Two weeks ago I came across a book called “Start Small, Stay Small” by Rob Walling. I purchased the eBook version and started reading it on my iPhone while riding the train to work every morning. The book is essentially a step-by-step guide to building a small web/software startup and guides you through the whole process of starting an online business from identifying a profitable niche to automating the business. It is really well written and easy to understand with case studies and examples to illustrate the various steps. (more…)

Category: Uncategorized by Stefan | No Comments »

I recently added a couple of podcasts from the iTunes U wondering what kind of information I can expect from educational podcasts. One of them is from the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute (Feed Link) and as the name of the Institute may indicate it is about entrepreneurship. I startet listening to the first few episodes which are mostly live recordings from speeches of successful entrepreneurs  at the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute. I didn’t expect too much of it so I was really surprised how interesting and fascinating these speeches were. (more…)

Category: General by Stefan | No Comments »

One thing I have been struggling with for the last months is to choose the right name for my startup and future business. Given that I will probably be using the same name for my company for a long time and build a whole brand based on that name I consider this quite an important decision. As this is probably an important topic for anyone looking to start their own business I will try to explain a few techniques I have used, some thoughts that came up during this process and the key criteria I have found to be important when choosing a name for a business.

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Category: Creativity by Stefan | 4 Comments »

I always find it interesting to here other people’s stories about how they started their own business and how they not only succeeded but also failed way more often than many would think. One of the most inspiring and motivating stories I have heard recently on this topic is the one by Steve Jobs held in 2005 during Stanford University’s 114th Commencement. It is hard to summarize this speech in just a few words but I guess “don’t give up and live the life YOU want to live” or as Steve puts it “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish” describe it quite well. Watch the video below and take a couple of minutes to digest his messages! They might be quite useful for those looking to start their own business. (more…)

Category: Videos by Stefan | 1 Comment »

I got some feedback on my blog and my current project dalister – the productivity driven startpage! Yeah! It’s great to see that even though the number of visitors is still very low it is increasing and people seem to be interested in what I’m doing and writing about. Benny from www.vanderbeurse.de (a blog about financial topics) commented on my previous post regarding dalister and mentioned remember the milk as a potential alternative to dalister. I have used remember the milk in the past but still find it too cumbersome to actually use it as the nice, handy and easy to use tool I have in mind. (more…)

Category: Business Ideas by Stefan | 6 Comments »

It’s been a while since I posted on my blog which is mostly due to a lack of motivation to be honest. It is hard to fill a blog like this with content when there is almost no feedback. I know this is something I just have to deal with because my blog is still at a very early stage but it kind of makes it hard to movtivate myself. However, I was looking at one of my previous posts the other day and I realised that someone had actually tweeted about it! Wow! That really boosted my motivation and I thought this might just be the right time to talk about a project I have been working on for the last few months. It is called dalister (which is still a working title at this stage) and I’d say it is a productivity driven start page. Yeah, that sounds boring and anything but spectacular but I really think that there is no nice and easy solution available out there yet. (more…)

Category: Business Ideas by Stefan | 6 Comments »

Fred Wilson, venture capitalist and blogger, did this talk at the Future of Web Apps conference in Miami in February. The reason why I wanna share this with you is that some of the 10 principles he describes have often been key reasons for me to choose a certain web app over another. I think these principles are actually very basic but nonetheless extremely important. I will use them as a basic checklist for all future web apps that I am going to develop. (more…)

Category: Videos by Stefan | No Comments »

I recently watched a video of Josh Petersen talking at the Seattle Startup Day 2009 where he mentioned the concept of finding business ideas by solving your own problems. When I thought about this concept I realized that this is quite a powerful but simple method which I have already used many times without even being aware of. When I started my first project Movie-Trade in 2001 I just solved my own problem because I wanted to show people a list of movies I owned but excel or word files were just so damn inconvenient. Josh explains in his talk that by solving their own problems the founders of startups/projects like Basecamp (www.basecamphq.com) and Ruby on Rails (www.rubyonrails.org) found their (business) ideas. Pretty simple but very effective. (more…)

Category: Business Ideas, Creativity by Stefan | 1 Comment »

I found this video quite a while ago and I thought it might be worthwhile sharing with you on this blog because it really gives you the motivation you need when you have one of those moments where all the potential drawbacks of starting your own business come back to your mind. The guy is a little crazy but that probably makes him one of the most interesting people on the internet. He started off running a video blog on http://tv.winelibrary.com which was and still is a huge success. He now regularly speaks at web conferences sending out his message that basically anyone can start a business online. He also stresses that creating your own personal brand is key to sucess. I guess some of his advice is not for everyone but just seeing how passionate he is about what he is doing makes me wanna start my own business right now. (more…)

Category: Videos by Stefan | No Comments »

Have you ever wondered why it was not you who started this new crazy buzz business thing that everybody is talking about? Have you ever used a product and service and thought: why didn’t I come up with this idea? Or even better: I had this idea years ago, why didn’t I start my own company with this back then? I guess most people could quickly come up with one or two reason why it was just not the right time, idea, place, environment, why there was just too little money to pay the bills while setting up the business. I’m personally an expert in ‘finding fatal flaws of business ideas’. To this date I’ve had tons of ideas and every time I got really excited about a particular idea it just took me a few days to find enough reasons to drop this fantastic idea. But I think I have finally found the reason for this: I’m a chicken – and being a chicken in business sucks! (more…)

Category: General by Stefan | No Comments »