Category Archives: Online Businesses
The Startup Funnel of Ideas
You never fail until you stop trying.
— Albert Einstein
Yes, we are going to use that word. Startup. And since this was not in any of our original plans, let us see how we got to where we are now.
Thousands of Ideas
We are always looking at the world and thinking it can be improved in some way. Every mechanical device has some deficiency that can be remedied and every parking lot could be better designed. Even the line at the local coffee shop could be optimized.
But we are also a skeptic. We love shooting down our own ideas as technically unworkable or financially impractical. And we are also happy to shoot down the ideas of others when they come to us asking for a sanity check. It is a dual nature that most people have.
For a very long time, our skeptical side dominated our inventive side. But in the last few years the tide slowly began to turn. First of all, we began to be more aware of incentives. Given that we had already achieved a financial base, even a moderately successful idea might produce enough income to make a real difference in our future. Second, we longed for a creative outlet. Lastly, we began to realize that some of these ideas were not so impractical after all.
Profitable Business Fallacy
It’s not hard to meet expenses. They’re everywhere.
– Unknown
The symptom: Your business appears to make good profits except when expenses spike.
The example: Your small business seems to be doing well. You have plenty of steady work and you keep meticulous records of all your receipts. For most months, your customer payments (inflows) exceed your expenses for parts, rent, gasoline, telephone and other things (outflows) by €4,000 or €5,000. However, a few months out of each year are ruining things for you. Last month, it was the quarterly tax payment of €3,000. Five months ago, you had to buy a couple of new computers for €3,000, and replace some special construction tools for €5,000. Last year was mostly fine except for July, when you had to buy a new work van for €25,000. You feel that if only you could make every month what you make during the good months, you would be completely satisfied with your business.
Price Segmentation
Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.
— John Maynard Keynes
We suppose that when most people are presented with “price segmentation” as the stimulus, no synapses fire in the brain. At best, a few people may have a vague recollection of some concept from a marketing course long forgotten. This is an unfortunate state of affairs and the purpose of this article is to show the importance of price segmentation to the average consumer.
Top Ten Online Markets
A profitable internet business model needs a huge target market. The larger the market, the higher the upside.
Impulse Purchase
How to attract impulse purchases? What motivates impulse buying? Consumers made even large purchases on impulse. Three sales arguments are related to such impulse decisions. Valuable information for both, the conscious consumer and the eager salesman.
Start-Up or Corporate Job?
Youth Spirit
Today every second student from the world’s best universities want to be an entrepreneur. Press and online media are discussing start-up stories over and over again. Beginners ask about valid ideas and how rich they would be at the end.
Welcome to Reality
We dreamed for years about financial independence. While there were times we did enjoy working, we never did feel like we fit into corporate life. Partly, we did not like the lack of control, the games that were played and the repetition of movements and tasks. But mostly, the problem was that work interfered too much with the other things we wanted to do in life. Imagine that!
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