The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau

Posted on 09. May, 2012 by Princess Lasertron.

with chris in NYC earlier this week

Today is the launch of my friend and mentor Chris Guillebeau’s (you can follow him on Twitter too!) newest book, The $100 Startup. I’m so excited that it launched to such a great reception–it’s #9 on Amazon now, and #1 in entrepreneurship, self-help, and education. Yowza.

Personally I’m a bit over the moon because I’m featured in The $100 Startup. Chris talks about my unconventional career and how I made my work fit seamlessly into my life as I grew into a coworking studio space, had a baby, etc. There are tons of profiles of crazy unconventional businesses that are different from mine so you are sure to find inspiration and motivation from this book.

I sat down for a bit in Central Park with Chris on Sunday when I was in New York City, where he kicked off the book tour today. I encourage you to check out the list of his stops on the $100 Startup Book Tour and see if you can make it to one of the events. I wish we were hosting one at CAMP again this year but it was just not to be–glad I got a chance to say hi when we crossed paths in NYC though!

Let me know if you pick up the book, and tell me what you think!

xx
meg

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how to get the most out of a conference, or, advice for big omaha first-timers

Posted on 02. May, 2012 by Princess Lasertron.

With Gabe Kangas at the first Big Omaha

Big Omaha is an awesome tech/start-up/creative superconference to bring together forward-thinking entrepreneurs, developers, creative types created by Silicon Prarie News to inspire, support, and connect entrepreneurs who come from all around the country to attend. This year’s tickets all sold out in mere minutes (although you can still get on the waitlist!).

Omaha is an amazing place to live because we’re kind of within this huge wave of change in the way we work and live. On the economic side, our entrepreneurs are becoming more comfortable with risk, investors are noticing the start-ups coming out of the Midwest, and the tightly-knit, accessible community makes it easier to get more for your investment. On the cultural side, our music scene here is already well-known, but we’re also growing in bars and dance clubs, sports franchises, and fine arts attractions like ballet and opera. The close, supportive community has been really advantageous to our growth.

But enough of an Omaha commercial, I guess–I know that I’m mostly in the wedding industry and most of my readers are brides (and I know that most of them skip over posts like this), but I also know from my reader surveys that 30% of my readers are male and 65% of you LOVE the business posts. So knowing that, many of you reading now are probably entrepreneurs–creative, tech, or otherwise–and you’ve probably gone to a few conferences or at least thought about attending. On the #BigOmaha Twitter feed, I’ve seen a few people asking if anyone had any advice for first-time conference-goers. I tweeted a few tips and decided that I really wanted share them in a post.

1. Sit up front

If you want to pay attention and engage with the speakers, you can only sit up front. If you want to take bathroom breaks and have whispered side-conversations with a cool new person you’ve met, stand in the back. But don’t miss a chance to have an emotional connection to an awesome speaker–in the front row, they’re sure to remember you if you want to talk later.

2. Think of two questions for each speaker

You’ll most likely get a chance to ask them, either with a microphone after the talk, or at an after-party or chance hallway encounter. Pay attention to what your internal dialogue is doing as you listen and react to each talk. Was a detail left out that you’d like to understand more clearly? Do you have a question about how to apply the speaker’s lessons to your own experience? Think of a few questions you can ask because you will definitely get the opportunity.

3. Eat lunch last

So part of the reason you’re going to a conference in the first place is to meet people, right? One of the biggest opportunities to network is over the long lunch break. So if there’s a line to wait for a buffet-style lunch, wait until it dies down before you dig in. You’ll have time to eat, and you won’t waste any of it standing in a single-file line when you could be meeting some exciting people or joining a table of experts you’ve been wanting to meet.

4. Follow the Twitter feeds and hashtags in advance

Following the social media stream (for Big Omaha it’s #BigOmaha) for the conference you are attending in advance will make it easier to find and connect with the people you really want to meet. Follow some people, reply to some people, ask people some questions, answer some questions…then when you finally meet them in person you sort of have a foundation already and you’ve built some trust.

5. Put together something cool to leave with people

If you have a business card, that’s okay. I always try to do something a little more creative. I like this post and discussion on Robert Scoble’s blog about business card best practices. Flickr has more creative inspiration like the “Nice Package” and “Crafty Packages” groups.

6. Go to the parties

They’re fun, you’ll meet people, get your picture taken, and get free stuff. Parties are usually open to the public, so if you couldn’t snag a ticket, you can still drop in and absorb some of the energy and make some connections. And put your phone down while you’re having a cool conversation.

7. Be kind

You’re being recorded all the time–whether it’s literally by a photographer or videographer (which are everywhere), or just in the memories of everyone around you. Don’t be a jerk, remember to use your magic words, and share a thoughtful compliment when you can. You’re always broadcasting your brand, and people always remember the very good and very bad.

Finally, follow up with people you meet. Whether it’s informally through Twitter, or via e-mail–I’ve even snail-mailed people little packages before–just send the people you connected with a little shout to thank them for the friendship. Ask for help when you need it and be open to people who reach out to you.

I love going to Big Omaha because being an artist is not only creative, it has a lot to do with running a business. And as an entrepreneur, I’m excited to attend an event where I can meet other entrepreneurs and forward-thinkers who do work in creative industries. Big Omaha is my favorite conference because they do this so well, emphasizing business and technology and welcoming the artists, musicians, and designers, and writers–people who may normally be in the minority at conferences like this.

So that’s it.
I hope I see you at Big Omaha! I’ll be there with a posse–Sarah Lorsung-Tvrdik, my business partner, Shannon, my assistant, and my husband David who recently started a video game design company is coming too. I’m definitely dragging them all up to the front row with me. I hope you say hi when you see me, and I look forward to making lots of new friends!

xx
meg

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It’s not just a job day 4: Caring about quality and experience for your customers, fans, and readers

Posted on 13. Apr, 2012 by Princess Lasertron.

This week I'm sharing lessons every day designed to help readers who are "waiting it out" in jobs they don't love for the right opportunity to start their own ventures. Yesterday we talked about positioning your content and your message, and today I'm explaining the cherry on top, the "make it pretty"--creating a beautiful experience for your audience.

Dear awesome readers:

Our motto and mission at Princess Lasertron is simple: “Make it pretty.” We will always make what we make—textile wedding bouquets—better than any of our competitors that spring up and inevitably die out because we have the passion, the forward-thinking vision, and the talent to design a great product. We’re the best in our category. But the frosting on top, the thing that differentiates us most, is the pretty. It’s the attention to user experience in design. It’s going to a website that doesn’t suck. It’s the ease of the ordering process. It’s the experience of seeing the square box on your doorstep, unwrapping our signature packaging, and holding something in your hands that a human touched for over 20 hours, making it absolutely perfect for you. What adds value to the basic process—the “good work” and “quality product”–is the pretty. It’s design, both in the digital and physical experience of interacting with the Princess Lasertron brand.

Nobel prize winning researcher David Kahneman found something that has been intuitive to many successful businessowners for centuries–that over 70% of a consumer’s decision to purchase a product is emotional. Start looking at your brand as a product, and add value by making customers (or users, or readers) feel emotional about it.

Obviously one way to make it pretty is to literally create a pretty package with the help of a professional. In Omaha, you can’t spit without hitting a graphic designer, but the really good ones are a little more rare. Luckily, because of social media, all of them are accessible to you. Get a consultation. Ask about rates. See if you can do a trade. Another great resource for design talent are colleges—ask a graphic design professor to recommend a promising student who needs some portfolio work to get your branding off the ground.

Other than that, notice the ways design pervades every other aspect of your brand. The typefaces. The photography. The language in your tweets. The way you dress at work. The objects you have on top of your desk. Everything that influences your experience at work will influence your customer, so look at the image and the product you’re making and ask “Is this beautiful? Is this useful? Will this improve someone’s life? Will this make someone happy?” If the answer is no, it should never have been made, it should never reach your customer, and it has no place in your life. Care about quality and experience in a world where quality is declining. Your customers will notice.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Who is this person?

…Kat Williams of Rock N Roll Bride, badass British wedding blogger and fabulously tattooed trailblazer.

Photo by Daniel Muller

Q: What is your passion?
A: My blog, Rock N Roll Bride, is all about alternative weddings so that’s where my initial passion lay. I started the blog because I was bored to the back teeth of the generic and cookie cutter wedding ‘stuff’ that was thrust at me during my own wedding planning. I was sure there must have been other brides (and grooms) feeling the same!

I’ve recently just expanded the blog and created a new section called The Green Room which is all about running your own wedding business. In the same vein as the weddings I feature, the advice in The Green Room is all about doing things your own way and in a way that works for you, not what others expect of you…so I guess what I’m trying to say (in a very roundabout way!) is that my biggest passion is about a) being true to myself in whatever I do and b) empowering others to do the same!

Q: What was the smartest decision you made in starting or growing your businesses?
A: Getting my husband Gareth on board full time. When I was earning enough money that he could quit an IT support job that he hated, it was a no brainer but to do it. Not only has it made him exponentially happier but his skills and expertise are freakin’ perfect assets for a blogger like me! He is the other half to my whole.

Q: When did you know rock n roll bride was going to be a success — was there a moment, day, or event when something specific happened?
A: It still blows my mind to think about where my blog has got me today. Every day (literally!) I’m shocked, surprised and honoured by the things I’m able to do because of it. I guess the very first event would have been back in the summer of 2008 when I was still working as a producer of a shopping channel here in the UK. I’d been running the blog as a secret hobby since late 2007 and one of my managers at work somehow found it and called me into his office. I thought I was in trouble for sure! However he told me that he loved the concept and the idea and that he was sure I could make something more of it. He took me to a few meetings and the like, and although nothing really came of them, his confidence in me and the brand really gave me a kick in the right direction.

Q: How do you feel at the end of each day? What goes through your mind as your head hits the pillow?
A: “I am so flipping lucky” and “Jeez, I’m tired…”

Q: How important is aesthetic and beauty to the value of your business?
A: So important! I want my blog to be an inspirational and happy place. I want people to come to my site and be blown away by the awesome and prettiness of the amazing weddings. Showcasing fantastic wedding photography is so important to me, if a wedding isn’t photographed well it not only makes my site look bad, but you really don’t get to see the wedding in the best light. Similarly the design of my site is really important. One of my blogger friends once said to me “well, no one wants to read and ugly blog” and she’s so right! If the site is unattractive why would people want to spend time on it! I’m constantly working with my graphic designer, Nubby Twiglet, to improve the site. I think it’s imperative.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Who is this person?

…Daniel Muller of The Mullers Photography, photo wizard and cat lover.

Q: What is your passion?
A: Observing. I take photos for a living and all the technical stuff means nothing unless you’re capturing something genuine.

Q: What happened before you made the leap into entrepreneurship?
A: I was working at a restaurant. I worked there for two years as a server, manager and then finally as chef. The decision to go full time with photography

Q: What was the smartest decision you made in starting or growing your businesses?
A: Not going into any debt. I purchased all my gear will still working a full time job. I built the business while working 50+ hours per week.

Q: Was there a moment or event that happened when you thought, “I’m really going to be successful with this” ?
A: There was a day in January (2012) where my wife and I booked two weddings, received a couple of inquiries and had a client meeting. That felt good. Success is a hard thing to measure, but I am happy, clothed and fed so I guess I am doing all right.

Q: How do you feel at the end of each day? What goes through your mind as your head hits the pillow?
A: No matter how long or stressful a day is, I know my job is awesome. Not because I get to sleep in when I want to or take long lunches, but because I am doing something that I love and have worked so hard to achieve. It has been almost one year since I went full time and I haven’t looked back once.

Q: What role does beauty play in the value of your work?
A: That is the core of my work. If people (including myself) don’t find beauty in the images I create, I won’t succeed.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Finally, you can’t outsource relationship-building—as you continue to share your life and your identity online, you are going to find yourself on a level playing field. Seek out people who are talking about your field of expertise and weigh in. Jump into conversations, respond to debates, and reach out to customers to thank them for their support. You can do all of this through Twitter, and build a vast network of both professionals and customers who will offer thousands of opportunities every day to have an emotional connection if you can just spare the time to type 140 characters.

The message that I most want you to take away from this series is that your potential is all up to you, and no matter where you are—self-employed or working for another company—you can leverage the power of your community to blow up your business. You have to have hustle for that success and gratification and happiness. You have to care about the experience of your users and make it pretty, and you have to believe totally in what you are creating. Tell the story, share your journey, and start creating a community.

xo
meg

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It’s Not Just a Job day 3: Positioning your content

Posted on 12. Apr, 2012 by Princess Lasertron.

This week I'm sharing lessons every day designed to help readers who are "waiting it out" in jobs they don't love for the right opportunity to start their own ventures. Yesterday we talked about working smart and hard, and today I'm excited to share some lessons I've learned about getting your work in front of people who will use it and enjoy it. Whether you're in a job you love, or looking for a chance to escape and chase your own passion, join the conversation about using the social community to find professional happiness!

Dear readers:

I launched Princess Lasertron with a marketing plan that assumed I had  to talk to customers in the spaces they already occupy—for me, that was wedding blogs. A big part of my growth strategy from 2005-2008 was getting personally acquainted with the people who did many of the major wedding blogs, and using them to promote my bouquets to their readers. Sometimes it was in the form of a paid advertisement or advertorial, sometimes I offered giveaways to incentivize people to spread the word about this totally new design I had created, and sometimes I was just blessed by the good will of the editor with a generous post or feature. I had success because I had a great product that the market hadn’t seen before, a great story that made readers give a crap about my process and success, and I used social media muscle to shout it from the rooftops with a medium that my clientele was already using comfortably. I wish I had a budget for magazine ads or the funding to hire a great PR agency, but when you’re bootstrapping, you have to take stock of your skills and just decide how best to use them in marketing. I can write and I can speak, so I set out to make a small dent in the blogosphere. I’m not as great on film, so I didn’t start there.

Even if your product is perfect—whether you’re selling it yourself in your own business or pushing someone else’s—nobody will know if the message doesn’t reach them. For you to make your message relevant, you need to figure out the habits of the people you want to reach. Think creatively about who your customer is now, and who it should be. What spaces online do they occupy? Do they like blogging, video, photo-sharing? Whatever.

You also need some genuine, well-made content that you can stand behind proudly. Bad content will make your product look valueless. Stock photos, .99 logos, a slapped-together WordPress template, a Twitter account full of soapboxing and zero reader interaction—these kill the value of your content and keep people from taking you seriously. Don’t even start a blog unless you have good content for that platform (and you do if you’re blogging about your passion and expertise), but maybe you’re a better talker than a writer, and you can better convey your passion and expertise via video. Maybe you have a knack for visual design, and you can start by sharing your beautiful Pinterest boards through Twitter and Facebook. Social media is free–take advantage of it and think creatively about how to reach your market using these resources.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Who is this person?

…Chris Guillebeau, world traveler, authority challenger, and best-selling author.

Q: What is your passion?
A: I’m excited about building a legacy focused on creative work. I’m also traveling to every country in the world.

Q: What is one decision you made in the early phases of your unconventional journey that you feel was most vital to your success?
A: The decision to raise the stakes! I used to be a fairly private, introverted person. Then I started writing for a small army of remarkable people—the change has been very good for me.

Q: What has been most surprising about your personal experience as an entrepreneur?
A: I’ve been surprised to see more possibility and opportunity than ever before. It’s just getting easier and more accessible for someone to start their own career all the time.

Q: How do you feel at the end of each day? What goes through your mind as your head hits the pillow?
A: It depends on what I’ve accomplished or “shipped” during the day. If I’ve used my time well, I feel good and I look forward to the next day. If not, I think … what could I do better?

Q: What strategies do you use to maximize the time you spend on each project or goal you set?
A: I don’t really divide my time well. I work on what I want, when I want to. Fortunately I love most of my work, so there aren’t many things I dread having to tackle.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Who is this person?

…Dusty Davidson of Silicon Prarie News, Tripleseat, and Layeredi. Lover of wine, diet mountain dew, and silicon prairie evangelist.

Q: What is your passion?
A: My passions have changed over the years as I’ve grown as a business person and experienced new things. I’m passionate about software – specifically cool, well-designed, easy-to-use web software. I’m also passionate about building great teams of people to build successful companies (software or otherwise). I’m passionate about connecting entrepreneurs with the resources and things necessary to help them be successful (thanks Jeff Slobotski for instilling that in me). And I guess you could say I’m pretty passionate about Omaha and the Silicon Prairie. Oh, and I’m suuuuper passionate about Diet Mt. Dew.

Q: When I think about someone who positions their content well, I think of you and Jeff at Silicon Prairie News. From the beginning, you had great intuition about using a variety of platforms to push out your content. What was your strategy with that?
A: We had the good fortune of launching Silicon Prairie News (SPN) roughly at the same time that Twitter was becoming popular. The initial growth of the SPN community coincided with such things as Tweetups, Barcamp, and the general growth and adoption of Twitter in and around Omaha. So for us, using Twitter / Facebook to push out the content we were producing was a logical first step.

Q: When did you know your business was going to be a success — was there a moment, day, or event when something specific happened?
A: I don’t like to think of any of my businesses as “successful” (yet), but they certainly are sustainable. I think that’s a key first milestone. For SPN, the first glimpse we had of that probably was after the first Big Omaha, where we finally realized that maybe we had a “real business” on our hands. People were willing to pay us for what we were producing. It was that point where we laid the groundwork for growing and further growing SPN into a fully sustainable (and hopefully someday successful) organization.

Q: How do you feel at the end of each day? What goes through your mind as your head hits the pillow?
A: I’m generally pretty tired, mostly because I stay up waaaaaay later than I should. I’m often anxious for the next day, as I’m juggling lots of things and have lots of things churning in my head.

Q: What strategies do you use avoid wasting time? When do you say “this isn’t working” and try something else?
A: Focus is the biggest thing I strive for to avoid wasting time on things. I have a tendency to lose focus and spiral off into things that are either unrelated or way out of scope for what I should be working on. So for me maintaining solid todo lists, and empty inboxes, and appropriate priorities, and anything else that can keep me focused on the tasks at hand.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

What motivates me every day and helps me get my attitude right is living like I’m going to meet Martha Stewart or Cindy Gallop or any of my personal heroes at any moment. When you express identity online–whether it’s in a professional or personal context–you never know who is reading. That’s why it’s worthwhile to take the time to think about how you’re positioning content to make sure the right people are going to see it.

xo
meg

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It’s Not Just a Job day 2: Working smart is working hard.

Posted on 11. Apr, 2012 by Princess Lasertron.

This week I'm sharing lessons every day designed to help readers who are "waiting it out" in jobs they don't love for the right opportunity to start their own ventures. Yesterday we talked about developing your identity, and today we're talking about hustle--that's working smart and hard. The idea is to help you leverage your talents, your resources, and the power of your community to develop professional happiness.

Dear readers:

You will be shocked how many hours you find in the day when you are working on something you are passionate about, so there is no valid excuse for why you can’t just start today. You can work while you watch tv, you can ask your spouse or partner or friend or roommate or mom or mcdonalds to prepare one meal per week so you can use that hour to invest in your passion. You can wake up an hour earlier or stay up an hour later. When you love what you do, you won’t notice the hours going by because you can’t wait to show your blood sweat and tears to the world and say “THIS is what I made. This is what I care about.” And if you create with hard work and are smart about it, your results—whether it’s sales, readers, clients, whatever—will be bananas.

Working hard is something that’s ingrained in our culture, especially here in the Midwest–we come from pioneer stock. What sometimes comes with that unfortunately is pressure to become a work martyr…to stay at work with your butt in the seat because working longer hours automatically means you’re more dedicated and doing better work. If you take part in that BS, it’ll eventually make you resentful of your job, you will lose your sharpness, and you’ll get burned out. You’ll also look back on the time and wonder where it all went because you’ll have nothing to show for it.

Instead, work smart and work hard. Evaluate the effectiveness of your methods, and be ready to change (or even apologize) if you’re getting feedback from your audience that it isn’t working. Leverage your resources—social media, professional connections, personal skills and strengths—to get your work in front of as many people as possible, and opportunities will come. Someone will pick it up and it just takes one little break, one great connection, to start the series of dominos falling.

(And if that’s not enough of a reason, if you don’t work smart and hard, you can bet someone else out there is, and they’re going to kick your ass.)

Even if you are working in a job where you are happy—and I mean really happy, like you are stoked to wake up every Monday morning and you don’t count down the minutes on Friday afternoon—you can build equity and value for the skills you bring to the table in your industry. If you are passionate about social media and you aren’t seeing your company embrace it in a meaningful way, use your free time to build a proposal to offer to your marketing department, and offer to help implement it. If you are passionate about blogging or podcasts, figure out who you need to talk to to introduce that into your company’s culture and take control of the project. Do a series of video blogs. Write a short how-to series for something relevant in your field that your company can put on its website. This is the kind of stuff that gets attention from people who can really change your life—you could get opportunities to write, to speak, or land the gigantic client that will position your company perfectly to grow.

If you aren’t happy in your job, I can tell you with certainty that your life will get better when you stop wasting your time and pursue a career in your passion. If you identify the thing that you love more than anything, the thing you could talk about all day, the thing you could work on for sixteen hours a day without looking at the clock, and position your message well, you will be able to tap into a market to make a living. It’s a bet I would take.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Who is this person?

…Matt Secoske of Social Assurance, founder of Barcamp Omaha, and active participant in the open-source community

Q: What is your passion?
A: I love solving problems. I love working with others to solve problems.

Q: What was the smartest decision you made in starting or growing your business?
A: Starting. I knew for a long time that I needed to do something… different. Putting it out there made it real.

Q: When did you know your business was going to be a success?(one example is cool)
A: I’m not sure it will be yet, at least in the financial sense. That said, it was successful the moment it first taught me something.

Q: How do you feel at the end of each day? What goes through your mind as your head hits the pillow?
A: Always Exhausted. Also: Nervous, Excited, Pensive, Worried, Happy.

Q: What strategies do you use to maximize the time you spend on each project?
A: I still struggle a lot with ancillary BS like Social Media feeds and Hacker News. Trying to remove all distractions and STAY FOCUSED and constantly moving the business forward.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Of course, as an entrepreneur, I think that all of you should plan smart (and work hard) to leave your jobs working for other people. You have to have the freedom in your day to build equity in your identity, your idea, and your value so you don’t miss out on the incredible opportunity this economy offers for people with passion. If there’s something you love, something you can share with the world, you should be leveraging your time to break away from your obligations to someone else’s company and build your own legacy of happiness. Life’s too short.

xo
meg

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