Startup Next Door

Today I feature an interview with the founder of PicClick, Ryan Sit. 

PicClick is a site that helps you shop on eBay and Etsy by displaying the images from listings and minimal text.  It’s a much more efficient way to find items than standard search.

 
I first heard of PicClick when it was mentioned as a sponsor on “This Week in Venture Capital”.  When the host, Mark Suster, said that PicClick was a bootstrapped company and one guy, it got my attention and I contacted the founder.

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Google Adwords is a force to be reckoned with in the online advertising space.  According to IAB Internet Advertising Report conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the year 2009, search advertising is 47% of all online advertising efforts, and of this Google has the lion’s share.  So when it comes to advertising your startup by being in front of the most people, many agree that Google is your best bet.

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Making money on your site with ads pretty much sucks nowadays.  Unless you’re pulling in lots of traffic and your site has a focus or product connection that advertisers can target users to, you’re not going to make very much.  In this article I’ll give you some advice on what works and what doesn’t, from my experience.

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When you’re running your own startup and trying to make your product better, it’s tempting to take everything your users say and build it into your product.  After all the users are the ones closest to it, right?  A user makes a suggestion and you’re more likely than not to add it in.

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Today I’m going to discuss two more services for handling your startup’s email.  These options are for those of you who need a little something more in your email hosting.  Looking for Exchange and Sharepoint hosting?  Got it.  Need tons of mailbox space because you never delete email or attachments?  Covered.  In addition, I’m trying to keep your costs low.  Let’s dive in.

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My first startup involved hosting websites and offering email accounts to users, so I had to set up an email server and programmatically add/remove email accounts, filter spam, and knock it with a wrench then mail got stuck in its innards.

These days setting up an email server is pretty easy. But just because it’s easy doesn’t mean you should do it.

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I don’t speak much about raising capital at Startup Next Door.  For goodness’ sake, the tagline is “Venture without Capital”. But Wednesday night I spoke with a gentleman who had been involved in a few startups (most of them huge), and who has raised funds and is currently raising funds for another ambitious startup.  In speaking with him about a business idea and how to raise funds, his advice was to create a story about what you are trying to accomplish, and a part of that story MUST involve making money.  That old chestnut – the business model.

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Like any “real” company, you’re probably publishing a phone number for your customers.  For the stealth startups out there, and those who are running a business from your home, services like Kall8 or Grasshopper make this easy by providing an 800 number that can ring your home number or cell when people call.  you may be dumping these to voicemail and calling customers back later.  If so, you customer sees your home number or cell number on caller ID.  Doesn’t sound too good, does it? 

So how do you keep your real phone number anonymous and still your customers from your home or cell number?  Read on for the solution.

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Welcome to the first segment of “Ask Startup Next Door”.

Today’s question: “We’re doing a datacenter move in order to handle more capacity.  How much of this should I tell the customers, and to what degree?

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Not all business partners are going to have the same “get it done” attitude that you do.  Some will be lazy or get bored with your startup idea.  Some will just need to quit for honorable personal reasons, like to take care of health or family.  So how do you approach them to take the business out of their hands?  Read on.

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