ScrappyUpstarts.com

My Entrepreneurial Journey by Jeff Pedone

Marc — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:22:29 +0000

The moment of greatest clarity for me that defined my place in the annals of entrepreneurship was when I was mixing a large batch of Good Dog Foods Home Mix, in the CAFT test kitchen of Rutgers University. The product line was all human-grade food (meat, vegetables, rice, nutritional powder) made in a USDA approved [...]

Reseller Web Hosting – Pros and Cons

webhostingsearch — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 16:51:38 +0000

Reseller web hosting is not for everyone but it is becoming more and more popular in the hosting and web design industry. Many web developers, marketers and web designers purchase reseller web hosting since it is a great way of offering their clients a complete package and making extra money. Reseller web hosting comes with [...]

Pay Per Click, simply explained.

Marc — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 01:42:51 +0000

A common small-biz rule of thumb is to set aside 10 percent of total expenses for advertising. Are Scrappy Upstarts really doing this? How do you promote your product, get your company and its great services in the public eye without spending a ton of money? Pay per click is a familiar and viable option, that you [...]

Bootstrapping Your Business

Marc — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 04:17:21 +0000

Great article for Scrappy Upstarts about bootstrapping at YoungEntrepreneur.com 20 Ways To Bootstrap Your Business: 1. Start A Service 2. Figure Out What Makes The Most Money 3. Get Volunteer Help 4. Hire Part Time 5. Automate 6. Form Partnerships 7. Use Pay Per Click 8. Use Search Engine Optimization 9. Leverage The Media 10. Think Big, Start Small 11. Do Something Every Day For Your Business 12. [...]

Will Your Business Work Or Not ?

Marc — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:34:53 +0000

Youngentrepreneur.com just released a great article discussing 5 sure-fire ways to know if your business will work. You Love It There Is Money To Be Made You Can Do All The Important Aspects Of The Business Yourself You Can Bootstrap It Yourself YOu have customers lined up The article has an added bonus of explaining the author’s theory on leveraging pay per [...]

Free SEO Tools

Marc — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:23:53 +0000

While full access to SEOmoz.org requires a monthly fee they offer quite a few free resources to help you understand the fundamentals of search optimization. Whether you work with a professional or go it alone - you may find something useful for your scrappy upstart. SEOmoz free tools include: Linkscape - an inlink search engine Trifecta - which [...]

Small Business Tax Tips

Marc — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:11:08 +0000

Good post over at InfusionSoft: Featuring links to some useful “Last Minute Tax Tips” For Small Businesses. For those of you running your small business from your home, Score.com recommends to: Use your home office exclusively for business. The IRS won’t let you take a deduction for your kitchen, just because you use the kitchen table as your [...]

mixergy.com offers tactical interviews

Marc — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:36:47 +0000

I plan to continue to give Scrappy Upstarts REAL how-to info on all things small business and the web. Andrew Warner’s blog at http://blog.mixergy.com/ is a great example. Andrew does audio interviews with people instrumental in building web businesses. They tend to focus on specific tactics small businesses can take. That to me is more important than the [...]

Google Search data reveals a lot about 2009

Marc — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:03:13 +0000

There is a lot you can learn from digging into aggregate query data. Google knows a great deal about us as Bill Tancer’s book, “Click” revealed.It can also has the potential to be used as a yard stick for the future. So using Google Insights Steve Rubel from AdAge was able to crunch some data and [...]

Using SEO in Your Blog

Marc — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 04:51:02 +0000

Your small business blog needs to constantly be refined for maximum pull through. There are certain topics your blog can cover, and even certain keywords you can use to attract more people to your blog. The trick is in knowing which keywords to use and how to make the most of them. This process is [...]

Peter Schiff has a time machine.

Marc — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:09:35 +0000

I am convinced after watching this.

I love that he was yelled at for predicting EXACTLY what we are seeing.

Thanks to Brian Jones for originally posting this.

Holiday Shopping Sales Fell 3%

Marc — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:17:56 +0000

According to comScore - holiday e-commerce was down 3% year-over-year - spending totaled $25.54 billion, from $26.33 billion during a similar period last year. First time since 2001 when they started tracking this. Some winners: HP site visitors jumped 28%; Amazon’s traffic increased 7%. Ebay was the most visited site but was 4% down from last year. No surprise [...]

“The Great Disruption”

Marc — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:30:06 +0000

Thriving in the Great Disruption requires a particular breed of innovator. Specifically, innovators should look to master three disciplines:

Placing a premium on progress.
Mastering paradox.
Learning to love the low end

I only care about doing.

Marc — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:34:28 +0000

I don’t care about Steve Jobs or Michael Dell. There I said it. I don’t even care about the guy who just secured $9 million in venture funding. I don’t care about Tim O’Reily waxing philosphical about online serendipity. I don’t care that TechCrunch says Google and Adobe are great places to work. I care about the [...]

No Budget Advertising

Marc — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 20:25:54 +0000

Oh no! You’ve invested all your cash getting your business started but you failed to set aside a budget for advertising. You could have a cure for the common cold and still die broke if people don’t know you have it. Fortunately there are still ways to get your business off the ground. The key is you have to start today, and you have to continue everyday.

Oh, I can hear you now. What could I possibly do with a budget as low as $10? Well I'll tell you just to give you a few ideas...