Last week I wrote about how I started working a day job separate from my businesses. The reason for doing this is so that I can meet my highest priority goal which is to pay off all of my debt. This new job only lasts for five months and I will be able to put all the income I make from it towards debt. I am really looking forward to the feeling of freedom I will have once I don’t owe anyone anything.

I do spend some time in an office working but I also spend a lot of time on the road traveling. I really enjoy that I get to travel all over the country and get to frequently escape the cubicle.

As of today I have now had this job for two weeks and have started to get used to having a lot on my plate. Even though I am used to it doesn’t mean that it is easy. I have a lot to accomplish and as a result feel increased pressure and stress in my life.

While running a business and having a day job can be very hard at times, I feel that it gives me an opportunity to learn how to manage my time efficiently and help others who are wanting to start their own business while working a job do the same. Time management will be key if I am to continue to meet my business goals and not delay them until after my day job has ended.

Planning.

To meet my business goals I must first write down everything I want to accomplish for the week. I usually plan several weeks in advance. This process will not take up very much time and many times I will only have 2 or 3 main things I am trying to accomplish for a given week.

Once I know my weekly goals, I will break down what daily tasks I need to complete for the week to meet those goals. I usually try to only schedule tasks on Monday through Friday unless I know I will need additional time to meet a goal. By relaxing on the weekends I stay less stressed and have a better quality of life. I don’t want to risk burning out.

During the week days when I know I have to come home and work on my businesses I have found that starting to work immediately after getting home seems to be the best strategy. It is very tempting to want to relax for a while first but I have found that if I relax I begin to put my work off later and later and sometimes decide I will just do it the next day.

When I begin working as soon as I get home I am still in work mode and not relax mode so I find myself getting things done a lot faster and have plenty of time afterwards to relax and be lazy.

Procrastination.

Sometimes it is hard to get to work immediately, maybe after a tiring day, and some days I can’t even motivate myself to work at all. I think this is okay every now and then but it is important not to make a habit of it. The more I procrastinate the more work I have to do on the weekends or the more I push back meeting my goals.

I have found it particularly hard to work when I am traveling. Sometimes all I want to do is go to my hotel room and lay on the bed and watch TV.

Working on the weekends is something I am used to doing, but I want to keep that work to a minimum if at all possible. If I put off tasks until the weekend and find myself working more than enjoying my relax and play time I will quickly begin to burnout. Once you feel burnt out it is hard to recover quickly so it is best to avoid it at all costs.

Having days of rest is extremely important so that you can enjoy life instead of adding unnecessary stress that will only make your life harder. Remember why you are starting your own business and make sure your reasons to do so aren’t forgotten during the process.

Creating a plan for you business and work schedule will help you reach your goals a lot faster while also keeping your stress level in check. Meeting your goals is very important but remember that maintaining your quality of life is the most important.

What strategies have you found helpful for getting things done while maintaining quality of life?

Photo credit: Cliph

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Todd Knowlton, president and co-founder of Smooth Fusion Inc., to discuss his journey to becoming an entrepreneur, things to consider when starting a business, and things to consider when running an existing one.

Todd has been starting and running businesses for a while now. Before he was a business man he was a best-selling author of a number of textbooks. Opportunities arose from his success as an author and he established a company called Knowlton and Associates that became a premiere web development company for companies such as Microsoft Inc. Knowlton and Associates began after Microsoft asked Todd to make a website for them. One website became many more and his company grew to have a team of almost 10 people.

He later became the Managing Director at Full Moon Interactive and then went on to create Smooth Fusion Inc. with two of his colleagues Brad Hunt and Jay Bates.

During our discussion Todd talks about how starting a business wasn’t the scary part of entrepreneurship for him but it was when he decided to start hiring others. There is a great sense of responsibility that becomes yours once you are worrying not only about your financial well being but others as well. When hiring even just one person it is important to consider whether or not your business is profitable enough to pay someone’s salary and benefits (if you are offering benefits).

Todd also stresses the importance of surrounding yourself with people you trust that will give you valuable feedback on business ideas you are considering to pursue. It is very easy to get caught up on your own idea and not see that it may actually be a bad idea. Feedback from others can be very valuable especially if you want your business to be a success the first time.

Well I won’t give anymore away. Check out the video to hear what all Todd had to share. Also let me know your thoughts in the comments on what was discussed. If you have any specific questions regarding starting or running a business that you would like me to ask future entrepreneurs I interview, let me know those as well.

It has been two weeks since I started the One Hundred Dollar Business project and I have spent that time brainstorming and trying to determine what business I am going to start. I came up with a very large list of ideas and while I made it a point to think completely open minded and not limit myself, I did have to narrow my list down by what ideas cost less than $100 and wouldn’t be too time intensive.

So once my list was narrowed down one idea made the most since for me. This idea is very low cost and it is something that interests me. Two very important factors with starting this business. And with any business it is always a good idea to do something you are interested in or you will loose motivation quickly. So what’s the idea? I have decided to start an affiliate website that will attract people wanting to start their own business making iPhone apps. I know a lot of people, maybe including you, that think it would be really great if they could have their own iPhone app that makes them money but they don’t know where to start and have no programing knowledge.

In the past month or so I have become very interested in the idea of making money creating iPhone apps. I am not particularly interested in making iPhone apps for other people but to make apps that will generate an income using advertising. The apps I have an interest in making are apps that are free for people to download from the App Store but have ads that show up within the app. When one of those ads is clicked I will make a little money.

My first iPhone App

I have been working like crazy the last week learning how to develop iPhone apps and understand the whole process. In fact I developed my first iPhone app this week. It has been submitted to the app store and hopefully will be accepted without any issues. I will let you know what it is soon.

After developing my first iPhone app I realized that it would make a lot more sense for me to have someone else make the apps for me so I don’t have to spend all day trying to figure out how to make my app idea work. I have decided that I am going to start hiring others who are more experienced to make the apps and then I will submit them to the App Store and be ready to move on to my next app idea. You would be surprised at how inexpensive it is to have apps made.

Affiliate Website

Because of my new interest in iPhone apps I want to create an affiliate website that will teach others how to start creating iPhone apps without needing to know how to program and develop them. There are already a lot of great resources, such as ebooks, out there that I can become an affiliate of and get a percentage of each sale I make.

If you haven’t already figured it out, creating an affiliate website is one strategy to start generating passive income. I already have a handful of affiliate websites created that are making money for me and that is another reason this idea made sense, I have experience doing this. Essentially an affiliate website is just a website that promotes someone’s digital product and streamlines the sale process. You don’t have to worry about setting up a shopping cart or collecting money. All you have to do is promote your website and the product on your website and you will get paid if they purchase it.

Passive Income

So if you don’t know what I mean when I say passive income let me explain. Passive income, in this context, is working really hard to get a website up, start promoting it, and then only spend a few hours a week maintaining it while you bring in money. The amount of money you make depends on several different factors when creating your website, including the affiliate products you choose to promote. I will go into more detail once I start creating the website and give you a thorough walk through of what I am doing each step of the way.

Over the next week I will spend my time deciding on a domain name, purchasing web hosting, and begin building the website. I will also start looking at a variety of affiliate products that relate to creating iPhone apps and determine the ones I would like to use. As I begin this process I will let you know everything I am doing with blog updates as well as video explaining exactly how I am doing each step.

Have you ever thought about creating iPhone apps? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Photo credit: mastrobiggo

Here are 5 tips that will help your business grow faster and build momentum.

1. Create a Brand.

Creating a brand for you business is one of the most important decisions you will make during the life of your business. Your brand is what people will identify you by. If you don’t have one no one will remember you and if you have a poorly executed brand no one will want to do business with you.

Having a logo is usually what we think of when we hear the word brand but your brand is actually so much more than that. Your logo is the visual part of your brand, other parts of your brand may include what makes you different from other companies in your industry, how you run your company, or how you advertise your company (goofy videos).

However you decided to create your brand just remember that you want it to be memorable and keep people coming back.

2. Get Online.

Having a presence online is essential when starting a business. Even if you don’t have an online business it is a way for you to reach out to potential customers. It will allow customers to easily find you and learn more about what you do.

The first step to building your presence online is to get a website. If you think you don’t have the money to get a website, think again. There are a number of websites that will allow you to create a free website until you have the money to make something better. A lot of the free website services even allow you to purchase a domain name for around $10 so no one will know you are using a free website service.

Free website services:

• Weebly.com
• SnapPages.com
• Wordpress.com

I also would strongly suggest getting a Facebook and Twitter account for your business. You may believe this will not be beneficial for your business but you must know that most of your customers are on one or both of these networks and this is one more free way you can reach out to them.

3. Make your first sale.

When you first start your business making that first sale can sometimes be very intimidating. It can also sometimes be the hardest sale you make because you aren’t exactly sure where to start. Start with people you know. Let all your friends and family know what you are doing and if it makes sense offer them a discount if they do business with you. Making that first sale, even if it is to a friend or family member, will jump start your business and motivate you to keep going.

4. Testimonials.

It is very important to start building credibility for your business from day one. Getting testimonials from your first sales will help you build your credibility and encourage more sales down the road. Don’t be afraid to ask a customer or client what they thought of your product or service. Most people love to tell you what they think and asking them to come up with at least one or two sentences shouldn’t be too much to ask.

5. Create buzz.

Creating buzz about your business can be very fun. Think of creative ways to do something that will get people talking. You may think about holding some kind of contest or doing a crazy video. Whatever it is you decide to do you will need to get the word out about it. A great way to do this is to contact the local newspaper or TV news station and tell them what you are doing. Reporters are always looking for something interesting to talk about so if you can drop something in their lap there is a good chance they will spread the word.

I know there are many more tips out there to accelerate your business. If you have any others let me know in the comments.

Photo credit: Sekaino Ai

When I first started running again after about a 8 month hiatus it was very hard. When I quit running I could easily run 10 miles and now I could barely run 2. It is very frustrating when you start doing something you used to do and it turns out to be a lot harder than you remember. I would go out for a run and my side would start cramping and all I would want to do is walk. After pushing through all the pain I would notice distance wasn’t my only problem, my time was terrible as well. I longed to be where I was before when running was easy for me.

I don’t think I was really that surprised when I couldn’t run as far or as fast. I didn’t expect to be running 10 miles as easy as I could before and I knew that if I wanted to increase my mileage and speed the best thing for me to do was to keep running. I knew that I had to create a running plan for myself and decide what days of the week I was going to run and for how long. After making the plan I knew that I had to commit to it and not flake out no matter what. I am happy to say that since starting my 3 day a week schedule I have not missed a single run.

It is great to see how my consistency has paid off and I am now faster and can run farther than 2 miles. I am setting new goals every couple of weeks and meeting them every time.

When you start off in any sport the only way you are going to get better is if you keep doing it over and over by establishing consistency. Practicing only when you feel like it will never get you where you want to be. You must make a plan and decide what days you are going to practice and not miss a single day. Establishing consistency is the only way you will improve.

Once you have established consistency you will start to see yourself get closer to your goals. With my running I started getting faster and started increasing my mileage. If you stay consistent you begin to build momentum and it starts getting easier and easier to improve. Adding one more mile to your run doesn’t seem as difficult as it would have when you were first starting out.

Consistency When Starting A Business

This same principle can be applied to starting a business. In the beginning it is hard and there are so many things to figure out. Even after you have the business setup and ready to go you still have to get people to purchase your product or service. Finding customers can be very hard in the beginning. You must create a plan and consistently follow it. It is very easy to get discouraged in the beginning. You must realize that starting a business is not going to be easy at first but if you consistently work at it things will get easier.

And if you stay consistent, once again, you will build momentum. Having momentum in your business is the best thing that can happen for you. It doesn’t mean you can stop working as hard. It just means that all your hard work is finally paying off. Before it seemed like you were never going to get your first customer, now you have customers coming to you with out you even looking for them.

When I first started Design Shaman, which is a company that does web design and branding, I had no idea who we were going to make websites for. I knew that we were really good at what we did but no one else knew that. And who could pay us what we were worth? Most of the people I knew who were starting businesses didn’t have a budget for a website.

My partner and I worked very hard building our brand and our website. We made sure to create a website that would really show our creativity and talent. Now all we had to do was find someone to hire us. So what did we do? We started talking about it. We started telling everyone we knew that we had just started a new web design company and would give them our business card or send them a link in an email. We created a Facebook page and a Twitter account and began talking about what we do on the web.

For several weeks we talked about our new business to a lot of people but still no business. So what did we do next? We kept talking about it. We knew that if we were ever going to get any clients everyone we met needed to know what we do. So we consistently talked about it every chance we got. And before long we started getting clients. It was only a few at first but over time we started having people come to us that were referred by someone we knew. The number of referrals just kept coming in and are still coming in. We had finally built up our momentum.

So let me say it one more time, establish consistency so that you can build momentum.

Steps to building momentum:

Set goals.

You must create realistic short term goals for your business. The reason I say “realistic” goals is because you want to meet these goals so you will be motivated to carry on. It is important to always have goals throughout the life of your business. As soon as you stop working towards something your momentum begins to slow and all that hard work will be lost.

Create a plan.

Once you have your goals set you need to come up with a plan to meet your goals. That plan needs to include consistently working towards your goals. If you want to sell 10 products by the end of the month the best way to meet that goal is to consistently try to find buyers for that product. If you stop trying, unless you are lucky, you will not sell the 10 products. Without a plan and consistency your business will never be the best it can be. Having a product or service to sell doesn’t mean everyone is going to come buy it. You must consistently pursue them and before long people will start pursuing you.

Setting goals is the easy part when starting a business, and sometimes the fun part, but consistency can be difficult. Getting tired and discouraged will usually come fairly quickly but you must push through those symptoms and keep moving forward. Because when you keep moving forward “gravity” takes over and you gain momentum.

Let me know some of your goals in the comments and how you plan to meet them and begin building momentum.

Today the first week of the One Hundred Dollar Business came to an end. For the first month of this project my plan is to come up with a business idea, develop a marketing strategy, and launch the business. Every Friday I am going to update you on my progress with the One Hundred Dollar Business. I will let you know how my week went and what disappointments and successes I encountered.

I spent this week brainstorming business ideas everyday for one hour a day. In my opinion my ideas have been somewhat mediocre. I have not written my ideas off completely and realize I still have more time to brainstorm. This is something I expected since I am squeezing this project into such a small window of time.

Here are some of the ideas I came up with:

Starting an affiliate website.

An affiliate website is a website that promotes a product that someone else is selling. Usually these websites will use some kind of link tracking to track when someone has clicked on your website and been directed to the website of the affiliate. If that someone ends up purchasing something you will get credit for it and make a little money. I have done this in the past and currently have a few websites like this running. This is a good option for me because I have experience starting a website like this.

What is great about a business like this is that you will work very hard up front but once the website is established and has traffic coming to it your work load greatly decreases. The entire transaction process involves nothing from you. Your only responsibility is to drive traffic to your website and deposit the checks you get in the mail.

The downside to this kind of business is that you are competing with thousands of other people trying to make money promoting the same product. This means you will be competing for the same keyword phrases on Google and other search engines. You will also have to do a lot of research and come up with a clever strategy to drive people to your website. Unfortunately just having a website doesn’t mean people will come to it.

Creating a discount offering business.

By discount offering business I mean a business that offers discounts to other business in my area or elsewhere. You could think of it as a coupon business. This idea will require me to find merchants that are willing to offer some kind of discount and in return I will drive customers to their businesses.

Figuring out how to present these discounts to consumers is going to be extremely important if I want this business to be successful and not require a lot of up front costs. Printing of any kind will be out of the question. To print the quantity that I would need to distribute all over my area would cost me quite a bit more than $100.

A possible solution for presenting the discounts to consumers is to create a website that will list all of the discounts and allow the consumer to print them off and use. If this is going to make any money someone will have to pay for this service. It will either be the merchant or the consumer. Getting the merchant to pay would probably be the best option but will make it much more difficult to receive discounts. I could on the other hand have the consumer pay a monthly fee to log into the website. Once they are logged in they can view and print the coupons. Obviously the fee for the consumer will have to be very low to make it worth it for them. You see why the limitation of money (money to print coupons or discount cards) makes it difficult when pursuing this option.

Teach others.

I have several skills that I believe others would like to know how to do. I could start a training business where I would train others how to do something I have knowledge about. If I were to train others one on one this would not be very beneficial for me because I would be limiting the amount of money I could make in the time I spend training. To make this idea worth pursuing will need to train a group of people and require a reasonable fee from each person. Since time will be an issue I will only be able to do this maybe one day a week.

If I am going to be teaching a group of people I will need a place for us to meet. And since I will only have $100 the place will have to be very cheap to rent out for a few hours or free. I can however use any profits I make from the class to pay for the following meeting times.

Another aspect I will need to keep in mind is materials and/or tools that will be needed during the class. Most likely I will need to print out some kind of guide for the students to follow or refer to. If I am training them on a subject that requires a computer I will need to figure out how each student will get a computer. One option for this is they could bring their own computer.

Brainstorming for only a week will not always produce that “great” idea you are looking for. It is important to keep working at it and at some point you will find something you are excited and confident about that you would like to pursue.

By the end of next week I hope to have chosen the business I am going to start and the following week begin setting up that business. At that time I will also start thinking of some marketing strategies and how I can get the word out about my new venture.

Tell me what you think about the ideas I have presented today. Tell me what you like and don’t like about them. Also let me know any experiences you have had in the past when brainstorming business ideas.

I spend more than a couple of nights a week laying in bed at 3am wishing I could just fall asleep. Sometimes I will lay in bed for 3 or 4 hours extremely sleepy but unable to turn my mind off. Usually what consumes my mind at night is not what I am going to do the next day but how this new business idea I had will work. I start working all the angles in my head by trying to answer who will buy it, how will I market it, and how soon can I start.

While I am thinking of all these “amazing” business ideas, in the back of my mind all I can think about is that I should be asleep by now and that I am going to be so tired the next day. When I finally do fall asleep and the next day arrives I revisit my ideas and find myself having trouble remembering all the thoughts I had the night before. Since I don’t remember enough to continue thinking about it I usually just go on with my day.

The reason I tell you this story is to emphasize the importance of making time during the day to think out your ideas. If you don’t set aside time during your day to intentionally brainstorm you run the risk of forgetting the ideas you are thinking about when driving in traffic, working at your job, or trying to fall asleep.

During this set aside time it is important to come up with a system you will follow when brainstorming business ideas and make sure to write everything down so you will remember it later.

For the One Hundred Dollar Business I have come up with a system that I am going to follow to try to increase the efficiency of my brainstorming time.

The Idea Factory

All of my ideas will go into one of two categories. These categories will help me to stay focused during my brainstorming time instead of day dreaming about things that will not make a profit.

Those categories are:

• find a need and create a solution
• build off something that has already been proven to work

For the first category, finding a need and create a solution, I am trying to think of things that could make someone’s life easier. This is a very fun category because it allows you to be extremely creative in your ideas. When brainstorming within this category it is important to keep an open mind. Don’t decide something won’t work yet. If you have an idea you are not sure about, write it down anyways. Being realistic can come later. It is important to just keep the ideas coming.

The second category, build off of something that has already been proven to work, involves taking existing business ideas and reworking them or replicating them. There is nothing wrong with starting a business that others are already doing. The benefit to looking at existing businesses is that you can analyze their successes and failures over the years and begin with a strategy that has already been proven to work. Obviously I don’t want to do this with just any business. I need to consider whether or not there will be room in the market for me. And even if there is, does the market have enough success for it to be worth while to get into.

Like I mentioned earlier, I want to let my creative ideas flow without limitation. While I will make sure to do this it is still important for me remember that there will be some realistic limitations. I won’t have the money or time necessary for just any business. Once you have allowed yourself to creatively think without any limitations you need to revisit your ideas and decide whether or not pursuing them makes sense for your situation.

Here are some things I will consider after looking over my ideas:

• physical merchandise may be too costly to pursue
• a time consuming service business may require more time than I have
• a brick and mortar business will most likely be out of the question

Having physical merchandise to sell can quickly become costly. While there is the option to dropship merchandise, buying in bulk and trying to sell will probably not be the route I will take.

When I say time consuming service I am referring to a business that requires you to be somewhere for a period of time before you get paid. An example of this may be cleaning houses or offices. I will only get paid if I am cleaning a house and if I only have 2 hours of free time a day to work on my business I will not make much money.

I think the reasons for not opening a brick and mortar business are pretty obvious. Too much money.

I am going to try to spend a lot of my time thinking of business ideas that will make money even when I am not working. This could also mean businesses that can make a large profit with very little time investment after the initial up front work load. Another name for this type of business is a passive income business. A business that makes money as you watch tv, go for a run, or even sleep.

It is important to have a plan on how you are going to spend your creative thinking time. Below are a few ways I am going to keep my creative ideas coming.

• spend at least 1 hour a day brainstorming and thinking of ideas
• pick up business magazines at the library to flip through for business ideas (You know these are FREE!)
• browse the web for ideas as well (During this time close your email and Facebook. These will distract you.)

There are a number of ways to get your brain thinking creatively. Change up how you spend your time brainstorming to always keep it fresh. This will help you to continue to have new ideas.

Let me know in the comments what strategies you have used to brainstorm ideas. Also soon I will start posting some of the ideas I am having for you to see and give me feedback on or use for yourself.

Seize this very minute; what you can do, or dream you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When I was a kid, probably around 9 or 10, my friends and I would setup tents all over the house using huge sheets from my parents bed. They usually were somehow secured to the ceiling fan or light fixture and then tied off to different objects in the room. We didn’t just use one large king size sheet, we would always grab a handful from the linen cabinet and make the tent as big as possible. Some of our tents even had multiple rooms.

What we did in the tent once it was built usually involved imagining it was our secret hideout that no one else knew about. And only letting people in that had special clearance. This usually did not include my sister. Sorry Catherine.

I remember one tent that I made very clearly. This tent I made by myself with a single purpose, to make money. I set up a huge tent that covered my whole bedroom. I collected all the stuff I owned that I no longer wanted and I put price tags on them with little stickers I found from my mom’s desk drawer. I remember specifically having Nintendo games for sale. Not sure if that is relevant to the story but that is the only thing I remember selling. I then proceeded to call all my friends in the neighborhood to come over and see my little store. I made sure to remind them to bring some money if they wanted to buy something.

I don’t think I became rich that day (well I know for a fact I didn’t become rich that day), but my little store was a success and I did make a little money. Who would have thought 10 year old kids would have the money to buy stuff from me. It is hard to know if something will work unless you try it.

When you have the desire to start your own business, having ideas is the easy part. I talk to people all the time that say they have this great business idea. I can tell they are passionate about their idea too. They talk about it with such excitement. And a lot of the time they have most of the details thought out already. The problem is there is always something that is preventing them for moving forward with their idea. It could be fear, it could be money, or any number of things.

I think fear is probably the most common reason and can easily include money and time. Someone may be worried that they don’t have enough money to start a business. Or worried that it may end up being a flop and they will have wasted time and money pursuing it.

We all have to come to a point where we realize that if we don’t face our fears and give our desires to own a business a chance, we may never live the lives we want.

Eliminate as much risk and then go for it!

If I had not followed through with my idea to sell my stuff in the tent that day, I would have never known that I could actually get neighborhood kids to buy my stuff. It is important though to listen to your fears. If you start something with out thinking about all the details you run the risk of having problems down the road. Analyze your risk and eliminate as much as you can. Then take that first step and start your new business.

You have to take action if you want to be successful in business. You can have 100 good ideas but ideas won’t get you anywhere with out taking action on those ideas first.

Let me know in the comments what is preventing you from moving forward with your ideas. Also if you have a story of when you pursued an idea and it was a success let us know about it in the comments.

Photo credit: pink.polka

I have started several businesses in the past. Starting businesses is what I enjoy doing. When I first got the entrepreneurial bug I didn’t have much money so the businesses I would start had very low start-up costs. Even to this day most of the businesses I have started cost me less than $1000.

So why am I telling you this?

I have decided to start a $100 business to demonstrate how anyone can start a business if they take the right steps. I also want to help others find a strategy that works.

I have talked to many people that say they wish they could work for themselves but they just don’t have the money to start a business. They say that the risk is too high for them. Obviously some businesses are going to have a lot of up front costs involved and will most likely require a loan or investors. But there is a huge opportunity for low cost businesses. How do I know? Because I have taken advantage of that opportunity many times.

The idea of starting a business with very little money is know as bootstrapping. Bootstrapping is not a new idea. It is something people have been doing for a long time. With a little money, or sometimes no money, you could be on your way to working for yourself.

The reason I am starting a $100 business is to discover a rough formula that will work for others wanting to bootstrap a business. I plan to keep everyone following this project up to date on my progress via articles and video. I don’t pretend to know everything about business so you will see me learning as well.

The Plan.

Start with $100. I will start with only $100 and can spend no more than that. The only way I can spend more money is if I make a profit from my business. Then I can use the profit I make to put back into the business.

$1000 in 3 months. My goal is to make $1000 in 3 months time. Any amount of profit would be a success but I feel that this is a good number to shoot for.

3 Months. The total duration of the project will be 3 months unless I decide to start another business to continue the project. I will spend the first month brainstorming business ideas and coming up with strategies to make the business a success. The following 2 months I will spend marketing my business and hopefully making a profit.

I am literally starting this business from scratch. I currently do not have any ideas, lists, or strategies written down. It is also important to note that I will also still be running my other businesses. So time will also be an issue and could possibly simulate someone who has to keep a job while they are trying to start a business.

I welcome any suggestions as far as ideas or strategies. I know you are probably thinking, “Why would I give him my good idea?” Well you don’t have to. But if you do and it works then all the more reason for you to give it a try as well.

It is also important that I mention that the money I make from this business will not go into my pocket and pay my bills. I will donate any profit that is left over after the 3 months to a non-profit organization. Which one? Well I want you to help me decide. Leave a comment telling me who I should give the money to and why.

What else do I expect from you, my readers, however few there may be?

I will need as much feedback and as many suggestions as possible. Two minds are better than one. I hope that this project is a success and that it motivates others to bootstrap a business as well.

Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts or if you have bootstrapped a business before tell me about it.

Run for the Water Race

I heard somewhere that most people never complete their new years resolutions. I think this is because most people focus on the result instead of focusing on the process. So for example instead of focusing on reaching a certain weight, focus on working out three times a week. If you can make consistency your goal, you may just create a new habit and your result will be fulfilled.

I usually don’t make new years resolutions. I try to set goals on a monthly basis so you could say I have January resolutions. However, I do have plans for 2010. But I won’t get into those here. I always like to look back on the previous year and see what I am happy with and what I could have done better.

Looking back on what I am happy with in 2009:

Created 2 successful businesses. At the beginning of 2009 I started Four Eyed Monkey.com, a web services company. In August I started a web development and branding company called Design Shaman. Both of these companies have continued to grow through strong pushes in social media marketing as well as good ol’ fashion networking. I am excited to see what happens in 2010.

Started working for myself full time. In August of 2009 I quit my job at Apple, Inc. to work full time for myself. This is something I had been looking forward to for a long time. It took me stepping out of my comfort zone and overcoming my fear. And look what happened… everything turned out great!

Custom built my fixed gear bike. At the beginning of 2009 I worked with my friend Kansas to completely rebuild my 1980’s Puch road bicycle into a fixed gear bike. Kansas only guided me in the process making me do all the work myself, including re-spoking my wheel. Re-spoking a wheel is a very tedious endeavor. I am now hooked on building bikes and fortunately I received lots of bike tools for Christmas.

Ran a series of races. At the end of 2008 to the beginning of 2009 I participated in the Austin Distance Challenge. The challenge included many races including two half marathons, a 20 mile race and the Austin Marathon. I completed every race except the marathon (made it to mile 18) due to a tendon injury I got from over training. Sometimes I think I am Superman, but am always reminded that I am not.

Started riding my bike most places. After finishing my fixed gear bike I started trying to ride everywhere I could. My wife and I scaled down to one car several years ago, so riding my bike everywhere makes sense. I hope to ride even more this year.

Started a personal blog. I have made an attempt to start a blog a few times over the past several years, and every time have failed. I write 2 or 3 posts and then get lazy. This time has been different. I have made it a point to write consistently and hopefully write good content. Remember what I said about focusing on the process not the result. I am trying to make writing a process to become a habit.

I believe it is always good to also look back and decide what could have been done better the previous year. Not to think of myself as a failure, but to intentionally improve on those areas the next year. So here are some things I wish I could have done better in 2009.

Traveled more, internationally. I did some traveling this year, but not much. And all of my traveling was done in the U. S. For 2010 I want to travel more and make sure to travel internationally. My wife and I already have some things in the works to make this happen, but more on that later.

Worked out more. I was working out almost everyday when I was training for running, but since the Austin Marathon in February I only work out sporadically. While I do ride my bike quite a bit, I have not run or lifted weights much.

Eat healthier. I started off eating very healthy in 2009, but the past 6 months or so I have started to eat more and more unhealthy food. It is very noticeable that I feel and act differently when I am not eating healthy. Time to eat more veggies!

Those are the big ones in each category. Here’s to another great year!

What were you happy with in 2009?