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Blogging Regularly For Non-Writers

23 Apr

Writing with a blank slateHave you seen the infographic saying you should be blogging at least three days a week to keep people coming back to your site? When I saw this, I thought, “how could I ever come up with that much content, I’m not even a writer!” I’m going to share how I’m managing this internal perception by creating habits to help me “feel” like a writer.

The biggest challenge when you’re getting started or when you step into a role where blogging becomes part of your responsibility is making time to write. I get the best inspiration for blog posts as I’m driving, in the shower, or running. None of these situations make it easy for me to jot down my thoughts. Yet If I put a system in place to get these thoughts together the writing process would go so much smoother.

The other big challenge is I don’t think of myself as a writer. I tried video blogging as a replacement, as soon as I would turn on the webcam, every coherent thought seemed to leave my mind. I was able to post a couple of quick videos and the biggest challenge in video blogging from a public location was feeling awkward talking to myself. It’s sort of the reason why I hate those Bluetooth thingies and insist on speakerphone instead.

To overcome these challenges and to push myself to BE UNCOMFORTABLE, which is where growth happens, I’ve put together a couple tips for non-writers who blog.

Tips for Non-Writers Who Blog

  1. Schedule 30 – 60 minutes to blog everyday.
    You don’t need to post everyday. Scheduling the time with the goal of creating a daily habit to write will improve your writing skills.
  2. Write uninterrupted during your scheduled time.
    This sounds so obvious, why even point it out, right? The goal is to focus on writing, no email, no texting, and no instant messaging. If you’re like me, you might have electronic ADHD, jumping from IM to email to text, research that link or stat, tweet something, post to Facebook fan page and after an hour your blog post has nothing written in it. So when you’re writing, all distractions need to be turned off or muted.
  3. Put placeholders for statistics, links, or resources in your blog post.
    Remember the goal is to write for an uninterrupted 30 – 60 minutes. Once you’re writing time is done, you can go back and look for those resources to include in your post.
  4. Release your blog posts according to your schedule.
    You can proofread your posts and send it out to your formal and informal editors, the most important thing is to release according to your schedule. We all want perfect writing and besides getting those typos fixed, you just have to let it go. Know you will get better over time AND you can always update the post to fix errors.

Resources

Here are a couple apps I use to blog on the go.

  • Evernote
    I love Evernote when I’m driving because I can record a voice note on the go, then when I get to the computer I can type it up. I like that Evernote will sync to my computer or to the web without sync cables.
  • Dragon Dictate by Nuance
    One of the lawyers I’ve met in Seattle uses Dragon Dictate to dictate his blog posts. The app will turn your voice notes into text you can email to yourself. He would email the converted text, edit it on the computer, and post to his blog. I found I wasn’t successful at using Dragon Dictate because it needs an Internet connection to convert from voice to text and my Mifi card wasn’t getting a strong enough signal in my area.
  • WordPress app
    Our business blogs are self-hosted WordPress on our domain, once I complete a draft in Evernote, I can copy it all into the WordPress app for posting. I could write the draft directly in the app but it doesn’t have the ability to save voice notes, at least not that I’m aware.
  • Blogwriter Lite
    My personal blog is hosted on Blogger and I was hesitating to move it to WordPress because the app was preventing me from logging into one of the business blogs. Now that issue is fixed so I’m debating if I want to move to WordPress or host my personal blog on Tumblr for ease of use.

Do you have tips to get from beginning blogger to experienced? What are your favorite blogging tools on the go? Put them in the comments.

Note: I wrote and edited this entire post in Evernote on the iPod, then copied into the WordPress app to publish.

Image credit: http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/kristiand/3223920178/

 
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Posted in Marketing

 

Experiment: Turning an iTouch + MiFi into a No Contract iPhone

11 Apr
Turning iPod to iPhone Apps

Out of sheer frustration from the lack of AT&T service on the iPhone 3GS in some parts of San Francisco and at home, I started looking at alternatives in service without signing up for another contract. In this quest, I stumbled upon Virgin Mobile and their MiFi card for only $149.99 which is the exact same MiFi card as sold on Verizon and Sprint for much more. I thought I would connect through Virgin Mobile MiFi (uses the Sprint network) when AT&T didn’t have service. This is a reposted from my personal blog.

This post is long overdue, if you googled iPod Touch and MiFi together, you would have come across a LifeHacker article which details how to use this combination as a solution. While having two devices is not ideal, I find it’s much better than when I was using my iphone which had NO SERVICE at home. At best I had intermittent service to send and receive occasional texts but not enough bandwidth to have a conversation without sitting in perfect stillness or contorting my body by a window to get the signal. Ironically, I pulled the SIM card out of my iphone and put it in a Motorola RAZR and the RAZR received phone calls. The calls weren’t perfect on the RAZR yet I had enough of a signal to hear a conversation. On the iphone people would cut in and out that I would miss half the conversation and was completely frustrated between that and the dropped calls.

Apps to Talk & Text on the iTouch
First, I’ve tried several voice over IP (VOIP) apps on the iphone and forwarded my google voice number to the VOIP apps. These apps usually make you select a new phone number without the option to port in an existing number. I use google voice (GV) for the business and forward it to a phone number with a signal or answer calls on the computer. A previous guest post on GenJuice details how to make free voice calls, video chats, and texting.

Here are the apps I’m using to give the iPod Touch cell phone functionality.

Textfree with Voice by Pinger

Textfree with Voice

I was using the beta version when Pinger introduced voice-functionality at TechCrunch Disrupt last year, it crashed a lot and I received the servers were not available dialogs. It has since improved, then added the ability to received free incoming calls, send picture messages from a textfree email address which is [your_username]@textfree.us, and facebook chat from within this app. Sometimes, calls take a bit longer to connect because GV will route the call to all of my available numbers. I haven’t tested how quickly calls come through if you dial the number directly. The caveat with this free app is if you don’t use the app for 30 days, you will lose the number you selected and I still occasionally get the Textfree servers are not available message.

Pros:

  • Free incoming calls
  • Send picture messages
  • Facebook chat within the app
  • Notifications popup on the screen when you get incoming texts
  • Calls sound pretty good when using home WiFi
Cons:
  • Takes awhile for incoming calls to activate even after you click answer when using the MiFi card to connect to the internet.
  • Calls on 3G are still somewhat hollow sounding for the recipient.
  • Can’t receive MMS or picture messages to your iTouch unless the sender sends the message to your Textfree email address.

Skype

Skype

I pay $2.99 a month for unlimited outgoing calls to the United States and Canada on Skype. I don’t need to call internationally which is why this plan works for me. I also signed up for the SkypeIn or an online phone number which was about $12 for three months before I learned Textfree had the free incoming calls. Dropping the online phone number since I can receive calls via my computer on Google Talk.

Pros:

  • You select the number that will show on the caller ID for your outgoing call. I like this because my GV number is what people see call their mobile or landline either from my iTouch or the desktop version of Skype.
  • Video calls on the go when in a good 3G area or ideally on WiFi.
Cons:
  • Voicemail – there is currently voicemail on Skype and I don’t know how to get rid of it. I prefer the GV voicemail since it transcribes my messages.
  • Calls when in a non-3G area don’t sound very good.
GV Connect

GV Connect by Andreas Amann

Of the Google Voice apps I’ve tested, I like GV Connect over the app released by Google. In composing a new SMS or text message, you can type in the name of the person you want directly in the TO field, tap out your text, then send. In the Google Voice app, unless you have the number memorized, you have to go to the address book to select the person first, then select text, before you can even tap out your message. It was too many steps, come on Google, really!??

Pros:

  • Sending a text uses my address book without having additional steps.
  • Select which phones to forward calls and texts to from within the app.
  • Select do not disturb directly from the app.
  • Regular updates to the app to fix bugs and add features.
  • Integrates with Talkatone if using that for VOIP.

Cons:

  • Not a VOIP app.
MiFi

MiFi

This app doesn’t add calling or texting capabilities, I had to add it because I use it to check battery life on my MiFi card and to see the signal strength. It supports MiFi from Virgin Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint.

Measures:

  • Connectivity bars (0 – 5 bars)
  • Battery level (0 – 4 bars)
  • Data received and sent (in/out)
  • IP address
While the experience with the iTouch and MiFi is not ideal, it was good enough for me to put my AT&T account on hold until announcements of the iPhone 5. I will detail that later along with the other apps I’ve tried and ultimately deleted from my ipod because they didn’t do what I wanted well enough.
Have you tried these apps on your ipod or ipad? If you have better suggestions for a VOIP app let me know in the comments, I would love to try them out!
 
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Posted in Technical

 

Stuck in Your Startup? Get Over Yourself!

23 Mar
Startup frustrations?

Photo by: Zach Klein

There are a lot of challenges to getting your own startup off the ground. The one thing that no one mentions, though, is the challenge of getting out of your own way!

If you are serious about your first start up—not just as a hobby—then you will need to push yourself, hard. There is too much work to do; there are the product creation issues, there are business and promotion issues, and there are issues that you could never anticipate. There are not enough hours in the day to do it; and that is even if you don’t have a spouse and you don’t have kids and you don’t have a money earning “day-job” to tend to!

If you are starting your first company and you don’t feel stress and pressure,  you are not taking it seriously enough.

Through this stress, you should learn something that you don’t read about:  you are your own worst enemy.  If you have the desire to start a company but haven’t done so or you are stagnating early-on, what is impeding you? Oh, you can blame it on “There isn’t enough time,” or “The idea is not good enough,” or “It will cost too much,” or “It has already been done,” or a myriad other excuses. There will be “roadblocks” at every stage of your entrepreneurial endeavor; from getting started to planning and execution. The real reason you can’t move forward is because you are inhibiting yourself.

During those frustrating times where you are not making progress, it might be worth your while to look inward to see whether it is your own psyche, habits, or preconceived expectations that are keeping you from moving forward. Once you begin to realize why you are not executing, you can begin to find solutions to break those patterns and beliefs.  Climb out of that box that you have spent your whole life building around yourself!

Learning and understanding yourself, then changing and growing… that may be the most valuable part of pushing yourself through the challenges of starting your own company.

 
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I Just Want to Create a Frickin’ iPhone App! (Part 1)

15 Mar
Hand Things Down’s first iPhone application

Hand Things Down’s first iPhone application

We had a big deadline, yesterday, to have an iPhone app running. For those of you who who’ve heard about the multitude of hurdles that you have to cross in order to get an iPhone app working, I will summarize my experience over the past couple of weeks. I am not even talking about submitting an app to the Apple App Store, only to get it running on a device.  If you read no further, know this: DO NOT WAIT until the last minute and think you can do this in an hour; there are logistics that involve faxing(!!) and people at Apple, so it will take days. Hopefully some hints, here will help to trim that down.

Here are the steps (from memory):

  1. Join the Apple Developer Connection (developer.apple.com).  This is free and it will give you access to bunch technical information and videos (but not all!). This step is quick and painless.
    1. Find your way through one of the Dev Center links or just go to developer.apple.com/programs/register.
    2. Be sure that the email address and name are what you want to use because they will verify subsequent information, later (in the certificate used to run your app on your actual device).
    3. You will need to verify the email address through the email they send you. This is automated, so it shouldn’t take long.
  2. Once you have registered, you can also download the iOS SDK so that you can develop an application and run it in its simulator. This, of course is the same SDK you’d use for iPod Touch and iPad development.
  3. You have to have Mac OS Snow Leopard (10.6.4) or later to install the SDK… expect an upgrade from 10.5 to take 2-3 hours, after the update patches that might be required, are also applied.

  4. To run your application on an iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad, you need to join and pay for the “iOS Developer Program.” This process isn’t specific to iOS; you will be able to opt into one of Apple’s three developer programs, iOS, Mac, and Safari. The first two cost $99. and the latter is free.
  5. I needed to register our company as the “developer” so that any applications are released under the company’s name, rather than my own. Apple wants to verify that it is a legitimate entity; so they sent an email asking me to fax proof of the company’s validity (Fax?!! Really, Apple?! Really?!!). They manually review the paperwork before anything else happens. By taking the time to read this blog-post, you can avoid the time and frustration I had to go through (they never processed my fax):
    Apple Dev Program company paperwork request

    Apple Dev Program company paperwork request

    Call Apple Developer Support at one of their phone numbers—for the US, call (408) 974-4897 or (800) 633-2152, Mon-Fri, 9:00AM-7:00PM CST. Tell them that you’d faxed your paperwork in 3 or 4-days ago. If you are nice, they will send you an email where you can attach your paperwork and email back!

    That little tid-bit might save you days of waiting. If you are an individual developer, then this might not apply.

  6. You will get another confirmation email, “Information Received Regarding Your Enrollment,” from them as soon as the support person does whatever they do. You’ve yet to pay, however. I had to wait for another 2-days to receive an “Apple Developer Program Enrollment Update” email. If you do not receive this email, you can try writing your support contact again or try the link that you will eventually get, to see if you can proceed: developer.apple.com/ios/enroll/purchaseProgram.action. It took me two days to get this email. I was then able to pay.
  7. The next day I received an invoice and the confirmation email “Thank You for Joining an Apple Developer Program,” and I was no longer beholden to the black-box procedures of Apple (as far as I know… see my next posting). Now I have access to the additional technical information and I am able to go through the logistics of deploying my app to my iPhone, for the first time.

Total time, for me: 11 days, most of it waiting on Apple!! Hopefully this post will allow you to cut a week off that time. Happy programming!

 
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Posted in Technical

 

Product Development: Going “Old-School” with Paper and Pencil

27 Jan

Okay, so I should know better. If things are going too slowly, you gotta shake it up. Forget about the technical challenges of getting a product implemented, if you cannot communicate effectively with your partners and collaborators, then you are wasting the potential of your organization. When you are a company of two, you cannot afford to waste any potential. Despite the abundance of new tools, sometimes the tried and true tools work best.

Pen and paper mockup

Pen and paper are still effective.

One of the great things about our partnership is that we are both open to adopting new technologies to see how they might be beneficial. There are so many great tools out there: Google Docs, WordPress, instant messaging, Skype, Google Wave (sigh)…. Sometimes they work and are beneficial and sometimes they get in the way.

It is too easy to get caught up with all this new-and-shiny technology; it is useful to stop and contrast that with the old solution, “What was wrong with the old solution?”  There are a lot of advantages to using Google Doc’s spreadsheets, for example, but they still fall short of Excel, in many ways. Make sure you keep sight of your needs rather than compromising the outcome by the limits of the tools you use.

Step back ever further and recognize that good ole pencil and paper can be the most effective and expedient way to communicate.  Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted in Startup

 

Startup Life

17 Jan
Startup Workspace

Waterfront view from my desk (West Seattle, WA)

Do you ever wonder what your entrepreneur friends do all day? Here’s a typical day in the life of a startup entrepreneur. (Cheryl’s day) I like to include a fitness factor in my day to break away from the computer. I normally go to sleep around 2 or 3 am and found out recently, that this isn’t a sustainable long-term practice. I ended up catching a cold/cough over the weekend which forced me to slow down and catch up on much needed sleep.

January 12, 2011
9 am: Coffee and Cache Crew status  mtg.
10 am: Follow target demographic on Twitter 50/day, respond to @mentions and thank RT, create content or RT articles relevant to busy moms on Hand Things Down
11 am:
Engage with law firm and email decision to other law firms we didn’t hire. Promote the blog of another entrepreneur on Hand Things Down Facebook fan page. Like their fan page.
12 pm Hit the gym – spin class today
1 pm: Split lunch with Bill and catch up on email via the phone during lunch.
2 pm: Shower and get ready for afternoon meetings.
2:30 pm: Work on founder homework
4 pm: Brainstorm blog posts
5 pm: Napped for 20 mins to try to get rid of migraine
6 pm: Drive to Meetup
6:30 – 8 pm:
WordPress Meetup – Seattle to learn how to drive more traffic to the Hand Things Down website using SEO techniques.
8 pm: Skype call for Founder Intitute working group
9 pm: Drive home then make a sandwich
10 pm: Listen to gamification webcast while working.
10:45 pm – 3:00 am: Continue to cross items off TO DO list.
3:30 am: Eyes closing as I draft this blog post.
As an entrepreneur, what does your typical day look like?
 
 

Snowing in Seattle

12 Jan


Cheryl walking around outside the apartment on experiencing her first snowfall in Seattle.

 
 

Did You Already Quit on Your New Years Resolution

09 Jan

Create goals instead of resolutions

We are a week into the new year, have you started working on your New Year’s resolution(s)? If you have started working on your New Year’s resolution(s), are you still following it?

Give up making New Year’s resolutions, they never work, join me in my movement. I’m not a quitter, I just don’t see the point in creating a promise at the beginning of the year that you will break within a week or if you are an over achiever, within a few months.

The problem is that most people make grandiose plans to do a 180 in some area of their lives and this never works. Yes, I’m talking to you, so pay attention. The only way to achieve big goals is to decide on a goal then break it down into little bite size activities which can be done either everyday or a few times a week. The cumulative effects of these baby activities will add up over time and bring you a step closer to achieving your grandiose plan.

Business Goals

  • Graduate from the Founder Institute on March 14, 2011 by launching Hand Things Down as a web and mobile app for busy moms to give away or trade the precious things their kids have outgrown.
  • Build a solid startup team.
  • Grow the monthly active users in the Hand Things Down community to over 50k, within 6 months of launching.
  • Generate $250k or better in net income in the first year.

Personal Goals

  • Get in bikini body shape by June 30, 2011
  • Blog everyday

Be Specific & Give Yourself a Deadline

It’s important to know exactly what you want to accomplish by a given deadline because if you don’t know what you want something to look like, how can you develop a plan to accomplish those goals?

Next up
Plan to accomplish business goals.
Plan to accomplish personal goals – will post this to my personal blog.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bex_x_pi/3157409347/

 
 

Interviewing Lawyers: The View & Cookie Factor

08 Jan

View from Perkins Coie

Mission: Choose a Law Firm
As homework for the Founder Institute this week, Bill & I had the dreaded task of interviewing law firms. This homework isn’t busy work or assigned for the sake of getting experience in interviewing law firms but rather to decide which firm, we would engage to incorporate our company. I was not looking forward to this task because I didn’t know what to ask the lawyers or even how to determine which ones would be better.

Getting Ready
To prepare for our meeting, Bill wrote up a few points to keep in mind, we had a brief animated discussion about the list he created because I was looking for 3 questions to ask each law firm to determine a base of questions we would ask all the firms that I could put in a comparison spreadsheet.

Considerations

  • We want to form a Delaware Corporation because investors and lawyers know Delaware corporate law.
  • Discuss what is included in the incorporation package and how much it would cost.
  • Discuss “F” class stock.
  • Discuss whether the warrants we need to issue to Founder Institute would be included in the incorporation package.

Law Firm A: Small & Focused on Startups
Our first meeting was at One Union Square in Seattle. It was a rough start because we got a bit lost. After much swearing from Bill, we consulted my iPhone to find the entrance to the parking garage. I could only read the directions because I don’t have any map reading skills; GPS was invented for people like me. Luckily, we got to our meeting with a few minutes to spare and upon entering the conference room; we were treated to a breath-taking view of downtown Seattle. We started the meeting answering questions about our company, then we had discussion about various things we needed to consider around incorporation, assigning intellectual property to the company, terms of use, the lawyer’s experience with startups and of course how much it would all cost. At the close of the meeting, we talked about blogging since we read his blog to get a sense of his personality.

Law Firm B: Big & Well Known
Our second meeting was a few blocks away. After checking in, we were offered coffee and cookies…score! We were directed to go to conference room 4 to wait since we arrived a few minutes early for the meeting. Upon walking into this conference room, I was WOWed by the view of the Space Needle; I wonder if all law firms in Seattle have great views. The receptionist informed us, the lawyer was running a few minutes late so we treated ourselves to a second cookie and took pictures of the view like tourists. At the start of this meeting, we gave a quick overview of our company then had discussion around what would be included in the incorporation package. Since this law firm represented larger companies that could potentially acquire us, I asked what would happen if there were a conflict of interest. This would be a concern for us as the “little guy” because we do not want to be out on the street looking for a new law firm if we were fortunate enough to be in talks to be acquired.

Postmortem: Interviewing Lawyers is Hard Work
We have 2 or 3 other law firms to interview in the coming week, I told Bill I was making my decision based on the quality of the cookies and coffee we are offered. All joking aside, this is a serious decision, much like entering into a marriage. All the law firms and lawyers we scheduled to interview have been recommended by a respected entrepreneur or mentor in the Founder Institute. On paper, they could be equal; we have to determine which law firm is “the one” who can help us push our company to its highest potential. Since we are bootstrapped, we don’t have the money to pay lawyers all sorts of money that could be better utilized to attract rockstar developers to join our team. Another consideration is which law firm could help us secure the most favorable terms in financing rounds and eventually help us with an initial public offering or to be acquired.

It is easy to be seduced by the beautiful views (equal between the law firms we met thus far), the cookies, and the coffee. We need to decide which one will be the best partner for our company in the early stages and throughout our growth. I will release my decision table once we’ve concluded our interviews in the coming week.

As an entrepreneur, are you ready to incorporate your company and start fundraising?

Law Firms – Links to Startup/Business Formation

 
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Posted in Startup

 

Monday is D-Day

19 Dec


We will be pitching HandThingsDown.com, we are creating mobile and web software to help busy moms share the things their kids have outgrown with their social network.

We will be rated on a scale of 1 – 5 on each of the following areas; idea, name, and pitch. We need to score a 4 – 5 in each of the areas to be able to continue with the program. While I knew that we were having the mentors review our ideas, I didn’t realize the consequence of being mediocre would get us kicked out of the program. I guess internally, I was treating this as a dress rehearsal for a VC pitch and ended up causing myself a lot of stress and anxiety this weekend.

We are hoping to hit it out of the park, wish us luck!

 
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Posted in Startup