12 Websites You Need To Be Using As An Entrepreneur

Written by Chris on September 9, 2008 – 1:00 pm -

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What’s up guys? There are literally thousands of websites and services out there that help entrepreneurs and small business owners to run their business, promote and market themselves, and control the chaos. However, deciding which ones to use is the problem. Here is a list of some of the best services out there that you need to be using or at least looking at for your small business.

Twitter
Twitter allows you to update your followers with what is going on, what you are doing, and what you want to talk about. Limited to 140 characters, you have the opportunity to reach a wide audience with your messages. Following people and having followers is the key to success on Twitter -  you need to build your audience. The micro-blogging platform is free and super easy to use via the web or text messaging. Join, start following, advertise your business, services, or products and watch your business grow.
Website: http://www.twitter.com
Cost: Free

Facebook
What - you’re not on Facebook? What the hell are you thinking? Start a profile for yourself, start a page for your business, and start adding your friends. Use Facebook as an avenue to connect with customers on a whole different level. You can also find your friends from college, high school, and former workplaces. Interact with your friends and start talking up your business. Refer people to your business’s Facebook page or group and get them to join it. As people start joining, others will see the notice on their feeds that their friends are joining your group - which may entice them to join themselves. This is a great way to grow your audience and potential customer base. The social aspects of Facebook are also great - upload and share pictures, links, stores, and more.
Website: http://www.facebook.com
Cost: Free

FreshBooks
Looking for a good and easy way to invoice your clients, track your time, or track your expenses? Then check out FreshBooks! The free service will allow you to add a few clients and the paid version will allow for more, but basically you can send invoices to your clients through email and share documents with them as well. The service is great for someone like a web designer or developer that needs to share documents and information constantly with their clients.
Website: http://www.freshbooks.com
Cost: Free or $14/month and up

Basecamp
Project management and collaboration can be a tricky thing when you are small and just starting out. When you are working with a lot of other people on a project, it is key to keep everyone on the same page. Basecamp from 37Signals will help you do that! Basecamp will allow you to customize your management area look and feel, share it with your customers or team members, and share all kinds of documents and information. Anything from 37Signals is a helpful tool for your business, so check out their other services as well.
Website: http://www.basecamphq.com/
Cost: 30 day free trial or $25/month and up

SmartyPig
If you are looking to save up some of your businesses income and hold on to it for a big purchase of new equipment or other needs for your business, then you need to look in to SmartyPig. SmartyPig allows you to set up savings goals and have money deposited into a savings account direct from your bank account each month. I use them for mostly personal savings goals, but business savings goals are definitely a great idea. The people at SmartyPig are awesome and offer great support, so I strongly recommend them - the best part? It’s free!
Website: http://www.smartypig.com
Cost: Free

LinkedIn
If you don’t like Facebook because you feel there is too much info free for searching and not enough privacy, check out the more professional social network, LinkedIn. LinkedIn has been around for a good while, maybe even longer than Facebook? LinkedIn allows you to connect with collegaues, classmates, and other professionals in similar industries…or just random people like Facebook. However, LinkedIn is focused more on the professional side of social networking and growing your connections. You can have people endorse you to help you grow your presence and you don’t have to really worry about any crazy party pictures of you doing a keg stand showing up on your managers Facebook feed (wouldn’t that suck?).
Website: http://www.linkedin.com
Cost: Free

Google Analytics
I could not create a list of useful websites without having at least one Google product on it. Analytics is an awesome visitor tracking program that Google has developed. All you need to do is slap a few lines of code on your site and let it be. Analytics will automatically start tracking your sites visitors - telling you where they are coming from, how long they are staying, what pages they are visiting, and much much more. The best part? Like most things from Google, it is free! There is no reason that you should not be using the program to track your site traffic and evaluate what is working for you.
Website: http://www.google.com/analytics
Cost: Free

YouTube
Social media is a huge part of the web 2.0 revolution and is attracting many more people and businesses to the internet. One way to take advantage of social media and viral marketing is through uploading videos that you create to free video sharing websites such as YouTube. YouTube allows you to upload any video you make (as long as it is under its file size requirements) and share it with your friends, embed it in your website, or post it on other websites such as Facebook. YouTube offers an amazing way to find new customers and visitors for your website. By displaying your website name, logo, or web address in your videos, you will see some traffic come from YouTube…as long as the video is good and people are watching it! If you’re looking to brand yourself and your business, start making some videos and posting them on YouTube!
Website: http://www.youtube.com
Cost: Free

Mint
Looking for a good free way to manage your finances and keep track of your spending? Then you should check out Mint. Mint allows you to link pretty much any bank account, credit card account, and online payment account (like PayPal) to your Mint account and see a summary of your spending and your total income/debt. You can then see trends as to what you are spending the most on and what you need to cut back on. Mint also provides you with different opportunities to save money by switching banks or credit card offers.
Website: http://www.mint.com
Cost: Free

StartupNation
StartupNation is a community website for entrepreneurs featuring step-by-step advice, videos, podcasts, and many resources. The website also features a pretty active forum. StartupNation is definitely a site to keep an eye on as you work on developing your business and have questions you want to try to get answered.
Website: http://www.startupnation.com
Cost: Free

Young Go Getter
Young Go Getter is an active forum for entrepreneurs. You can definitely get the help you need from this group of dedicated people with their knowledge spanning a wide array of industries and technologies. If you have questions about an industry, looking for some help, or just want a place to hang out, then check out YGG.
Website: http://www.younggogetter.com
Cost: Free

Young Entrepreneur
A community of entrepreneurs and want to be entrepreneurs exceeding more than 5000 members strong, YE is a site to visit and visit often. Although some of the content may not always be the most relevant or it may be ’spam’ posts, if you have the time to sort through and find the good stuff, then it is worth it. I talked with the creator a couple weeks back and he says things are in the works to make YE much better in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out! This group of helpful people can definitely be a benefit to you and will help you in any way they can!
Website: http://www.youngentrepreneur.com
Cost: Free

And finally, of course, Dorm Room Biz is always one of the best places to get help as a student entrepreneur!

What are your favorite websites to check and resources to refer to when you need some help?

Tags: 37 Signals, Analytics, Basecamp, facebook, FreshBooks, Google, LinkedIn, MySpace, smartypig, twitter, Viddler, web 2.0, YouTube
Posted in Blogging, Business Ideas, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Monetizing Websites, Reviews | 12 Comments »

Dorm Room Biz Saturday Ramblings

Written by Chris on August 2, 2008 – 5:00 pm -

Things have been crazy the past couple weeks for me! Here are some random thoughts and updates on what has been going on behind the scenes at Dorm Room Biz and with my life.

Computer Issues
I have been having a bunch of problems with my desktop computer at home. I am currently using my laptop while trying to get everything fixed up. However, on my laptop I don’t have all my normal programs installed such as Adobe Photoshop, so the work that I can do is limited. I have some kind of virus on my computer that only lets me access a few different websites, slows everything down, and displays random popups in Internet Explorer. I’ve ran Ad-Aware, SpySweeper, and other adware/virus softwares and none of them have fully gotten rid of the problem. I even purchased Norton Antivirus online (got it half off by using coupon codes) and that still hasn’t done everything. I am hoping to have this resolved soon. I’ve moved everything to my external hard drive and if it comes down to it, I will just do a wipe and reload of my computer to fix everything.

Outer Banks Last Weekend
Last weekend (Thursday - Sunday) I was down the Outer Banks of North Carolina chilling out with my family and friends. I made some videos while driving around that I planned on posting right away…but that obviously didn’t happen. It will probably go up tomorrow because I still want to post it just for fun! This also slowed down my chances of getting a whole lot of work done.

Website Design Income
I usually do a Dorm Room Biz Income Report at the end of each month and one will be coming soon for July. However, I thought it was worth mentioning that through my website design business, I made just shy of $900 in July. I’d like to continue this through August and the rest of the year, so if you are in the need of a website design, feel free to contact me!

Busy with a Full Time Job
As many of you know, I am working a full time job and started in mid June. The first month I was there was really slow however things have been picking up and a couple people in my area are transferring out this month. Therefore I have been working until at least 6 PM pretty much every night and soon will probably be working overtime to reach our deadlines. This slows down blogging, web development projects, and everything else. However, it is fun work so I enjoy it. I also enjoy the opportunity to blog while at work when I get the down time, so this sort of makes up for my lack of motivation when I get home from a long day at the office.

Guest Posters
Because I am working full days at the office, I am looking for any guest posters that may be interested in submitting articles to Dorm Room Biz. Dorm Room Biz has about 100 RSS subscribes and gets good readership, as well as sometimes linked to from other blogs such as the Business Opportunities Weblog Network (thanks for the mention during the week Rich!) If you would be interested, get at me via Twitter or email and let me know what you’d like to write about!

Contest Time Coming Soon
Over the last week or so I have been working on putting together a contest for Dorm Room Biz readers. I’m searching out sponsors for different prizes including books, free advertisements, cash, and more. If you’d like to offer your product, service, or other prize to the Dorm Room Biz readers through a contest, please contact me!

Interested in keeping up with what I am doing? While I may not be blogging everyday, I am usually on Twitter while at work and updating throughout the day! Be sure to follow me on Twitter and start up a conversation with me! Add @chrispund to your Twitter friends!

Tags: full time job, gues posters, twitter
Posted in Website Updates / News | 1 Comment »

WooThemes Launches - Wordpress Theme Club with excellent premium themes!

Written by Chris on July 9, 2008 – 9:20 pm -

Out friends from PremiumNewsTheme.com have rebranded themselves and relaunched today as WooThemes! The site and service that they have put together, a wordpress theme club, is an absolutely outstanding idea and I encourage you to check it out.

A collaborative effort by Adii, Magnus Jepson, Mark Forrester and Elliot Jay Stocks, I can only imagine what kind of success WooThemes is going to be. With some already great looking themes designed and out there, it is hard to think that they will be able to out do themselves and create something even better.

The concept of WooThemes is great also - you sign up and pay for three or six months membership and get access to any and all themes that are already available and then any that launch during your time as a member. Sounds good doesn’t it? The only better part is the reasonable price! A single user subscription will get you access to over 10 themes right away and more on the way, for only $150.00! Each theme was previously selling at $50+, so this is a great deal for you.

I sent a twitter out to @adii to find out what the hardest part of setting up and launching WooThemes was an his simple reply was “woothemes = blood, sweat, and tears” If you are looking for an indepth follow up on the process of launching WooThemes, keep an eye out on Adii’s site.

Congrats goes out to the guys for a successful launch today!

Tags: Adii, Elliot Jay Stocks, Mangus Iepson, Mark Forrester, twitter, WooThemes, wordpress, Wordpress Themes
Posted in Motivation, Reviews, Web Development | 2 Comments »

You Follow, I Follow…Or Maybe Not.

Written by Chris on July 8, 2008 – 12:00 pm -

Twitter - the phenomenom that allows you to try to say something important, meaningful, or just wasteful in 140 characters or less.

Twitter is just like any other social networking website out there - you sign up, you start posting (or tweeting in this case), follow what other people are saying, and people follow what you are saying. As you follow people, you start to see what they are saying on your Twitter homepage. Not a bad way to keep in touch with others right? I agree. It is a great way to get a quick thought out or bounce an idea off of someone if you are following each other. However, Twitter has a downside..besides its bad downtime and constant “over capacity” warnings, some people seem to find it neccessary to tweet EVERYTHING they are thinking or doing. For example, Robert Scoble on Twitter. When Twitter was getting popular, I started following him…soon I realized that if I followed him I wouldn’t be able to see what anyone else was doing because he was using the service so much that I only saw his updates. In fact, now that I think about it, maybe Twitter is over capacity because of Scoble accessing it from every means possible: online, desktop widgets, IM clients, text messages, emails, blog plugins, and anything else out there. So needless to say, I stopped following him.

Now, as I cruise the blogosphere, I have started to see different “Follow me on Twitter” images such as I have in the right sidebar. No problem here. Taking it one step further, that person has something along the lines of “You Follow, I Follow” posted underneath that. Meaning that if you follow them, they will follow you. Almost sounds like the pregnancy pact of teen girls who agreeed to get pregnant together and have their babies together.

Anyway, if you start following every person who follows you, you soon will not be able to follow any conversation that might be starting on Twitter, you won’t be able to catch all of the replies or “@” sent your way in a timely manner, and you won’t know what is going on. So, I encourage you to check out Twitter, try out the service, follow me on Twitter, and engage in conversations with people. However, if you follow me, there is not gaurentee that I will follow you - I am just putting this out there. I have been receiving more and more notifications of people following me on Twitter and that is great. I love the opportunity to connect with new people and network however I will not be following you all just because you follow me; that defeats the purpose of the service to me. When I receive an email saying someone is following me, I check their page to see who else they are following, how long they have been apart of Twitter, and what they are tweeting about. If I like what I see, I’ll follow; if not, I’ll check back at it later.

See you on Twitter…if the site stays up long enough.

Tags: social networking, twitter
Posted in Blogging, Rants / Random | 2 Comments »