While another school year is in session, many graduating seniors are already looking to line up jobs following next spring’s commencement, with some underclassmen doing likewise part-time to help pay for their college costs. Whatever the scenario, it is important that students have their online portfolios polished up.

What to Look Out for

According to a number of different surveys, more and more employers are looking at a student’s social media profile as part of the hiring process, whether it is a full-time job or a part-time position to help them pay bills while still in school.

While most of the danger zones should be self-explanatory, here is a reminder of what to avoid:

• Posting risqué photos on your Facebook or Twitter pages, including too little clothing, drinking etc.;
• Making ill-informed comments about classmates, teachers, other individuals;
• Making racist or sexual comments. Potential employers will frown upon this given that you will likely work with a number of different individuals in your employment;
• Lamenting that fact that you are lazy and do not like working. If you’re looking to get shot down before you even get your foot in the door for an interview, this is one way

Take the Positive Road in Your Profile

While we have highlighted the negative ways a social media profile can hurt you, there are other means by which it can help you.

If you’re a college student about to graduate or just looking for part-time work, use your social media profile to:

• Highlight your education. This can be done by pointing any internships, special projects, travels etc. that would be of value to a potential employer;
• Highlight your interest in a particular employer or employers. This will show companies that you have a high level of interest in working for them, something that they definitely want to know.

With the job market being tight and the national unemployment rate still hovering around 9.1 percent, it behooves students searching for jobs to have as many factors as possible leaning in their favor.

If a student doesn’t want to completely remove a Facebook or Twitter page while job hunting, temporarily take it down, then republish it once the job is in hand. Keep in mind that while you can “lock up” pages, potential employers can find ways to get into the sites via friends and family.

While noting Facebook and Twitter to date, students are advised to create a LinkedIn page in order to come across as more professional to potential employers.

LinkedIn is a great business networking site that can be utilized by students even if they’ve only held part-time jobs and/or internships to date. Many employers will look at such a page as a student being professional, organized and caring about their outward image.

Lastly, it is a good idea when preparing to send out feelers and/or resumes to employers while still in school to “Google” oneself and see what comes up.

In the event there is a negative material floating around the Internet, an individual has the opportunity to do some damage control before it gets in the hands of potential employers.

The best approach to take when posting comments or pictures to a social media site is would you want your mom or dad to see this about you. If the answer is no, what’s it doing there in the first place?

Dave Thomas, who covers among other subjects vehicle insurance writes extensively for www.business.com an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

Domainers are already having their domain names appraised to determine the resale value on them, so why wouldn’t you have an appraisal conducted for your entire business? In addition to helping you determine the actual worth of your business, business appraisals also help you determine:

The Value of Marketable Assets

Knowing the potential value of your company’s marketable assets is highly beneficial should your business be liquidated. Although no one wants to believe that their business could be liquidated, the market for businesses has been so tough, that anything is possible. A business could be looking great one week and go under the next. By knowing your marketable assets, you will know exactly what you are able to sell should your business begin failing which could save you thousands of dollars in the long run.

The Value of Interest for Personal Planning

If you know the approximate value of your business, you will know how much coverage or insurance you will need. Knowing the value will also allow you to better prepare for retirement and for death as you will know how much additional income you may obtain during your retirement years, or how much your loved ones will be left with should you perish.

The Value of Each Owner’s Interest

Did you start on online business with your roommate? Is half your frat house invested in your business? A business appraisal will help you assess how much each owner should receive should you choose to sell the business. Not only will this help argument be avoided later on the down the road, but it will also help ensure that business continues to be conducted fairly amongst owners.

There are several ways that a business appraisal may be conducted. A business owner can perform one themselves by using their own balance sheets, or they may employ the professional help of a business valuation firm. Although all business owners should perform a business appraisal themselves, a professional appraisal is recommended as all guesswork will be removed from the equation. The price for a professional appraisal can be expensive though so only serious business owners should consider employing the services of such firms.

The sale is over, but the book is still an amazing one to pick up!

If you have big dreams for your blog but have been putting improving it in the ‘one day’ basket – you’re not alone.

31 Days to Build a Better Blog is a downloadable e-book from Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net designed to help you revitalize your blog by giving you 31 tasks that will all help to turn it into the page view powerhouse you’ve always dreamed of.

Each day in the project contains:

1. A Task – something to DO that day.
2. Teaching – each day you’ll be given great instruction on both the WHY and HOW of the task of the day.

This two pronged approach is designed so that you come away from the challenge having not only learned how to build a dynamic a blog but you’ll have actually DONE something with the knowledge.

How to Use the Workbook

While originally designed for bloggers to work through over a month – the feedback that we’ve been hearing from bloggers indicates that 31DBBB is being used in a variety of ways including:

• Intense Training – bloggers setting aside weekends or weeks to go through multiple tasks at once
• 1 Task a Day – the way we designed it – one day at a time
• 1 Task a Week – bloggers taking their time with the challenge and making the tasks week long tasks
• Monthly Cycle – bloggers using the tasks again and again each month as a monthly routine for their blogging.
• Occasional Inspirational Resource – bloggers dipping into 31DBBB on a more occasional basis – using it on days when they have time or lack inspiration.

The great thing about 31DBBB is that you can do it at your own pace and in your own way.

Who is this Workbook for?

31 Days to Build a Better Blog is for bloggers at different stages of their blogging including:

• those who have just started a blog but who don’t know what to do next
• those who have had a blog for a while but it’s stalled in its growth
• bloggers with bloggers block and lacking inspiration

This workbook is NOT designed for bloggers yet to start a blog (PreBloggers). It doesn’t cover setting up a blog. If that’s you check out the ProBlogger book which covers this aspect of blogging.

By the end of the 31 Days you’ll have:

• written a variety of different types and styles of posts
• learned techniques for coming up with new post ideas
• promoted your blog in a variety of ways
• built relationships with readers
• reached out to and developed working relationships with other bloggers
• developed an editorial calendar for your blog going forward
• discovered ways to be more connected to your niche/topic
• designed a plan for the next month of your blogging

All in all the daily tasks are 31 steps to transform you blog into a valuable online asset.

3 New Year Bonuses

Bonus #1: Free Report: 9 Things to Do to Get Your Blog On Track in The New Year
Bonus #2: Podcast with Leo Babauta from Zen Habits
Bonus #3: Podcast with Neil Patel from QuickSprout

There are less than 2 days to get the bonuses, and the half price discount. This book normally sells for $40, here is your chance to get so much more for so much less at just $19.95. I just picked up my copy and plan on starting reading it tomorrow, but I wanted to pass along the great savings and opportunity to you all! Go check it out now! Click here to view more details

My name is Derek Johnson, and I’m 24 years old. I went to school at the University of Houston. During my junior year, I decided to drop out of the entrepreneurial program to start my own SMS marketing company , Tatango.

What was your defining moment where you said, “I want to start my own business”?

I was sitting at lunch with a friend who was having trouble communicating with her group, and I could relate because I was part of various groups on campus. I realized there was a need that had to be filled, people needed an easier way to communicate with a large group of people. From then on, I worked to find a solution and the process lead me to start Tatango.

Tell us about your business venture, Tatango, and how it was developed. Why did you want to launch such a company and where is it at now?

As I said above, the company was born out of necessity; it wasn’t like I came up with the idea out of the blue. There was a need for a service like Tatango and no one was servicing that need. In regards to what we do here, we allow any group such as a church, athletic team, or college organization the ability to send text and voice messages to their entire group simultaneously from their computer or mobile phone for free.

Where did the name “Tatango” come from?

This is an interesting story. The company was originally named NetworkText and we decided to change the name because it was too descriptive and started to restrict us in terms of what we were able to do. Now with the company name, Tatango, we are free to move and adapt as we see fit. This was a costly lesson, so if you are thinking of picking a company name, make sure it can be flexible.

What has been the largest challenge launching into the mobile/text messaging industry? Is there much competition within the industry and your niche?

The hardest part about launching a company in the mobile space is that you have to rely heavily on the carriers, who in the end are the ones responsible to transmit our messages to a user’s mobile phone. This has always been a hurdle in the mobile space, but we have been able to navigate successfully through these waters with the help of our great partners. There are a lot of companies in the mobile space, yet most of them focus on the commercial aspects such as SMS marketing, but no one besides Tatango has been able to create a service built just for groups and organizations.

As an entrepreneur it is great to see your idea go from just a concept to a business supporting employees. Is there anything you wish you had done differently from initial launch to now?

I started the company with a background in business, thinking I could outsource the technology side. I was wrong. We were building a website, I look back and think I was crazy to put the forward facing part of our company (the website) in the hands of someone that didn’t have a real stake in the company. Instead of outsourcing, I should have brought on a partner that could have handled the technology side of the company and would complement my skills from the very beginning.

What’s your take on entrepreneurship? Are you born with it or can it be taught?

Entrepreneurship, I think there’s two parts to it… The first part you are born with, which is the drive, desire and “hustle”, this can’t be taught. The second part is the skills and knowledge that it takes to be an entrepreneur, which have to be taught to you. You can obtain this knowledge from anywhere, doesn’t mean you need to attend a four-year college. I learned the majority of it from my parents, who are also entrepreneurs.

Do you have any favorite books on business or motivation that you think our readers would enjoy or should check out?

I don’t have time to read books, but I do read blogs. As an entrepreneur I think it’s important to read two types of blogs: entrepreneurial blogs and industry specific blogs.

Being in the startup life can be a wild ride with traveling, long days, and short nights. How have you been balancing the startup life with the normal life of a 20 something year old?

I don’t really have a normal life of someone my age. I don’t have time to do the things that other people my age do, and that’s a sacrifice I understand I have to make. I see a lot of people who want the end results right off the bat, and it just doesn’t work that way. You have to be willing to sacrifice and work long hours to start your own company. Your company really becomes your entire life.

Finally, what is your top recommendation to students or young entrepreneurs looking to start a business on the internet?

Just go for it. I see a lot of people with really cool ideas, but they never take that leap and do it. If you really want it and are willing to work your ass off, then just go for it.

Derek, thank you very much for granting us an interview. We know you are busy and always have something going on, so it is greatly apprecaited.

Also, for everyone reading, be sure to check out the launch of Tatango.TV. Basically, they have placed web cams throughout their office and are recording everything 24/7 and streaming it on the internet. Should be fun!

Ryan is also pretty well known as a speaker at many events on entrepreneurship including the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization conferences and the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour.

At the CEO conferences, when he gives a keynote, he likes to be real and break it down. Literally, he dances to Soulja Boy on stage as seen in the video below – dancing starts at about the 1:20 mark.

CEO video:

Ryan had been recruited as a speaker at the Underground 5 event and it just happened that he was still in town on Sunday. Now, some of you may remember that Ryan was nice enough to sponsor a Dorm Room Biz contest and supply a signed copy of his book to a winner, so thanks again for that Ryan!

I knew Ryan was a great guy and seemed very laid back, but besides that, I honestly had no idea what to expect from him. So when he said that he’d be more than happy to meet and chat, I figured it would be a quick 10 minute thing. Yet, Ryan was more than happy to hang out with a group of young entrepreneurs for about an hour, giving his time and insight, as we talked about everything from business to sports in the UK to helping children get an education in Africa.

A question I wanted to get an answer to was why he decided to dance to Soulja Boy at the CEO conference during his Keynote and what students can get from attending the CEO conference and other conferences. You can see his response in the video below.

Thanks for keeping it real with us Ryan and hanging out. It was a pleasure to get to meet you finally and enjoy a good discussion about a range of topics. I’m sure many young and student entrepreneurs will continue to follow your journey over the next several years and look to you for inspiration.

If you are not doing so already, subscribe to Ryan Allis’ blog at www.ryanallis.com so you can read about how he got ripped off in China and much more about his business experiences and social entrepreneurship.

Like I said in the other post, I searched for costumes that did not have many active listings, but were selling successfully for any listing that was up. So this meant that I listed popular items and with any luck the demand would be high. Well, the demand was high. Total, I had 26 costume sales on eBay, pretty damn good for about 72 hours. It was roughly $1000 worth of business in eBay’s eyes…to me it was $136.

So anyway, here are the problems I ran into.

1. With my first few sales, the price I listed it the costume at was too low to cover the eBay and PayPal fees and to cover the actual cost of the costume. I lost between 50 cents and a dollar on 4 sales, not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. To rectify the situation, I increased the listing price and added a a little bit to the shipping price the buyer paid. This then covered the fees and cost of the item and gave me now a small profit of between 50 cents and a dollar on each sale.
2. I placed 6 orders with one company whose affiliate program I was apart of one night. Then the next day I processed a few more with no problems. However, before heading to bed that night, I went to place a couple more that had sold on eBay…yet they were out of stock! This put me in a panic. I had to search for another company that was selling the same costume for the same price or less AND become an affiliate of theirs immediately to be able to process the orders that night. Luckily I was able to find another website that I could use and processed a handful of orders with them.
3. The third day my second ‘supplier’ was out of stock when I went to process another batch of orders. Well shit on me! I was even more worried about it now because I knew these were hot items and finding another website that had a good stock of them would be a problem. Luckily I got approved for another affiliate program with costume website and I started processing orders.
4. This past Monday (the 20th) I get an email from the 3rd supplier telling me that they were out of stock of everything I ordered (even though their website showed it was in stock) and that ALL of my orders had been canceled…all 10 of them! I called to find out what the problem was because I placed all the orders on Friday, the 17th and the website said everything was in stock. Well apparently it takes up to 6 hours for the website to reflect the real inventory levels and when the site updated to being out of stock, I had already processed all the orders I had and they could not ship any of the costumes. All the charges I had through PayPal and my credit card had been refunded and all of the sudden I had an extra $600 in my PayPal account. Well, it was a popular costume, and after trying another 6 websites, just to process the orders – even if I could not get affiliate commissions from them, everyone was out of stock.
5. I had to refund 10 orders…this hurt…bad. Not only did I have to go through and individually refund 10 people’s money, I had to make sure they all went through, document the refunds (to make sure I was keeping track of everything), and contact them all to let them know what was going on. I emailed everyone and explained the situation, sent the refunds, and then left feedback on eBay for them all. Some have left feedback for me and I hope the rest will as well.
6. I still got charged the eBay fees!!!!!! When you refund money through PayPal, you get the fee refunded as well – so if you send me $50, the PayPal fee may be $2, netting me $48. Well PayPal refunds the $2 fee if I refund you the $50. BUT I still incurred the eBay fees for each costume purchase (this is about $4.50 a costume). So, now I am going to be down about $40 because of the stinking eBay fees. It’d be nice if eBay could follow a PayPal refund and then you could ‘cancel’ a sale within eBay so you are not charged the fees because the transaction was not completed. Oh well. Luckily this is not coming from out-of-the-pocket money, but it will be covered by my affiliate commissions.

SO, if you are thinking about doing this sort of thing in the future, here are a couple tips I have.

• Contact an affiliate manager and make sure that what you want to do is alright with them and does not violate any terms or conditions.
• Contact the company you want to process orders with and make sure they are alright with you selling on eBay and processing the orders through them.
• Make sure the company has enough of the item in stock to fulfill your demand! If you can, get a certain number of the product reserved for you so that you know you have a certain number available to sell. This is the biggest thing I will try to do next time I do something like this.

Good luck with if you want to do this type of making money online experiment in the future and see how much you can earn in affiliate commissions. When I do a blog income report at the beginning of November, I will include this affiliate commission amount, but I will figure out what the real number is (my earnings of ~$136 minus eBay fees) to see how well I really did.

Once I had a couple affiliate relationships set up with the companies, I started to do some promoting on my sites and through over avenues…yet nothing seemed to be working. So, I went to what I know best – eBay. I took the description from the costume supplier website, created a list on eBay in my store, and built the price up a little bit to cover the eBay fees.

Within almost an hour of listing the costumes in the store format on eBay, I received sales and payments. Now I needed process the orders and this is where the money making comes in.

I had an referral link for the company that I was going to be ordering from and placed a button on a couple of my sites (including Dorm Room Biz). I booted up my laptop, launched a browser, and clicked the link. I made the purchase through my affiliate link, using my billing information and credit card and then had the costume shipped directly to the person who bought it from me on eBay. Essentially I created my own drop-shipping service. Now the important thing to remember when doing this is that the websites track the orders through cookies, so in order for all the orders to count towards your earnings that you place, you are going to need to delete your cookies, history files, and temporary files. This clears everything out and gives you a fresh launching point. The you just repeat the process – visit your referral link, place the order, clear your cookies etc, and so on.

Through eBay I made about 25 sales of a few different costumes which came to about $136 dollars. The best part of this? It all happened within about 72 hours of putting up the listing. I started the auctions on Tuesday and was going away for the weekend so closed everything on Friday. I didn’t actually get any orders on Friday, so everything pretty much happened within 3 days.

Finding which costumes to sell was the hardest part of this whole process. Basically I searched for about 15 different costumes on eBay and found which ones had few listings but always sold and for a good price (at least what it would ‘cost’ me from the supplying website or more). Once I came across a couple, I set up the auctions and let them roll. The orders just continued to come in sometimes within an hour of listing an item in my store with a quantity of 5 available, they all would sell and I would have to relist it.

Now, I do not know to what extent this is bending the rules of an affiliate program as I do not do much work in the area, but I thought it was a clever way to make some eBay sales and earn some cash through an affiliate program. It is a win-win for both parties – they are selling their products and still making their profits, and then I am making money from promoting their items. However, this is not something that I would continually do over and over again unless I spoke with someone in depth about this either on the site of the actual company or an affiliate manager.

Anyone else “gamed” the system this way to take advantage of the holiday season? If I could find a product that would do this well related to Christmas I would probably start promoting it on eBay right away! Later, I will discuss a couple of the downsides to this plan and money making experiment that I encountered.

This is a great way to make money online or make money from your dorm room for not doing much work. Try it out next year!

So after about a week of being open, the contest post only had a few comments and I was getting worried. I didnt want to have 7 prizes to give away to 3 people. So I was pointed in the direction of a site called HelpAReporter.com. Basically, the site is AWESOME! If you want a down and dirty, no bull shit method to get your information out in front of a lot of people, then you need to check out HARO. BTW, people seem to use HARO…which I assume stands for Help A Reporter Out (I could be totally off on that though).

Anyway, you fill in a form with some basic information (name, email, website, etc) and then describe the content that you want me to check out. For me, I described my contest and the details about how I wanted to find more people to participate. I talked about the prizes and how they were great resources for entrepreneurs, students, and small business owners.

Within 5 hours of submitting my information on the HARO website, I had responses coming in and comments on the site. People started entering and it was a HUGE snowball effect. All of the sudden within the 12 hours of the submission 20 new comments were left, with a bunch of trackbacks to postings the people had written.

All of the sudden, things exploded and when finished, the contest had more than 300 entries (combined from comments, subscribing via email, and posting about it). Not too bad right? So, if you want to get your article, website, or post out to a lot of people quickly who can then pass it along to others and share it, HARO is a great way to go.

Besides the benefits of getting more people to the site and entering the contest, HelpAReporter brought some other unexpected advantages. Through HARO, I was able to make some new connections to young entrepreneurs that are interested in guest posting on Dorm Room Biz, that are interesting in doing podcasts and interviews, and also found more sponsors for the contest. I’ll definitely be using the site again in the future to help promote other articles, contests, and projects – I suggest you do the same. It is the best FREE direct email to a targeted audience you can get!

By the way, I did want to say that this post is completely my own opinion and is not paid for or sponsored in anyway…although that would have been super cool. If you’re interested in a sponsored post or paid review, feel free to contact me.

I hope you all are staying dry and cool…it has been raining here in Maryland for the last couple days because of the tropical storm. I will be glad when it all wraps up!

Be sure to join in on the fun at the Dorm Room Biz contest! Entries are welcome until September 19th!

Start off by telling us a little bit about your background – where you went to school, what you studied, etc.
I’m from Ohio, originally. Bowling Green and Dayton. I moved to Des Moines when I was 15. I went to DePauw University, in Greencastle, Indiana. Graduated in 1993 in Psychology and Business Administration. Went into advertising right after college.

What sparked your initial interest in entrepreneurship?
Always had a thing for coming up with business ideas. You know the routine. You come up with this great idea and ultimately end up talking yourself out of it. I became quite good at it. Drove my wife mad. But one day, almost four years ago, I had this idea that I found really hard to blow holes threw. That idea was and became what is known as SmartyPig.

Almost four years ago, my wife and I had our first child, Charlie. I remember thinking how important it was to start a college savings program for him. I remember starting his 529 plan a few weeks after he was born. We started putting a hundred dollars away each month. And after 5 or 6 months, I remember logging into the 529 site and seeing his savings build. And more importantly, remembering that feeling of “responsible saving”. It was like I hadn’t even missed the money. Automatically taken out of my checking each month. We just became accustomed to not having the money. Soon after I was in Phoenix playing golf with some old college buddies. I had just dropped them off at the airport and I went back to my hotel to kill a few hours before my flight back to Des Moines. I grabbed my computer looking for a site that would help me save up for other things in my life. I wanted to save up for a trip for my wife and I (some day) to go to Italy. A lofty goal I knew would take years to save for. And I also knew I wanted a new road bike next year. Was training for Ride The Rockies with some friends… So I just assumed there was a site out their that was all about “goal savings”. When I didn’t see it, I guess you could say I had my “light bulb” moment. Started drafting a business plan right then and there. It was all I thought about. Trying to shoot holes in the idea from every direction. I spent the next few months flushing out the idea and showed it to a friend of mine, Jon Gaskell. It wasn’t long before the two of us quit our jobs and became the co-founders of SmartyPig.

What is SmartyPig, how did you get involved with the project, and what role do you play now?
So what is SmartyPig you ask? Well, simply put, SmartyPig helps you save for specific goals in your life. Be it a vacation, a wedding, a big-screen TV, a home remodel, etc… Anything! It’s the only banking application that is truly social, allowing you to make your goal “public” so your mom, dad, family and friends can contribute to your interest bearing savings goals. In addition, if you know what you are saving for, SmartyPig has partnered with almost 20 retailers around the country (like Amazon.com, Best Buy, Sears, Home Depot, etc…) that will give you up to an additional 5% cash boost to your savings. SmartyPig goals are FDIC insured and accrue interest (currently 3.9% APY). It really is a 21st century piggy bank.

You can see my goals on SmartyPig here: http://www.smartypig.com/friends-goals Just type in my email address – mferrari@smartypig.com

We really don’t have titles here. We wear a lot of hats. Spend a lot of my time talking and listening to customers. Jon and I are copied on every customer service email and many times, find ourselves emailing back and forth with a customer. It’s great to hear what our customers are saving for and about how passionate they are about SmartyPig. I work closely with the developers to ensure the site delivers on a positive customer experience, brainstorm about future enhancements and services and I oversee the daily operations of the company.

When did SmartyPig open its doors and launch?
SmartyPig was founded in January 2007. We were in BETA for the first few months of 2008. We officially launched in April of 2008.

What advantages do you see SmartyPig having over other competition in the area of online banks and savings accounts such as ING direct? What would make someone want to switch to SmartyPig from another service?
Well, in all reality, we see us competing more with credit card companies than traditional online savings companies. We’re really trying to reverse the “buy now, pay later” mentality. The beauty of SmartyPig is that we really aren’t asking people to change banks. Keep your existing banking relationships. Save for retirement. Save for your 529. But when it comes time to save for specific things in your life, we believe there is no better way than SmartyPig. It’s fun. It’s social. And most importantly, it’s rewarding. Wouldn’t it be nice to own that vacation on the plane ride home? Not have to worry about paying it off for the next 20 months?

We also see SmartyPig playing a big role with parents and kids. Wouldn’t it be nice to finally sit down with your kids and talk about the importance of savings? SmartyPig let’s parents do just that. SmartyPig is using the latest in Web 2.0 technologies, including blogs, Facebook, a comprehensive widget platform that spans over 20 social networking sites, Twitter and Get Satisfaction.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Des-Moines-IA/SmartyPig/8164998395
Twitter: http://twitter.com/smartypig
Get Satisfaction: http://getsatisfaction.com/smartypig
Blog: http://blog.smartypig.com/

I don’t know if your willing to tell but, I figured I’d ask: Since launching SmartyPig, how many registered users have you had? And is there any way to follow how much money has been saved (or an estimate) with your service?
I can tell you that in two short months, we have customers in all 50 states. And as you suggested, SmartyPig has some pretty powerful metrics. We know what users are savings for, how much they are saving and when the are going to reach their goal.

What are the growth plans for SmartyPig? Are there goals that you are trying to reach over the next few months, year, etc such as a certain number of users, etc?
Each day I get to work, I think about how we can make SmartyPig better. We listen to our customers and react quickly. With that said, we are humbled by the response SmartyPig has been getting around the country and around the globe. We are looking at a number of opportunities for SmartyPig to expand globally. We believe the concept of savings resonates everywhere.

What has been your largest road block/challenge that you and your team have faced with launching a web 2.0 company such as SmartyPig?
There has not been one specific road block that comes to mind. Our biggest hurdles were in regards to the barrier to entry to the online financial services space in general. We worked very closely with our banking partner, auditors, state and federal regulatory groups. Our biggest challenges frankly stemmed from the fact that no one had ever seen a company like SmartyPig do what we set forth to do. And that is to build the only true banking application that is social.

Entrepreneurs who are still in their start up phases usually have some pretty good advice for younger entrepreneurs or students who are thinking about starting a business or may have just started one. What are some words of wisdom that you would pass along to help them out? Possibly things you wish you had known/thought about, etc.
Believe in the idea. And believe in yourself. I can’t tell you how many times I heard someone say “well, that will never work”. Just because someone has never done it, does not mean it can’t be done. Don’t take someone’s word for it. Do your own research and find the answers yourself. And most importantly, don’t be afraid to get outside your comfort zone. It’s usually when the best thinking occurs.

Being an internet based company, I am sure you spend a lot of time on the computer. When you get tired of looking at your own website or have some down time, what websites do you check out, what forums do you participate in, or what blogs do you read?
I have a few favorites. LinkedIn. Twitter. Mashable. TechCrunch. Crave. Facebook. Mint. I spend a lot of time (primarily at night) on the web just interacting with sites. Seeing how people are using things like AJAX and other techniques to enhance the user experience. I also love following what our friends at Happy Cog are up to. Granted we were a client, I think they’re all geniuses.
http://www.happycog.com

Finally, can you tell what the most saved for item or event is with the current users of SmartyPig?

What I can share with you is that the top 5 categories for savings on SmartyPig are as follows: saving to save, travel, electronics, home improvement, and weddings.

*****

Thanks again Mike for working with me to put together a great interview! Also, for our readers, look out for a great prize coming soon (as in a few days) from SmartyPig to encourage you to sign up and start saving!