Startup Next Door

From time to time, I’ll divert from talking business into getting down into tech details, because doing more with fewer servers or other resources will save you money and that’s good for business, especially when bootstrapping.

For this tutorial, you’ll need to be running your apps in PHP and can configure it, and have the ability to install software to your server. If you’re still reading, I’ll assume you’re comfortable with both. Let’s go!

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Early Friday morning, I was thinking that if I could get an instant domain search going, I could hook it up to Hover.com and send them traffic (because they’re awesome) and get some affiliate revenue when someone bought a domain with them.  After work Friday I started coding, and Sunday night I finished it: http://dotcomornothing.com  Ah, weekend projects.

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I’m pleased to join Earndit as an advisor. Having worked with the founders professionally before Earndit’s inception, I can’t imagine a better combination of co-founders. Harry Kautzman II and Andres Moran have the tenacity and drive that the best entrepreneurs exhibit, yet are good-natured, tempered in their decision-making, and complement each other with strong technical and business expertise.

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Let’s face it. We want to make all our customers happy.  More happy customers means more money and fewer complaints.

So what happens when you discover that a feature isn’t working properly in one obscure browser?  If you’re like me, you let it go. 

There are quite a few obscure browsers out there, and my obscure meaning that the percent of the overall users using them is very little: Opera, Konqueror, Seamonkey, SRWare Iron, K-Meleon, Lunascape, FlashPeak SlimBrowser, Songbird, Beonex, Camino, Galeon, Epiphany, Kazehakase, Avant Browser, Maxthon, and I’m sure the list continues.  Even well known browsers (though older versions) fall into this category: Firefox 2, IE 5.5, etc.

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This is Part III of the Delaware LLC series. Start series here.

OK, this is where the real action happens. Once you’ve got your business and personal accounts separated, it’s time to take the plunge and get your LLC.  There are any number of companies that would jump to help you: The Company Corporation and LegalZoom are just two.  But since I’ve had good experience with LegalZoom in the past I used them.

I’ll guide you through the whole process, which takes about 30 minutes.  Let’s go!

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This is Part II of the Delaware LLC series.  Start series here.

In order to protect your personal assets, it’s vital to separate your personal money, expenses, and debt from those of your business, or you may forfeit the legal protections that LLCs and corporations offer.

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Part I: Why you need one, and your options

This is the first of a three-part series on how to set your startup with a Delaware LLC. I recently did this, and will guide you through the process. Let’s get started.

Sole Proprietorships are good if you are very small

When you’re first starting your business and you’re making a few bucks, you don’t have to worry too much about getting sued. For one, you may only have a few customers, you’re making them happy, and they are paying you. But as time goes on and your customer base grows, it’s realistic to expect that something will go wrong.

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After using GoDaddy for about 4 years, I ditched them and switched all my domains to Hover.

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Successful angel investor and hacker Gabriel Weinberg developed DuckDuckGo as one of his many side projects over the years. DuckDuckGo is a search engine, but beyond being a great search engine, it adds extra features, and is more of a command line tool. Mighty impressive for a solo effort, and no venture capital was needed.

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I was dumb.  There was once a thriving forum on zKorean.  In an attempt to make some money from the heavy forum traffic I announced I would charge members a monthly charge to use it.  This was met with protest, as many people had contributed a lot of time helping others on the forum.  I analyzed this to mean that people would not pay to use the site because I’m just a guy, not a business.  But I was wrong. It was just a dumb thing to ask users to pay for.

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