When we visited Ronald Mc Donald house a few months ago, James and I were given teddies.
James fed his teddy on chocolate and hot chips from Mr Bun. Mine is a fruitarian.
As a result, James’s teddy can hardly sit and mine is still in top form.
I think there is probably a moral to this story…
I’ve recently subscribed to another email newsletter that I REALLY enjoy – gone are the days where these things are mainly spam, Get to The Point is ‘Small business secrets in 60 seconds’… One topic daily that gives you a little ‘ahh cool’ moment when you read it.
If you’re running solo or a small team then it’s pretty important to have a good network of like minded people around you, people that are similar stage in growth as you, and some who are a bit further ahead. We’ve always relied on a network of people to help the business, and right now have the biggest support network ever, we share ideas and experiences, hand deals and relationships on to each other, and have a great time. And some of this network are right here on the same floor as us.
An approach thats getting pretty popular all over the show is co-working, where a bunch of small businesses get together under one roof. We’ve done it a couple of times over the last year, and I caught up with Tara Hunt who runs a co-working space in San Francisco Citizens Agency a couple of months ago, and here’s a cool little video they’ve just released about their cool co-working space. So if you’ve got a small business and feel you may be a little isolated, get together with some other small businesses and grab an office together.
I know there ARE people out there reading this, even if you are a somewhat quiet bunch… So if you like Simple and Loveable and want to give us a bit of a boost, please vote for us as the best business blog and/or best marketing blog in the Blogger’s Choice Awards.
While you’re there, check out the cool design of the site and the masses of excellent blogs that have been entered… as well as some of the more kooky ones (Who would have thought Rosie O’Donnell would the world’s most favourite blogger in 2007?!?)
You do have to sign up to vote, but it’s a VERY SHORT process and we’d really appreciate your support :)
CrazyEgg has been around a fair while, and like a lot of things, I looked at it and thought ‘wow, that would be cool to try… If only I could be bothered signing up for another Web 2.0 account’.
Well, I’m pleased to announce that yesterday I gave it a shot.
Crazyegg visually displays where your visitors click on your website, which helps you see the success of various buttons, menus and links (and find out what people think IS a link). You can look at four very nice graphics showing various views on the information, including the EXACT point where people click… And seriously it’s so amazing, you become obsessed with your website.
While our website IS made using the Silverstripe CMS, PlanHQ itself is definitely built using Ruby on Rails. We suspected that some people wondered how we built an entire planning application on Silverstripe, and using Crazyegg, I saw that the link to Silverstripe was one of the most commonly clicked links… Which really supports our suspicion.
I have now updated the text.
That was a surprising but very interesting discovery. We’re still unsure of what to do :)
Crazyegg pretty much makes every user of your website or application a tester. Every single user now provides you with valuable information about what they find confusing, easy and interesting… Without them having to do ANYTHING but use your site.
We’re hoping to embed Crazyegg in PlanHQ to see where people run into problems and what is most interesting to them. The information it provides is literally like sitting down with every single customer and finding out what they think.
That’s truly amazing.
And the smallest account is free.
What a bargain.
But I recommend (having experience with selling web products) signing up for a paid account. This tool is truly worth every penny you spend.
I accidentally found out that I am now responsible for answering 4 very important questions in Simple and Loveable’s first EVER meme participation! (Thanks Joe from Return Customer)
Phew… Big questions for a Wednesday Morning…
I drink out of a water bottle mainly. Oliver currently holds the records for the most bottles on the go at once, I think it is about 6. Koz covers his bottle with brown tape because there has been massive controversy over Tim ‘stealing’ Koz’s bottle.
It’s a bottle. But turns out I do have a glass beside me, it’s empty and used to contain the orange juice that Andrew Mayfield from Spikefin brought for Tim the other day, along with an array of pastries, grapes and stories about a wayward pet bunny.
I think I’m preempting the questions. Water in the bottle and dried juice pulp in the glass. I shoudl really go and wash it.
FYI Joe, you totally didn’t answer this question. I think the reason I have got myself into such a state with glasses and bottles remaining on my desk days after the contents have been finished, is pure laziness. Now it has been brought to my attention, I shall try to pull finger. :)
After weeks of anticipation, it was announced today that Xero successfully raised $15 million on the New Zealand share market. This is MASSIVE for New Zealand because it’s the first time in New Zealand we as the general public have supported a company that:
And we’re celebrating (especially because most of us grabbed shares ourselves ;)). A totally cool achievement, a first of it’s kind and the next big step towards New Zealand’s massive future in the web. Awesome.
Head on over to the PlanHQ blog to read Tim’s much more indepth review… I’m back to the celebrations :)
If you’re a start-up or early stage business then you’ll be familiar with the importance of getting to break-even / getting profitable, and doing so in a good timeframe.
Putting the cash in until you don’t have to anymore
I’ve built a couple of businesses in life so far and Decisive Flow has required quite a bit of cash over the years to build capability in the team, get a reputation, and to fund the gap between doing work and getting paid – the usual cashflow story. Most of this money has come from my savings from the first year in business, but when that ran out I turned to my family for short term loans and the business has consistently relied on a couple of credit cards with high limits built up from my days long ago somewhat stably employed. But you can’t just keep pouring money in forever, and you do it with the aim of someday having it start to flow back out the other way, into your life, so you have to focus on getting profitable.
Focusing on getting profitable using PlanHQ
For those who are trying to get to beak-even with a business now, we’ve built PlanHQ to help you with this. I’ve always wanted more visibility over how I’m tracking to forecasts, and have built this into PlanHQ to solve my problem and yours too if you’re in a similar position.
I’ve just written a post over at our PlanHQ blog on Getting to Profitability with PlanHQ
I’ve been stepping up the public speaking this year, its something I love doing. Telling life stories that may help others is fun, and connects me and the businesses with more people, which is what makes the world go around. One of the topics that a lot of people in or starting businesses are very interested in is raising money, and it’s something I’ve done a few times and learnt a truckload from.
Grass Roots Capital Raising
Theres no single way to do this, and I only know the way I’ve done it, but heres what I’d call the grass roots approach to raising money, a few things to do to help you raise money to make the things you’re trying to build happen! Nat took a quick video of a seminar I spoke at last week (initial Post over at our PlanHQ Blog if you haven’t yet seen it) and here it is in 2 parts:
Raising Money part 1
Raising Money Part 2
Any thoughts or comments on this please let me know, sorry if the talking is pretty quick : )
I’ve built internet based businesses for many reasons, but none so big as location independence and the ability to grow the business from anywhere, where ever life decides to go.
Nat and me spent the 2nd half of a 5 month journey around South East Asia working on an online business application from our hammocks in spurts in between putting around islands on scooters and boats, eating fresh food, diving, swimming, having a beautiful evening meal in a hut on the waters edge. Not a bad mix of business and pleasure.
We lived up in Ohope Beach for a year odd following that, nestled in the sheltered west-end front of a stunning 11km beach backset by a beautiful hill covered with Pohutukawa’s. In the mornings, I would rise to find Nat beavering away on her laptop on the deck in bikini with whatever glare guard contraption she’d thrown together so she could work at the screen, while still maximising her tan. With an active Volcanoe White Island just a glance away on the horizon, not a bad office.
I’ve continued to clock up some good time at Ohope over the last few months, and after some regular weekends up there on return to Silicon Welly I began to really notice the contrast between my 2-3 days at the beach house; surfing every morning, coming back to fresh fruit salad on the deck and a litre of juice, walking over the hill, playing beach soccer swimming and playing chess in the shade gently chatting with good friends about everything in life and ideas for the businesses over the course, and life living in Wellington city.
So When I started getting that funny feeling of how will I start my day tomorrow as good as I have been for the last few days, I let my good mate and social marketer Tom Stokell from Bikewise and Tim Copeland from Silverstripe know about it. We decided to keep swimming every morning 1st thing, just like we’d been doing on our holidays at Ohope @ Wellingtons inner city beach Oriental Bay. Simple idea, always there, but just hadn’t taken the opportunity yet.
We’re just about a month through morning swims, but I’ve missed the last few, as I’ve been having pretty/very late nights working on our online business planning software business, PlanHQ, and haven’t been quite as ready to leap out of bed early and run for the beach. But then when I was making my way home this evening just before sunset, and cruising past Oriental Bay I threw on my boardies and in. Looking out of the harbour then back at the lighten up city, reflecting off the water all around, its quite a different view of things. The city feels at peace and the buildings are crowding around the sea water with envy, they want to come in for a swim too.
No matter how full-on things are, Life can be a holiday everyday.
Hello, my name is Natalie, I have a business called Decisive Flow. We design websites that people love to use and are experts at designing great websites, web applications and blogs for startups, right through to government organisations. This is where I talk about my experiences running, marketing and growing companies that are simple and loveable.
