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Project Management Tools

We spent several months fine tuning the back end to virtual ad agency just to have me start over recently. The back end I’m referring to is the online collaboration and project management area that clients and workers of virtual ad agency see.

In the last 6 months several new project management and online collaborative sites have developed into incredibly robust online apps. Smashing Magazine recently reviewed 15 of the most popular Project Management Tools.

The review includes:

Basic project management apps

Wiki-based project management apps

bFug and ticket tracking, Collaboration

Conferencing

invoicing, and time tracking

Check out the whole article here.

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Not so ironclad rules for starting a tech venture

In this month’s Inc. magazine, Joel Spolsky writes about his journey to creating stackoverflow.com, basically a programming community Q&A site with voting and editing - Digg for programmers.

It seems Joel normally has some ironclad rules he follows when developing sites and businesses, which include;

1. Vet programmers carefully
2. Put everyone in one office
3. Plan - create documents and diagrams
4. Intense bug tracking
5. Test
6. Create a software schedule
7. Think about monetization before launch

Joel explains how after briefly talking with programmer, Jeff Atwood, he basically abandoned all of these principles and still ended up with exactly what was planned (Caveat to rule 7, turns out this one is important to consider upfront - currently StackOverflow has no monetization model).

While Joel didn’t exactly follow his first rule, by thoroughly vetting his programmer he used his experience and instinct when he decided to move forward. And, in the end, partnering up with Jeff seemed to have made all the difference.

On the flip side, here is an article from last year where Joel documents how he broke all these rule and things went horribly wrong.

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14 Big Businesses That Started in a Slump

These 14 enterprises started up during a recession:

• Hyatt Corp.
• Burger King Corp.
• IHOP Corp.
• The Jim Henson Company
• LexisNexis
• FedEx Corp.
• Microsoft Corp.
• CNN
• MTV Networks
• Trader Joe’s
• Wikipedia Foundation Inc.
• Sports Illustrated
• GE (General Electric Co.)
• HP (Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP)

Find out more: 14 Big Businesses That Started in a Slump

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A decrease in ad spend is good news?

Sometimes its hard to pick out the good news from constant bad news but I think for the most part us Scrappy Upstarts have a significant advantage in this down time, we just need to be aware of it in all the ‘bad news’ data.

A very recent 42 page analysis from Morgan Stanley, “Internet Advertising Trends” reports ad spend could decline as much as 4% next year. While its bad news for google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and my 9-to-5 employer, Incisive Media, it can mean good things to a scrappy upstart.

Rapid inventory combined with CPM should make for low cost online ads. In other words, decreased ad spend overall means lower cost ads for you

Also measurability - Ad publishers will be forced to make sure their customers ads are performing. Expect to see more robust metrics and easier to use analysis letting you know if your ads are performing.

We’re seeing ad impressions increase with a significant CPM decrease

1) Internet usage growth remains strong

2) Search share gains remain relatively robust

3) Performance-based advertising seeing success

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Where should you put your resources?

As a scrappy upstart you have to consider what’s fundamentally necessary for your site and business to succeed, and what’s just fancy trimming. This certainly comes down to cost-control, but knowing what features to focus on that can be cost-effective and sales inducing is most important.

So fundamentally, what’s essential to your site? Solid page structure, effective navigation, and a point of contact - Simple enough. Now what elements are you convincing yourself are just “bells & whistles”? But may deserve a second look?

Flash intro animation?

.

Probably the most overdone feature of any web site, not needed, usually skipped save the money.

Often called “mystery meat navigation” and probably the worst violation of using dollars and time unwisely. Stick to the fundamentals of clear web navigation. What are they? Well, if your site has navigational features you’ve never experienced online before, then you’re probably doing something wrong. The fundamentals have been refined over a decade, stick to them and users will thank you.

On site Blog/news section?

An area that contains consistently updated content is always a good thing. It helps in SEO, it helps bring your users back, and it can even engage you in your own site. BUT if you don’t plan to commit to updating it weekly or more, then don’t bother.

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Start Ups love a recession…Really.

Blog post over at killerblog discusses 10 Reasons why you should embrace the recession.

Among them:

Downturn makes you think

Availability of great people

Strong get stronger

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Jobless rate at 14-year high

Just in today the October jobless rate from the US Labor Department - Unemployment rose to 6.3 percent bringing us a 14 year high.

U.S. employers slashed an unexpectedly steep 240,000 jobs from payrolls last month and the jobless rate shot up to a 14-1/2-year high, the government said on Friday in a report underscoring the economy’s steep slide.

Worse before its better?

Service-producing industries cut 108,000 jobs in October on top of 201,000 lost in September.

See the full story here.

What’s all this mean? Get to work you upstart!

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How To Demo Your Startup

Jason Calacanis, former CEO of weblogs inc. posted a story to his emailing list discussing a 10 day marathon of startup pitches. Each presenter had 10 minutes to present their idea. He put together a thorough list of tips for entrepreneurs pitching their start up, including;

The greatest tech products over the past 10 years would take no more than five minutes each to demo

Head to TechCrunch for Part 1 and Part 2.

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