Even more interesting (and fun) is visualizing the people you know and placing them into their appropriate categories. We have all encountered a Whiner or Weasel and it helps to know what makes them tick and how to effectively deal with them so that they don't negatively impact your life. O'Leary uses the analogy to the common cold – you can't completely eliminate Weasels from your life but you can take precautions to limit the frequency in which they enter your life and the damage that they do while they're a part of it.

O'Leary uses a mixes light-hearted humor with a fiercely intense attitude to combine a business book and a self-help book in an exciting fashion. One chapter might focus on a self-analysis, the next might be about personal stories from O'Leary's experiences, and the next about management. The book is well over 200 pages but reads at the speed of a book that's half that. I often found myself reading several chapters in a sitting, which is a testament to the writers’ ability to hold readers interest. If there's a downside (and it's not much of one), it's that O'Leary is so brutally honest that it may rub some people wrong, especially those who fall into the Whiner and Weasel groups.

Warriors, Workers, Whiners, and Weasels: The 4 Personality Types in Business and How to Manage Them to Your Advantage by Tim O'Leary is a must read for every entrepreneur, business owner, manager, and worker wishing to learn more about themselves, take advantage of their best traits, and protect themselves from those who could sabotage their career.

Mmmm that was del.icio.us

One of the reasons I started this blog was to show other young entrepreneurs the ups and downs of running a business. I tend to be a pretty optimistic guy but I know that to be successful my failures will likely outnumber my successes, and concurrently more of my blog posts will be laced with frustration as opposed to joy. But I also think that it's EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to take some time to celebrate and enjoy the moment when something good happens. After all, why are you playing the game if you can't take a break and enjoy a victory from time to time?

Yesterday was one of those really, really good days - on par with quitting my job or winning an award from Microsoft and getting a letter from Bill Gates. As recently as two days ago I was questioning my time-management and simplifying my marketing plan. For the first week, iPrioritize's traffic had settled around 50 - 75 visitors a day...not bad for a 9 day old business but plenty of room for improvement. With SportsLizard I steadily increased traffic - from 50 to 75, 75 to 100, 100 to 200, etc so I figured that was what I was in for with iPrioritize and I was OK with it.

That's why I was so surprised when I checked my stats yesterday afternoon. On Wednesday, iPrioritize had 39 visitors. I scrolled down and my jaw dropped - 875 visitors in half a day! That's more than I've ever done with SportsLizard...and it happened in half a day...with a site that's a whopping 9 days old. Holy #$&%! I went and checked how many users I'd gotten in that time and it was around 100. That means that well over 10% of the people coming to iPrioritize are signing up (for free accounts that is).

So how did this happen? A BIG thanks to the very popular social bookmarking site del.icio.us. Apparently someone like my site and bookmarked it. A few more people came along and checked it out and they did the same. By mid afternoon I was on the "most popular" page and that was that.

So a day later I've calmed down but my traffic hasn't. I'm going to spend the weekend working on an advertising campaign to try to monetize all of these free accounts that have suddenly and unexpectedly fell into my lap. I don't want to show ads on the site itself and I don't want to show ads to business accounts. I want to make sure that only free accounts see ads, only when they log in, and that they are non-invasive. I'm going to weigh all of the options and see what will work best under those constraints. It's important to me to keep a "professional" look on the site so I'm going to be careful with what I do. I'm open to any suggestions you guys have :)

Have a great weekend everyone, and be sure to enjoy the fruits of your labor from time to time. We all work hard and deserve to take a step back and admire what we accomplish.

Is it possible to read TOO much?

My friends always tell me I have some weird theories. Like a few weekends ago at a wedding I was trying to calm the groom down and I told him that I think that brides and grooms are actually more nervous at the wedding rehearsal than they are at the real thing. I got a bunch of wacky looks from people, but whatever - that's neither here nor there.

I've recently come up with a new theory - if you read too much about a topic (specifically business) it will hinder your abilities. Here's where I'm coming from: I have spent the last three years reading every business book, blog, magazine, website, and forum that I can get in front of me. I've learned a ton about what it takes to be successful in business and I think I've successfully applied many of the things I've read.

But lately I noticed that I have been trying to do EVERYTHING I read about. If it works for company A, I start thinking "hey, I should do that." When you read 3 hours a day like I do, you have a lot of those "hey, I should do that's" and pretty soon your business plan looks like a freaking NFL Playbook. One thing I have learned from reading and from observation is that the best businesses have simple plans that are executed with precision. That's impossible if your plan changes every day because you read about a new technique that you HAVE to use now.

I'm sure that there are people who can absorb knowledge for the heck of absorption, but not me. I want to apply what I read and I often fall into the trap of trying to apply it all immediately. When I developed iPrioritize I made it a point to make everything about the company - the web site, the software, the marketing, etc - extremely simple. But since it launched last week I've been adding all sorts of wacked out stuff to my marketing plan until last night I realized I had about 25 weak marketing tasks that I probably wouldn't be able to execute very well for one reason or another, instead of two or three that I could.

I went to sleep frustrated last night and woke up and cleaned house. I came up with a new, simpler plan to grow my business that I will pour 100% of my effort into executing. That's the kind of plan I need to be successful. Unfortunately, when I read a lot my mind starts scheming and I start tweaking perfectly good plans. So as wacked as it may sound, I'm going to improve my business by reading less. I've learned a lot and it's time to start applying that knowledge before I go back to the well looking for more. I'll keep reading my favorite blogs, books, and magazines...and I'll always keep up on the news, but I think I can do that in an hour a day instead of three.

For a pretty logical guy I can certainly come up with some illogical theories :)

The 36th Way You Can Use RSS Today!

Steve Rubel made a great post today entitled the 35 Ways You Can Use RSS Today. I'll admit, there are some pretty cool uses that I didn't realize existed. For instance, you can Get notified when that must-have item pops up on eBay or Subscribe to TV Listings.

But Steve, my man, how could you leave out iPrioritize! I realize that the company only launched last week and you've probably never heard of it, but that's no excuse. For your convenience, I wrote it up for you in your format. All you need to do is a little copy and paste action.

36. Track your to-do lists

I'm going to go back to watching Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Steve, I expect an updated version of your list in the morning :)

Improve Productivity with Free Software

I’m guessing you’re pretty busy. You’ve got a ton of stuff to get done everyday and you don’t need to waste time doing monotonous and repetitive tasks. But you also are probably pretty cost conscious and don’t have money to throw away on every piece of software that you need. Thankfully, there are several fully-functional free software packages out there that can help you and your business save time and money. The more I mention these great pieces of software to friends, the more I realize that most people don't know they exist. Here are some of my favorites (feel free to send me others that you know of and I'll add them):


OpenOffice
What it is: office suite that’s compatible with all other major office suites
Where to find it: http://www.openoffice.org/
How it helps you: Are you sick of paying $500 for each copy of Microsoft Office Professional? Well, the OpenOffice suite is a completely free alternative that includes a word processor, spreadsheet, database, and more. Each program has comparable features to its Microsoft counterpart and is completely compatible with Microsoft Office files. I regularly pass .DOC and .XLS files back and forth between the two and have never had a problem. An added bonus: OpenOffice Writer lets you save your documents as .PDF files. Good luck doing that with Microsoft Word without shelling out some more dough!


Mozilla Thunderbird
What it is: email client
Where to find it: http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/
How it helps you: One program that OpenOffice doesn’t offer a counterpart to is Outlook. Thunderbird is more like a souped up version of Outlook Express with hundreds of free extensions that let you do anything from change the color scheme to translate your emails to Chinese.


FeedReader
What it is: desktop RSS and ATOM aggregator
Where to find it: http://www.feedreader.com/
How it helps you: Configuring FeedReader can literally save you hours a day of flipping threw newspapers, websites, blogs, and newsletters for news. With FeedReader, all you need to do is subscribe to your favorite RSS feeds and watch all of the news come to you. I am able to scan hundreds of news sources in a matter of seconds to find the stories that I really need. Many sites put the entire story in the feed so you don’t even need to open your browser to stay connected.

Web CEO
What it is: web promotion software
Where to find it: http://www.webceo.com/
How it helps you: It saves me a TON of time. Web CEO helps you research your keywords for your SEO campaign, analyzes your pages and gives SEO suggestions, submits your sites to hundreds of search engines and directories, analyzes your link popularity, and checks your rankings in hundreds of search engines for your keywords. All for free! Web CEO also offers a Small Business and Pro Version too, but the free version should be enough unless you want to use Web CEO to do things like site maintenance and web analytics.

Skype
What it is: PC-to-PC phone calls
Where to find it: http://www.skype.com/
How it helps you: most businesses have a client/partner/supplier that isn’t a local call. That’s just the way that our Global Economy works these days. If you talk to them regularly, why not have them download a free copy of Skype and the two of you can talk all day long for nothing at all. Until the end of 2006, Skype is also offering free calls to any phone number in the US or Canada. You can also purchase a phone number and have the calls directed to your PC. I pay $40 a year for my business phone number through Skype for unlimited calls. Now that's pretty damn cheap!

FeedBurner
What it is: syndicates and promotes your blog, news feed, or podcast
Where to find it: http://www.feedburner.com/
How it helps you: spend the five minutes signing up for FeedBurner when you start your blog and they take care of the rest. FeedBurner gives you statistics on who’s reading your feed, pings feed reading services automatically, manages email subscriptions for you, and about fifty other things.

SiteUptime
What it is: website monitoring service
Where to find it: http://www.siteuptime.com/index.php
How it helps you: SiteUptime will check your web server, email server or FTP server every 30 minutes to check to see if it’s up and running. There’s no software to install and it takes about two minutes to set up. If you’re site is down it will send you an email notification. There are plans starting at $5/month that let you monitor more frequently and get advanced reporting, but the free account should be plenty for most people.

All of that and it didn’t cost you a penny!

Be True to You

There was a great article about Social Networking in the June 2006 issue of Fast Company Magazine. The article told the story of Sandi Thom, a 24 year old musician who signed a million euro deal with RCA/Sony BMG after performing 21 straight nights online via webcast.

Stories like that amaze me - she never left her house and was able to create an audience of over 100,000 people. If she were to have consulted with an expert in the industry before those 21 days, do you think that's how they would have suggest she get herself signed? Perform 21 straight webcasts and never leave home? Probably not.

I think we'd all agree that there are several traits that all successful entrepreneurs have in common. Some that come to mind are passion, focus, determination, integrity, and an uncanny ability to inspire those around them. Yet each entrepreneur is unique in HOW they use those traits.

The beauty of business is that there is no one path to success. There's no manual to read or class in school that you can take. There are as many paths as there are entrepreneurs.

It's great to read books and magazines and blogs about what it takes to be successful, but if you are truly going to reach your goals you probably aren't going to be a carbon copy of something you read. You are going to take pieces from each of those sources to cultivate the entrepreneur in you.

Not too many experts would have agreed with Sandi's strategy, but few would question it now. Don't let yourself get down if you don't feel comfortable following the path of another entrepreneur. If you are reading this you probably posses many or all of those traits I mentioned above. It's likely just a matter of finding what works for you.

I've Got Mind Petals!

Yesterday I accepted an invitation to join Mind Petals, a young entrepreneurs blogging network (you'll notice the logo on the right side of my blog). Mind Petals is the brain child of fellow entrepreneur David Askaripour, whose blog Flush the Toilet I've mentioned before as one of my favorites. In the short time since Mind Petals has launched, I've been introduced to several other YE bloggers with the same passion and drive that I have. I am honored to be a part of Mind Petals and excited to see David's vision unfold in the coming months.

iPrioritize Wacky Day 2

From my limited experience as an entrepreneur, I've come to the realization that the day after the launch of a new business or product is a weird one. The initial excitement and relief of the launch has been replaced with a realization that you have exactly zero customers. Now, maybe for some people this doesn't happen the next day, but I'd say something's wrong if you are still celebrating your launch a week later.

I woke up in a weird mood today. I had that "holy crap, how am I going to get people to start using my site and eventually buy my service" feeling, despite the fact that I have a well-thought out marketing plan to execute. I suppose that I get this feeling because marketing is such an inexact science.

After about an hour of that weird scared feeling running through my head, I noticed while catching up on my blog reading that David Lorenzo (one of my favorite bloggers) quoted me in his blog! Needless to say, that changed my mood.

But then a few minutes later I started wondering if I should check my stats for iPrioritize. While it's important to know how your biz is doing, it's crazy to check your stats every few hours when you just launched the day before. All this does is frustrate you that no one is checking your site. But would you really expect them to be finding it if you haven't done any marketing yet?

So I decided to hold off on checking the stats and start working on said marketing plan. This kind of depressed me because I realized how long marketing will take to be successful. Don't confuse that with me not willing to put in the work - I am - but it's disheartening to think that it could take months to really start getting some users. When I'm in "programming mode" I accomplish a ton every day and the results are very tangible. When it comes to marketing and networking, that just isn't the case. You might not reap the benefit of something you do today for a few years...or never. But you've still gotta do it because you never know the impact it can have.

After a few hours of doing that, I decided that I absolutely HAD to check the stats or I was going to go crazy...and I was pleasantly surprised. In my first half day 29 people signed up and the traffic was comparable to what SportsLizard did in the same time period (~200 people). I'm excited to see people using it and even more encouraged that the little bit of marketing I have done has resulted in solid traffic. We all know that traffic doesn't mean anything unless it's qualified traffic, but I'm impressed to see it that high that fast. SportsLizard gets ~12,000 visitors/month (which I am very proud of) and if iPrioritize gets even close to that in the first month I'll go crazy.

The next few hours I spent reading some newsletters and catching up on emails. So as I sit here in front of the TV watching Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals, my mood has leveled off and I'm getting anxious to start getting the word out about iPrioritize.

It was one weird day - up and down every few hours. I'm usually a pretty level headed guy but when I'm going through a launch this always seems to happened. Has anyone had a similar experience or am I just crazy :) ?

iPrioritize is Live, Free Business Accounts for Everyone!

Earlier this morning iPrioritize went live! It's been an amazing journey to the launch that I never thought would have gone as well as it did. When I started working on the project, I figured it wouldn't be ready until September or October. By the time I worked through everything, I was shocked that it all came together so quickly and I was able to launch months ahead of schedule (without dropping any features I might add). How often does that happen in business?

All of that puts me in a great mood and hopefully the positive momentum will continue. I did all of my initial SEO and sent out a press release earlier today so it'll be interesting to see what the reaction will be.

I encourage you all to swing by iPrioritize and sign up for a free account and let me know what you think. If you or anyone else that you know runs a business/organization and would be interested in a business account, drop me an email at adam.mcfarland@iprioritize.com and I'll give you a free lifetime account, no strings attached (normally $10/month or $100/year). Well, I'll probably send you an email asking what you think of it, but that's the most I'll ever ask of you.

At this stage of the business I am much more concerned with getting people using the application and getting valuable feedback than I am in making money. If I provide a product that truly solves peoples problems then the money will come. The best way for me to know whether or not I'm doing that is to hear it from users. I know that I have a lot of loyal readers who own small businesses and this is one small thing that I can do to say thank you to all of you and hopefully help improve your business, while also geting some valuable feedback on my work.

Friendship

This past weekend one of my best buddies got married and I was given the honor of being the best man. Now I'll be honest, part of me was looking forward to the weekend away and part of me was wishing I could be home getting some work done. By the end of the weekend I realized that I've been neglecting the amazing friendships that I have.

First off, congratulations go out to Adam and Meagan. May your marriage be blessed with love and happiness for the rest of your lives. Second, I'm pretty proud of myself for not screwing up the toast - I actually got a bunch of compliments about it and that always feels good.

Now what does all of this have to do with being an entrepreneur? Everything in my case. Over the past two years I've slowly grown away from some of my best friends. Before this weekend I thought it was just a natural kind of thing that happened over time as people grow up and that it was one of the sacrifices that I needed to make to succeed. Boy was I wrong. Our wedding party has been friends for the past 10 years. We've gone through thick and thin together, and even though we are scattered all over the country now, their friendship is as important to me as anything else in the world.

In our line of work, I think you'll always feel like you are either neglecting your business or neglecting your friends and family. The problems start to occur when you're always neglecting one of them. I've been spending TOO much time on my businesses and I think it's hurting me all around. It's certainly hurt my friendships and it's probably resulted in me putting too much pressure on myself to perform as an entrepreneur.

I'm just glad that I was able to figure this out this past weekend and not after I burnt myself out and screwed up every relationship in my life. It was the first time that I truly wasn't thinking about business for an extended time in the past two years. From now on, I've really, really got to make sure that I do that more often.

Book Review – Guerrilla Marketing for FREE

Back when I started SportsLizard I purchased a slew of business and marketing books. Some helped me a lot, others not so much. Originally, Guerrilla Marketing for FREE by Jay Conrad Levinson was one of those books that didn’t help very much. Most of what he talked about sounded good but really didn’t apply to the unique niche I was in. Well, two years later as I approach launching iPrioritize, I figured I’d give it another shot. This time around almost every single tactic was applicable to my business and I’m more excited than ever to start executing my low-cost marketing plan.

Sure, advertising is easy if you’re Pepsi or Apple, but what if you don’t have millions of dollars to throw at TV and print ads? Any business owner out there looking to cut their marketing budget should look no further than Guerrilla Marketing for FREE – Dozens of No-Cost Tactics to Promote Your Business and Energize Your Profits by Jay Conrad Levinson.

We’ve all heard examples of businesses that spend nothing on marketing and yet never seem to be lacking in customers (Krispy Kreme Doughnuts comes to mind), but how do they do it? On the first page of the book Levinson lets you know that it is possible to grow a business without spending a dollar on marketing, but that it takes a lot of energy and time. Each of the simple tactics the book discusses (there are 100) are deceptively simple and, according to Levinson, have proven track records.

All that you need to get started is a telephone, a computer, a printer, business cards, and access to the internet. After that you will not spend another dollar. Techniques range from the relatively obvious, such as “write a marketing plan” and “have a website”, to not-so-obvious things such as “establish a referral program” and “get involved in your community.”

Many of the tactics involve giving to receive. In addition to doing volunteer work in your community, Levinson suggests joining local networking groups, giving away your product for free to non-profit organizations and schools, and doing free presentations on your area of expertise to local organizations. Levinson’s tactics will not just help improve your bottom line, they’ll help you become a more altruistic entrepreneur.

If there’s one downside to the book, it’s that some of the techniques involving computers are outdated. For example, Levinson suggests advertising on free online classified sites. That may have worked years ago, but these days those sites are covered in spam and I doubt that any business would gain anything from listing on them. The book was written in 2003, so most of the techniques are still pretty valuable, but there’s just a few that stand out as infeasible in 2006.

When reading Guerrilla Marketing for FREE by Jay Conrad Levinson, I found myself constantly putting it down and jotting down ideas that could help supercharge my business. Levinson truly invokes your creative juices. And the best part is that all of the techniques cost you NOTHING. This is a no-brainer purchase for all entrepreneurs and small business owners.

I’m off to a wedding this weekend where I'm the best man. I’m looking forward to actually not spending all day thinking about iPrioritize! Enjoy the weekend everyone, I’ll be back next week.

Should Everyone be an Entrepreneur?

I've been noticing how often I defend the life of an entrepreneur/business owner. Usually because someone who is taking the "normal" path (you know, birth, school, job, retirement, death) attacks me or someone else who's decided to live a bit differently. They usually boast about how "secure" their life is and how "risky" mine is. At which point I laugh and say that the life of a successful entrepreneur is much more "secure" than the life of a typical business owner and it's not even close. An entrepreneur usually has multiple streams of income, can't get fired at any time for anything (what are the odds that all of their customers fire them at once?), and if they decide to leave the business they can sell it (try selling that job you got fired from).

So should everyone be an entrepreneur? Hell no. Consider the definition:

en·tre·pre·neur - a person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture

How screwed up would the world be if that was everyone? No one would ever want to work at McDonald's or a gas station. Should every kid in high school start their own business? No, some just want a few bucks a week to spend on video games and 10 hours at the movie theater gets it done. Some moms just want some extra cash for clothes so they get a job at Macy's. Is there anything wrong with that? Of course not.

If we were all entrepreneurs everyone would be trying to innovate but no one would have the tools to do so because we'd all would want to be the business owner and no one would want to get their hands dirty. Some people would rather just go to work from 9-5 and go home and live the rest of their life. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, as an entrepreneur, you NEED that person. You need the dedicated employee that will help you reach your goals and isn't interested in taking over your biz.

I have the utmost respect for any choice that anyone makes regarding their personal and professional life. I've never walked in their shoes so I try not to criticize. That's why it pushes my buttons when someone rides me. I'm not trying to convince them that the secret to a perfect life is being entrepreneureur, simply to respect the choice that I've made.

Introducing my new business - iPrioritize

For the past few months I've been working around the clock on getting my next business up and running. I'm getting very close to launch (hopefully by the end of the month), so I figured it was time to fill you guys in.

The business is called iPrioritize and is a simple, web-based way for people and businesses to organize their tasks. Throughout my college life, internships, and short time as an engineer I saw a universal problem: the inability to prioritize work. Not only individually, but as a group or department as well.

Part of the problem is that most people don't use a calendar to prioritize their work. They might use a calendar for their appointments or class schedule, but rarely to arrange their tasks. What do they do? They make lists. Many people still use paper and pencil, some people use Outlook Tasks or something similar. I thought it was time for an upgrade.

iPrioritize is the next evolution of list making. Your pen and paper list is transformed into a live list that can be edited at any time from any place in the world. It's easy for you to email and print your list, subscribe to your list via RSS, and share your list with others. You can even check your list from your mobile phone!

There will be a free account for individuals with 100% functionality. A low-cost business account will also be offered for managers and business owners that gives them permission to view and edit their employees lists. This gives them a way to get a birds-eye view of what's going on in their group without being intrusive. I think this is where the product will really shine.

Below are a few screenshots:




Drag your tasks up and down as your priorities change.




View your list anywhere you want. I'm really pumped about the RSS support. I think that's one of the coolest features.




View and edit other peoples lists with a business account.



If you can't tell, I'm totally pumped! More information to come...

Expose Your Weasel!

I received an email earlier this week from a reader of the blog named Patrick. Patrick works for a company called Respond2 Communications. His boss, Tim O'Leary (CEO of Respond2 Communications) released a book and corresponding promotional website and blog earlier this week. He asked that I check the blog out and mention it to you guys if I was impressed.

I was naturally a bit skeptical, but I figured all I had to lose was a few minutes of my time. I first went over to Amazon and checked out the book. It's called Warriors, Workers, Whiners, and Weasels: The 4 Personality Types in Business and How to Manage Them to Your Advantage. I had to admit, it's a pretty catchy title so I figured I'd read on. In the description, it describes the four types:

Warriors, who confront change, see possibilities, innovate and manage to win!

Workers, who deal with the ups, downs and challenges of everyday corporate life dependably, and who can reliably implement the change and direction established by the Warriors.

Whiners, who get through life by complaining about everything they do, who profess negativism and dissatisfaction wherever they go, and blaming others for their own shortcomings.

Weasels, who lurk everywhere and threaten your career and life-goals through their own deception and insecurity and who spread these feelings quickly throughout the organization.

OK, now I'm pretty sure that we all know people who fit into one of those four categories. If you're reading this blog, I'm guessing you are a Warrior or are aspiring to be a Warrior.

After reading a bit more of the description, I was pretty sold on the whole idea so I went over to check out Tim's blog, which goes into greater detail about each of the four types. I found myself nodding my head the whole time and placing everyone I've ever worked with into one of the four categories.

Then I saw it: a link to "Expose Your Weasel." Being the perverted 23 year male old that I am, I figured the site would be more than just exposing the people you know who are weasels :).

The site has a guy on the top "exposing his weasel" (facing away from you of course). I was on the ground cracking up. The site lets you rank weasels as well as "submit a weasel" that you know to the site. How great is that? I went through and rated everyone from Barry Bonds to some girls roommatee who through up on her last night. The site is absolutely classic!

Patrick has been nice enough to send me over a copy of the book to review for you guys, so I'll let you know what I think about it when I finish it. In the meantime, go Expose Your Weasel!