Startup Addict Musings

I am doing a real time case study on Doba and will report the progress on this blog. Thousands of entrepreneurs struggle everyday with a myriad of choices to make money on the Internet. I am guinea pigging myself for the greater good and will beta test Doba for the suspecting entrepreneur. For those of you unfamiliar, Doba is a unique drop shipping company that offers the entrepreneur a one-stop shop integration with thousands of wholesalers. For the sake of time I must move on, but for more information check out Doba.

Last week I signed up for the 7-day trial offered by Doba and began to explore the numerous wholesale items available. Doba’s website did a good job enticing me to complete education courses on drop shipping and general use of the Doba website. Like most entrepreneurs I wanted to get my hands dirty quickly so I began to look where I could get products to market the fastest. It was no surprise that Ebay seemed liked the best route especially because I had an existing Ebay account. Doba has a nice integrated feature called “push to marketplace” which places products on Ebay very quickly at whatever price you set above wholesale. Before I hastily push product I need to know the sale price especially for the deal-devils on ebay. So I pulled research websites teraspeak and mpire to find statistics on sell-through statistics and sale price. I immediately noticed two trends…people don’t pay squat on ebay and many of Doba products do not have enough profit margin to make the risk of placement worthwhile. The data was a good start, I quickly realzied to succeed with Doba products on ebay three rules must be followed:

1. product profit margin must be high,
2. high demand product,
3. sustainable sales price verses (what ebayers are willing to pay).

I honed in on two categories of wholesale products:

1. jewelery & watches
2. home décor

At this point I burned up several hours and decided to call it a night, after all I have six more days for free.

Tags: Startups by Startup Addict

18 hot news startups are confirmed at Under the Radar conference to present on stage in June

33Across - Identifies influential online users
Animoto - Create personalized, professional-quality videos from images and music, offering a new alternative to traditional online photo slideshows
AudioMicro - Stock music and sound effects licensing platform
Aviary -Suite of web-based applications for people who create and a marketplace to sell that content
Dizzywood - A virtual world that allows kids to dress up 3D avatars, play games, explore worlds and meet new friends in a safe environment
ffwd - Organized, multi-platform, video content delivered via a browser, with social network awareness, and predictive recommendations.
GumGum - A licensing and distribution platform for online content
Hollywood Interactive Group - A mass casual mmo based on reality TV concepts and Hollywood stardom.
Jacked - Browser-based “second screen” for TV viewers, which provides synchronized content and a real-time interactive experience that complements what they’re watching on TV
Kosmix - Categorization engine that crawls billions of Web pages in a unique manner to create algo-generated home pages
Loomia - Social recommendations bridging established social networking sites with media websites
Mochi Media - Provides independent game developers with analytics, distribution, tools and monetization while providing advertisers with turnkey opportunities to reach the one in three Internet users who play online games.
MovieSet - Platform that brings behind-the-scenes filmmaking online, giving fans authentic access through its proprietary toolkit for Producers.
Mytopia -Social gaming community for Web, Mobile, Smartphone and TV
PixVerse - Web-based widget virtual worlds that are fun and simple to play from anywhere on the web.

PlayCafe - Online game show network
Sometrics - Social Analytics and Social Ad Platform
uiActive - Take all your contacts from your social networks with you — on your phone!

Tags: Uncategorized by Startup Addict

We could all use more time, but there is truly only 24 hours in a day and time management techniques become an essential skill for combating the clock, especially for entrepreneurs. Here are my top 5 time management techniques that enable me to squeeze the most out of a day.

1. Focus rather than multi-task. Studies have shown that tasks take 50% longer to complete during multi-tasking rather than concentrating intently on the task until adequate completion.

2. Prioritize tasks appropriately. Don’t work on #4 on your “to-do” list when #16 and #25 are essential for a deadline. This sounds like common sense but prioritizing what is critical, is an essential ingredient in time management.

3. Monitor where your time goes. Identifying where your time really goes in a work-week verses where you “think” it goes is a must. This will reveal what your distractions are as well as what is consuming your time but producing little productivity.

4. Clean the Clutter. This is the one time management technique I continue to fight with everyday. Out of sight, out of mind works well here, When evaluating a task either “Do it”, “Discard it” or “File it”. This includes your digital assets as well like email, and desktop files. This should also help you perform backups on data more timely because your purging your inbox more.

5. Quiet Time. Believe it or not this is an essential technique to decompress from the daily information overload and noise. A minimum of 15 minutes should be allocated to taking a break, walking, cat nap or just reading personal material. The importance of this technique is release the stress value.

The benefits that you will gain from these techniques will be amazing. You should realize at least one of the following.

- More productivity
- Less ADHD syndrome
- Peace of mind
- Pride of accomplishment

so there it is your top 5 management techniques….take 2 pills and call me in the morning. -Good luck.

Tags: Splattered Thoughts by Startup Addict

One of my favorite tax-deferred vehicles for real estate is the use of like-kind 1031 exchanges. The actual law will vary from state to state so this post should be construed strictly as informational and a general rule of thumb. A 1031 Like Kind Exchange is typically used in real estate transactions although many other assets, businesses and commodities can be transferred (hence like-exchange) to a new purchase. The idea is to defer the tax burden triggered on the sale of an appreciated asset and roll the proceeds into a Like Kind purchase. The tax will have to be paid at some point in the future upon the sale of the new asset unless another 1031 exchange is used. As you can see if your not looking for liquidity the tax-deferred snowball can get quite large.

Some quick deal points to keep in mind when dealing with 1031 Like Kind Exchanges

* A qualified Intermediary needs to be elected to hold funds in escrow from the sale of the first asset and before the second is consummated.

* There are 2 time line requirements that need to be met:

1. The replacement property needs to be identified within 45 days from the sale of the first property.
2. The replacement property must close within 180 days from the sale of the first property

Be sure to consult an attorney when dealing with 1031 exchanges because of the nuisances in state law. More importantly an attorney can properly identify the intermediary and ensure the HUD statement is correctly filled out, especially if bank financing is involved. The $500 bucks you will spend will far outweigh a mistake of having to swallow your tax burden.

Tags: Real Estate Development by Startup Addict

Live Universe continues the acquisition tear by acquiring Pageflakes according to TechCrunch. Many of you may recognize the Live Universe brand from the Revver acquisition earlier in the year for $5 million. Apparently Live Universe is making quite a business model out of companies that have exhausted their funding and burn-rate. It appear Live Universe has acquired its’ second victim in the Web 2.0 space. Reportedly $4 million has been pumped into Pageflakes to date before the acquisition.

Pageflakes is a compelling web property but always played second fiddle to Netvibes (one of my favorites) in the ajax social widget space. Live Universe continues to build momentum with 100K uniques per month to the main site.

Tags: Web 2.0 and Beyond by Startup Addict

Blockbuster and many others in the traditional movie rental vertical have been under pressure with the digital revolution. But Blockbuster (bbi) buying Circuit city (cc) for $1.3 billion….what could be the underpinnings to such a deal? Apparently, Blockbuster is paying compliments to Apple by copying its’ business model of hardware and content in the living room equals money.

Rumor has it Blockbuster is coming out with a setup box (like we need another one), that would certainly explain the Circuit City purchase. I can see two compelling reasons for this; first CC offers the hardware and manufacturers that would enable such a feat and two CC certainly has the retail outlets and distribution channels. According to ECT (full story there) the purchase represents a 54% premium. The clear and present danger reportedly is coming from BestBuy, Apple and discounter Walmart. The quote for the acquisition has been pulled from ecommercetimes below (I took the liberty to highlight the business jargon used for these type of M&As):

“Our proposal offers Circuit City a significant premium to its existing stock price and creates a game-changing retail concept with a sustainable competitive advantage,” Keyes said. “We believe the combination will result in a compelling consumer proposition that will drive significant revenue and margin enhancements as well as cost synergies.”

For those of you not versed in M&A business jargon I will attempt to translate:

“In case you haven’t been keeping score, we have been getting our A*S handed to us by Netflix, you got a better idea?”

For those of you wondering why this made StartupAddict Musings the answer is simple….disruptive technologies and bold business models like Netflix (NFLX) cause traditional companies like Blockbuster to make long-term strategies to survive and that is the business DNA startupaddicts are made of.

Tags: Splattered Thoughts by Startup Addict

I received an interesting email from a reader who has limited money for her startup to advertise (who doesn’t right) and inquired about her best advertising options. This is a loaded question in the current Internet climate. Web Advertising has morphed into many forms over the last 3 years. Unfortunately my answer will sound more like a politician rather than a recommendation. The advertising method a startup should choose depends on your marketing and advertising goals. Let’s take a quick look at the 4 horseman of advertising:

PPC (Pay per Click)
CPM (Cost per 1,000 impressions),
CPC (Cost per Click)
CPA (Cost per Action)

PPC should be a component of any advertising campaign and should be used with carefully selected niche “keywords” or at least your competitors keywords. A startup should also look into running PPC campaigns on search engines other than just Google like Yahoo and MSN. If you want to get even more sophisticated look at getting PPC software programs that will select keywords and manage multiple campaigns from one easy interface where user-conversion tracking is less arduous.

CPM is a model that “Federated Media” has adopted quite well and is asking for premium advertising dollars based on the targeted content it provides. The CPM model is one that bodes well for highly targeted audiences and branding. For those of you unfamiliar with Federated Media it is John Battelle’s advertising network of the biggest and best blogs on the Internet across every thinkable vertical (although technology is most prevalent). For instance, I could advertise StartupAddict on Mashable (awesome social media blog) that would run at $30 CPM. This may seem high and it is certainly above normal CPM rates, but I’m gaining exposure to a very specific niche audience –social media. The 1000 impressions or CPM I gain on mashable is more valuable than being on the front page of Yahoo where I may only be getting 200 impressions out of the 1000 that are actually interested in StartupAddict.com.

CPC (Cost per Click) is a cost per click minimum for popular keywords and really should go with the PPC comments above. The more popular the search term the more the minimum cost. CPC advertising protects you by a set amount you pay for each click, but click fraud can also be an issue as well.

CPA (Cost per action) is the new kid on the block and is an advertising model where the advertiser pays only when a certain action is triggered a “pay per play” method. In continuing to use StartupAddict.com as an example, I may only want to pay when visitors become registered users to the social network. The CPA is results advertising, and by far my favorite method. RWW has a good article on cost per action and I found TURN to be an interesting advertising firm that focuses on CPA.

A combination is almost always necessary, but if you could only pick one go with a CPA method until your cash flow gets up to snuff for a bigger advertising budget.

Tags: Splattered Thoughts by Startup Addict

How to monetize your eyeballs and the social media craze for your next Internet startup is the clear and present danger of web 2.0. Humans are the most intelligent species on the planet (supposedly). Yet learning from our mistakes is simply not in our business DNA. We are doomed to repeat past mistakes similarly to the inevitable demise of protagonists in Greek tragedy.

Alley Insider has a great post about the current “free” situation that continues to be rampant on the web and is attributed to the usual suspects “VC”. Venture Capitalists have distorted the market by infusing massive amounts of money to massively scale startups and use Facebook, Myspace and LinkedIn as the poster children of success (thousands die you don’t hear about). My analysis of blame is less on the VC’s and passionate entrepreneurs and more on the consumer. The consumer aka “eyeballs” aptly named “eyeballs” because that is the only value they lend for their refusal to pay for Internet services. This has left anemic business models scrambling for revenue to find refuge in advertising. The only catch is the web advertising model is based on scale, the more eyeballs, the more advertising revenue. The day subscribers pay $9 bucks a month for web 2.0 services is the day advertisers may mean less.

Or will they?

Take the existing model of television and your cable bill. Let’s use Bravo programming for instance (I use to produce content for). They’re content is subsidized by advertisers and yet consumers still pay $80 - $180 a month to a service provider like Comcast to have the 900 channel universe, HD and DVR services. So what is lost in translation? Web 2.0 is Web 1.0 reincarnate? Is the consumer expectation of the web free? Netflix, Amazon, Ebay and Google all managed to make the consumer/business pay for services. This makes me wonder if we’re all crazy to continue down the social media path when it’s so clear that other Internet business models are more effective. What are we missing in the social media web 2.0 space.

Answers welcome….

Tags: Web 2.0 and Beyond by Startup Addict