Entries Tagged 'Micropreneurship' ↓

Hot off the press: my Micropreneur Manifesto was just published on Change This, a popular platform for spreading ideas. The manifesto is a look at what I believe are 16 key tenets for success as a solo entrepreneur. It’s more of a high-level view than my typical writings, but hopefully it’s worth your while.

The manifesto is free (no email required), 14-pages in PDF, and was generously formatted by the ChangeThis crew.

An excerpt:

At this moment in history, we as entrepreneurs are able to do something never before conceived: launch a product completely on our own, with no employees and no outside funding, from anywhere in the world.

These single founders creating products for niche markets are known by another name: micropreneurs.

Micropreneurs may write software. They might design themes for a blogging platform. They may produce exquisite wedding invitations, or how-to books. Micropreneurs are agile, inspired, independent, knowledge seekers who can’t live with the 9-to-5 status quo.

Download the manifesto here. And if you enjoy it, share some tweet love!

I’m pleased to go public with something I’ve been working on behind the scenes for quite some time:

MicroConf: The Conference for Self-Funded Startups and Single Founders

• June 6 & 7 in Las Vegas, NV
• Hosted by Rob Walling and Mike Taber

Speakers Include

• Hiten Shah of KISSmetrics and CrazyEgg
• Rob Walling, author of Start Small, Stay Small
• Patrick McKenzie of Bingo Card Creator
• Mike Taber of Single Founder
• And many others…

A limited number of discounted pre-release tickets will be available soon.

Who Should Attend?
Anyone launching a startup with no outside funding who wants to hang out with and learn from 225 of today’s leading founders and entrepreneurs.

Sounds Awesome, What Should I Do Next?
If this is up your alley, here are the next two things you’ll want to do:

1. Sign up to be notified about discounted pre-release tickets at MicroConf.com
2. Tweet it!

More info to come. I look forward to seeing you in June.

Photo by dierken

Note: Some readers disagree with both the mathematics of this post, as well as its conclusion that “many try, but few succeed.” Please keep that in mind as you read.

Our best estimates put the number of developers in the world at around 5 million.

If you appply the 80/20 rule you can estimate:

• Of those, 20% (1 million) want to launch a startup
• Of those, 20% (200,000) have enough motivation to start educating themselves about the process
• Of those, 20% (40,000) will actually start building something
• Of those, 20% (8,000) will actually finish building something
• Of those, 20% (1,600) have prepared themselves enough to achieve some measure of success

To make it into the last group you have to make it through the four above it. What have you done today to move yourself closer to the last group?

Photo by The Consumerist

The process of opening a credit card merchant account is like getting an enema with a rusty potato peeler. It’s something you don’t really want in the first place, and the longer it drags on the more you regret doing it.

This was the situation I found myself starting almost a year ago today (applying for a merchant account, not getting an enema).

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Photo by ToastyKen

“Marketing sources have a half-life.”

I read this quote a few weeks ago. I don’t recall where it’s from, but it put into words a concept I’ve had in my head for ages but haven’t been able to communicate.

The concept centers around the idea that traffic sources decay over time. Some decay faster than others, but they all die out eventually if you don’t invest time to maintain them.

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The Hacker Monthly Startup Marketing Special Issue is now available for free in PDF, epub and mobi. I’ve just downloaded it for consumption on my iPad, but it looks like a solid collection of startup marketing articles. One of my recent posts has also been included.

You can download this issue for free at Hacker Monthly.

Photo by Daquella Manera

This post is an adaptation of a portion of my 2010 Business of Software talk. Special thanks to Zuly at Light Point security for her detailed post that helped fill some of the gaps in my memory.

What’s the #1 goal of your website? Ask this of 10 software entrepreneurs and you’ll hear the same answer 10 times: the #1 goal is to sell software.

It’s a nice guess…but it’s wrong.

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Christmas is coming and you have no idea what to get the startup founder in your life? Even if that founder is you? Well, look no further.

The following is a list of startup-related stuff that I own, or have a desire to own, this holiday season. And yep, it’s mostly books. Is that surprising, or just sad?

Instructions for Use

1. “Accidentally” leave this URL open on your significant other’s computer with a sticky note that says: I heart everything on this page.
2. Tweet it or Facebook it to let your social graph know what you’re looking for. Amazon didn’t recently add the ability to gift Kindle books for nothing.
3. Buy something for yourself.

Note: Some of the links below are affiliate links. All of these products are things that I have experience with or a genuine desire to own. I am recommending them because they will either improve your ability to grow your company, or they’re just plain fun to have around, not because of the commissions.
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Photo by Francisco

A month ago I received a sales inquiry via email for my invoicing software package. The prospect asked if we could complete the questions he had attached in a spreadsheet:

I will need the attached questions answered in order to proceed as I can’t get them all answered off your website.

There were nearly 80 questions, at least half of which could be answered from our website.

In addition, he mentioned doing a flat-file exchange of data between our software and a custom piece his colleague had written. I mentioned that we have a .NET API or a web service layer, and that passing flat files back and forth would not be an optimal approach for a few reasons.

And that’s when it started to get good.

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