Helpful Startup Tools for Entrepreneurs – Q&As
In early August we published a post titled “Helpful Startup Tools for Entrepreneurs“. It announced our new repository of online startup tools for entrepreneurs.
Today we have added 10 top question/answer websites. We are big fans of online expert sites. These platforms allow you to gain access to industry experts.
Want to ask Eric Ries a question on Lean Startup? Check out Sprouter. Want to ask Drew Houston about how he started to Dropbox? Check our Quora.
Here are the 10 new entires into the startup tools repository:
1. Quora – Using the search functionality you can easily find experts and answers relevant to your industry.
2. Askolo – A small scale question and answer website, however has a diverse membership base of startup entrepreneurs. Offers an opportunity to get in touch with like minded people.
3. Stack Exchange- It originated from helping programmers solve coding problems. It is now an ever growing pure question and answer site.
4. OnStartups – Part of the StackExchange network. This section deals specifically with entrepreneur and startup based questions.
5. Sporuter – A rich community of startup experts. Includes answers from Eric Ries, Brad Feld, Tony Conrad, Dan Martell, Mark Suster, Hiten Shah, Micah Baldwin, Aaron Patzer, Daniel Burka, Joe Stump, Ash Maurya.
6. LinkedIn – Best known for being a social network for professional connections, LinkedIn offers several forums for connecting with experts in your field.
7. Reddit – The social news website has slowly been adding subsections (“subreddits”). This has helped in finding useful users and threads to follow.
8. Hacker News – Affiliated with the YCombinator accelerator foudned by Paul Graham. The site is primarily a news aggregation site for startup and technology related articles. However submissions prefixed with “Ask HN” or “Show HN” can quickly gain useful feedback and interest.
9. Twitter – Search and find experts to follow and ask questions. Your submissions are limited to 140 characters but can start informative interactions.
10. Google – It is very likely your question has already been asked (and answered). Searching for “How do I…” may yield some quick answers.
Want more top tools? Visit our Helpful Startup Tools For Entrepreneurs section.
Have a site to add? Drop us a line in the comments section or over Twitter.
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You might also enjoy:
+ The Top 100 UK Startups (2010)
+ The Startup Dictionary – Learning the Lingo #3
+ Learning From Other Startups – 6 Real Life Stories
+ Samsung’s Pivot From Dried Fish to Smartphones
+ Top Startup Podcasts – Learning From Listening
+ Helpful Startup Tools For Entrepreneurs
Welcome new readers! If this is your first time here, you might want to start with a new article or read through our older submissions.
Where to next? Check out a random article.
Stay in touch: Check us out via RSS Feed, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
Join the conversation: Leave a comment or tweet this post.
Technology – Is a black pixel on or off?
Bright Lights (Tech Radar)
[Note: This post is random post about Light Emitting Diode (LED). For more startup related messages, visit our main site.]
In a recent Techzing Podcast the guys spoke about the deceptively inefficient Yelp rating system. On a unrelated topic they briefly raised the question: is a black pixel on or off?
The curiosity got the better of us and we spent some time googling the answer. In summary LED turn the pixel off to display black. However in older display technology, the answer differs. We share the results below.
Pre-Flat – Blocks Light:
In the world before flat screens, screens had a big flat light at the back that was always on.
“If a pixel wanted to show you white it lets all the light through. If it wants to show you black it blocks all the light. Either way, the light behind is still on and still consuming the same power.”
(Source: Steve Mould)
LCD – Blocks Light:
“Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) pixels do not produce there own light. If the pixels are off, they don’t let the backlight through, when they are on, they let the backlight through.”
(Source: About.Com)
AMOLED – Turns Off:
To display black, AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) turns off the pixel. As a result you can save your battery by displaying black.
(Source: Wikipedia)
For more information you can visit the Nokia Developer site for their study on how color makes a difference.
Steve Mould test the hypothesis with some impressive calculations. His post How much phone battery can you save by switching to dark wallpapers and themes? provides an insight into extending the life of your phone battery.
We are not scientists, so drop us a line if we have mixed up the facts!
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You might also enjoy:
+ April Fools Day – Some of Our Favourites
+ Friday 13th – 3 interesting facts
+ Happy New Years – Bring on 2012!
Welcome new readers! If this is your first time here, you might want to start with a new article or read through our older submissions.
Where to next? Check out a random article.
Stay in touch: Check us out via RSS Feed, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
Join the conversation: Leave a comment or tweet this post.
Social Media Experiment – Twitter, Google+ and now Facebook
Like it or hate it?
Through Project Trout we have been sharing our social media experiences. We have spoken about the effectiveness of tools in attracting visitors and building meaningful relationships in earlier posts.
We are already using Twitter and Google Plus. We have not had the best levels of engagement however we are hoping over time these will be useful platforms to have a presence on.
We have now signed up to Facebook. We had reluctance in signing up to yet another social media site however it may be an interesting study to determine if FB is any better at drawing in visitors than Twitter and Google Plus. So far we have not had the greatest success with any other tools. Let’s wait and see what happens.
Stay tuned and check us out on Facebook!
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You might also enjoy:
+ The Startup Dictionary – Learning the Lingo #3
+ Learning From Other Startups – 6 Real Life Stories
+ Startup Myths – I shall not be fooled again by gurus
+ The Bootstrap Challenge – Walking the Talk
Welcome new readers! If this is your first time here, you might want to start with a new article or read through our older submissions.
Where to next? Check out a random article.
Stay in touch: Check us out via RSS Feed, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
Join the conversation: Leave a comment or tweet this post.
Project Trout – Social Media Experiment Update #3
Project Trout continues measuring the effectiveness of various online promotion methods as mentioned in earlier posts (See: #1 and #2).
While we are not fixated on gaining readers we are curious to know what works and what doesn’t, and how hard it really is to establish any form of following. If you are a blogger and have some tips/suggestions then please drop us a line.
Recap:
Last month we shared our disappointment in Twitter and it’s failure to convert followers to blog visitors. We had some limited success with Stumble Upon but not enough to celebrate.
| StumbleUpon: | Big spike in traffic over two days from SU however traffic falls back down to normal levels. |
| Technorati: | Registered account and application approved. |
| Blog: | 25 posts available. About page updated. Traffic still remains low. |
| Twitter: | 82 Tweets, 440 Following, 162 Followers |
Week 11-14:
The past four weeks proved as disappointing as last month. We persevered with existing tools and signed up to some new methods.
| StumbleUpon: | Limited traffic being directed. |
| Technorati: | Some traffic being directed. |
| Blog: | 38 posts now available. About page updated. Glossary page added. Three posts hoping to attract interest: Startup Glossary of Terms, The Apprentice Teaser of Upcoming Posts |
| Twitter: | 245 Tweets, 550 Following, 200 Followers. Difficulty in increasing followers (as new joiners offset by leavers) |
| Google+: | Remarkably we now have one person following our page! Not liking Plus platform at all. |
| Google Adwords: | We were the lucky recipient of a AdWords voucher. We will share the outcome of this work in a later post. |
| Sprouter: | Signed up but have not made any activity. |
| Reddit: | Signed up and shared some links. No traffic or interaction this month. |
| Digg: | Signed up and shared (“dugg”) one link. |
| Other: | Submitted two stories to Hacker News. Big one day spike in traffic but nothing afterwards. Visitors only visited linked post and nothing else. |
What worked?
+ Google Adwords shows some promise but costs money.
+ Targeting niche sites works to drive short term traffic but has potential if visitors stay.
+ Traffic is low, but has increased from previous period suggesting signs of some activity.
What didn’t work?
- Twitter followers are fickle. As soon as one joins, others leave. Few/none click on links.
- Visitors to one post don’t mean they stay and/or re-vist.
- Google Plus is difficult to use.
Current Links:
WordPress: sparkNlaunch.wordpress.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/sparkNlaunch
Google+: plus.google.com/sparkNlaunch/
RSS: sparkNlaunch.wordpress.com/feed/
StumbleUpon: stumbleupon.com/stumbler/sparknlaunch
Sprouter: http://sprouter.com/sparknlaunch
Digg: digg.com/sparknlaunch
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You might also enjoy:
+ Lessons Learned From A Hacker News Traffic Spike
+ Startup Weekend: What to expect? How to prepare?
+ Social Media Experiment – Twitter, Google+ and now Facebook
+ Project Trout – Social Media Experiment Update #3
Welcome new readers! If this is your first time here, you might want to start with a new article or read through our older submissions.
Where to next? Check out a random article.
Stay in touch: Check us out via RSS Feed, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
Join the conversation: Leave a comment or tweet this post.
April Fools Day – Some of Our Favourites
Happy April Fools Day! We hope you didn’t get caught out by any of today’s shenanigans. If you did, maybe set a diary reminder for next year?
There were some great entries this year as major brands got involved. Ikea, Google, The Economist, Microsoft Kinect, BMV, Mini, Virgin, Sainsbury, The Independent, Innocent Smoothie, Marmite, Walkers, The Daily Mail… plus many more had a go.
We enjoyed Ikea’s allen key recall and Google’s proposed Gmail Tap. Which ones did you enjoy? Please share!
For more check out the following two handy summaries:
April Fools Day Round-Up 2012 (The Poke)
April Fools’ Day roundup: the big toys, the small toys and the cats (Engadget)
If you like dates and numbers you can always check our these two earlier posts:
Leap Year – 3 interesting facts about 29 February
It’s a numbers game – 11/11/11 @ 11:11:11
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You might also enjoy:
+ Friday 13th – 3 interesting facts
+ It’s a numbers game – 11/11/11 @ 11:11:11
+ Happy New Years – Bring on 2012!
+ Social Media Experiment – Twitter, Google+ and now Facebook
Welcome new readers! If this is your first time here, you might want to start with a new article or read through our older submissions.
Where to next? Check out a random article.
Stay in touch: Check us out via RSS Feed, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
Join the conversation: Leave a comment or tweet this post.
Project Trout – Social Media Experiment Update #2
Project Trout continues measuring the effectiveness of various online promotion methods as mentioned in earlier posts (Social Media Experiment #1).
The results from the last few weeks are disappointing. Especially the ineffectiveness of Twitter in driving traffic.
Updated findings:
+ Online interactions don’t always equate to anything of value.
The experts advise you to interact with other blogs and online mediums. This may constitute following another blog or leaving a friendly comment. The few interactions that gather a response back typically result in limited or no value (eg link back to your blog).
+ Efforts for attention still result in zero effect.
Promoting yourself on social media sites means competing against millions of others, even in your chosen niche. Breaking out and getting noticed is tough. Getting noticed by the right audience is even tougher.
+ Activity on Twitter doesn’t necessary drive traffic to your blog.
In an effort to interact and thank our faithful Twitter followers we sent direct messages to new joiners (including a link to our blog). We even tweeted our thanks publicly (mentioning new joiners). In the first week drove 1% of followers to our blog. This conversion rate feels awfully low, especially for those who have made the effort to ‘click’ follow.
+ Traffic doesn’t necessary equal value.
The ‘Leap Year – 3 interesting facts about 29 February‘ post gained significant interest from StumbleUpon. The problem with StumbleUpon is that users ‘stumble’ through website and therefore do not stay long on your site and do not visit other parts. This makes their visit meaningless in terms of value. (Example).
We have summarised the activities below. We hope our planned activities and patience will pay off.
Week 7:
Current focus is Twitter and WordPress blog. Google Plus has been neglected for now as difficult to gain a large following as a ‘page’ rather than a ‘user’.
Twitter: 42 Tweets, 300 Following, 92 Followers
Blog: 20 posts now available. Traffic still remains low.
Week 8:
Twitter: 56 Tweets, 300 Following, 100 Followers
StumbleUpon: Registered account and added recent posts to profile. Automatic pingback generated false spike in traffic.
Blog: 22 posts now available. Traffic still remains low.
Week 9:
Twitter: 70 Tweets, 450 Following, 125 Followers
StumbleUpon: Big spike in traffic over two days from SU however traffic falls back down to normal levels.
Technorati: Registered account. Awaiting application to be approved.
Blog: 25 posts now available. About page updated. Traffic still remains low.
Week 10:
Twitter: 82 Tweets, 440 Following, 162 Followers
Planned Activities:
Continue with Twitter activity and better blog content.
Current Links:
Wordpress: sparkNlaunch.wordpress.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/sparkNlaunch
Google+: plus.google.com/sparkNlaunch/
RSS: sparkNlaunch.wordpress.com/feed/
StumbleUpon: stumbleupon.com/stumbler/sparknlaunch
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You might also enjoy:
+ Social Media Experiment – Twitter, Google+ and now Facebook
+ Project Trout – Social Media Experiment Update #3
+ Lessons Learned From A Hacker News Traffic Spike
+ Startup Weekend: What to expect? How to prepare?
Welcome new readers! If this is your first time here, you might want to start with a new article or read through our older submissions.
Where to next? Check out a random article.
Stay in touch: Check us out via RSS Feed, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
Join the conversation: Leave a comment or tweet this post.
Twitter – Tweeting to your #audience
Facebook, WordPress, Wikipedia, Pinterest (etc etc) are taking up more and more of our time. Twitter has become part of my daily digest of news and information. Twitter is useful in keeping track of popular trends and your favourite celebrities. However you can quickly be overwhelmed by the massive volume of tweets, even if you are only following a handful of Tweeters.
Regardless, Twitter among many are vital tools in getting people interested in your product/service/launch. When picking a business name, you now need to consider if the Twitter and Google handles are available in addition to reserving your domain name.
There are endless articles on the marketing power of Twitter but be wary of how you use this tool. A slip of the keyboard after a few drinks may cause embarrassment to your brand.
The basics:
+ Think before you tweet – Ensure message is appropriate and adds value.
+ Watch your grammar – Use your spell checker.
Make your message count by considering:
+ Using appropriate hashtags – Adding a ‘#category’ to your tweet can attract more readers but importantly those interested in your topic/category.
+ Leaving room for re-tweeting – Allow space for others to re-send your message. They can add a ‘RT’ to the start of your message to spread the word.
+ Including a web link and making sure this link works – Web links draw in your followers and allow you to day more than 140 characters.
+ Quote others – Some say that adding a ‘@person’ to your tweet can gain more attention. It also humanize your messages.
Growing your audience:
+ Interact – Target other Twitter users by directing messages to others (including ‘@person’ in your message).
+ Follow – Follow others. Try and target those with similar interests to your own. Beware of spammers.
+ Include Links – Add your Twitter handle to your website and email signature.
+ Ask – Ask others to follow you.
We are not experts here but try varying combinations of the above and see what happens. Do some combinations work better than others? Let us know.
In the interim, check out our tweets here:
http://twitter.com/SparkNLaunch
+ April Fools Day – Some of Our Favourites
+ Friday 13th – 3 interesting facts
+ It’s a numbers game – 11/11/11 @ 11:11:11
+ Happy New Years – Bring on 2012!
.
You might also enjoy:
+ Startup Myths – I shall not be fooled again by gurus
+ The Bootstrap Challenge – Walking the Talk
+ Social Media Experiment – Twitter, Google+ and now Facebook
+ Project Trout – Social Media Experiment Update #3
Welcome new readers! If this is your first time here, you might want to start with a new article or read through our older submissions.
Where to next? Check out a random article.
Stay in touch: Check us out via RSS Feed, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
Join the conversation: Leave a comment or tweet this post.
Project Trout – Social Media Experiment Update
Late last year we kicked off Project Trout (Social Media Experiment #1), aimed to share our own experiences with using social media to gain traffic and interest.
Our findings so far are not so surprising:
+ It is hard to get noticed, even in your own niche/field.
+ It takes time for responses.
+ Some efforts have resulted in zero attention.
+ Interest in a tweet doesn’t necessary result in a visitor to your blog.
We have summarized the activities below.
Week 1:
Go live – Blog goes from private to public. 8 initial postings available.
Enabled Google Webmaster Tools.
Enabled Social Media buttons on each post.
Improved header information and text.
Week 2:
Twitter and Google Plus accounts activated. An additional 4 postings made available.
RSS feeds added to Feedage.com.
Twitter: 6 Tweets, 2 Following, 11 Followers
Blog: Some traffic and comments to blog.
Week 3:
Monitored Twitter activity via Twitter Counter.
Added links to FeedShark, a free tool to promote your website.
Week 4:
Experimented with Pluggio and HootSuite to schedule and manage Twitter account.
Week 5:
Twitter: Increased the amount of Twitter users we were following from c. 15 to 350. Had a dramatic impact on followers (peaking around 110). Then a sudden fall over the following days down to nearly 80 followers. Many followers were spam accounts later deleted by Twitter.
Week 6:
No new activity.
Week 7:
Current focus is Twitter and WordPress blog. Google Plus has been neglected for now as difficult to gain a large following as a ‘page’ rather than a ‘user’.
Twitter: 42 Tweets, 300 Following, 92 Followers
Blog: 20 posts now available. Traffic still remains low.
Planned Activities:
More interaction within WordPress community.
Continue Twitter tweets.
Create more high quality content.
Current Links:
Wordpress: sparkNlaunch.wordpress.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/sparkNlaunch
Google+: plus.google.com/sparkNlaunch/
RSS: sparkNlaunch.wordpress.com/feed/
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You might also enjoy:
+ Learning From Other Startups – 6 Real Life Stories
+ Startup Myths – I shall not be fooled again by gurus
+ Social Media Experiment – Twitter, Google+ and now Facebook
+ Project Trout – Social Media Experiment Update #3
Welcome new readers! If this is your first time here, you might want to start with a new article or read through our older submissions.
Where to next? Check out a random article.
Stay in touch: Check us out via RSS Feed, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
Join the conversation: Leave a comment or tweet this post.
Project Trout – Social Media Experiment #1
Over the next few months we will be experimenting with methods of bringing more readers to this blog.
We have already made efforts to make it easier for interested readers to find this blog by adding meaningful and relevant tags and titles to each post.
However the biggest challenge will be measuring the effectiveness of individual social media tools (eg Twitter, Google+ and Facebook). Also, old school methods like Really Simple Syndication (RSS).
Fortunately plenty of free statistics tools are available so we hope that this bit will not be so difficult. The majority tell you how a visitor came to your website, what they read and what links they clicked on.
For example:
WordPress provides it’s own statistics dashboard.
Google Webmaster Tools offers the same.
Twitter Counter shows you metrics based on tweets, followers, followings. It forecasts these metrics based on previous performance.
Feedage lets you add your WordPress RSS feed to their directory and track previews and views.
As we go along we will update this post to include our new links. Currently we offer links to the site via:
WordPress: sparkNlaunch.wordpress.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/sparkNlaunch
Google+: plus.google.com/sparkNlaunch/
RSS: sparkNlaunch.wordpress.com/feed/
Last Update: 05/02/2012
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You might also enjoy:
+ Project Trout – Social Media Experiment Update #2
+ Project Trout – Social Media Experiment Update #3
+ The Startup Dictionary – Learning the Lingo #3
+ Startup Myths – I shall not be fooled again by gurus
Welcome new readers! If this is your first time here, you might want to start with a new article or read through our older submissions.
Where to next? Check out a random article.
Stay in touch: Check us out via RSS Feed, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
Join the conversation: Leave a comment or tweet this post.
Web Stats – Who is top of the league table?
We spent some time trawling the web trying to work out what the most popular websites were by traffic and why?
It didn’t take long to find Alexa and the endless tables of web rankings.
“Alexa is the leading provider of free, global web metrics. Search Alexa to discover the most successful sites on the web by keyword, category, or country.”
We have published a small table of the top 30 (plus 1 to include Apple) websites in the world at this point in time (see below). There are no real surprises.
Search (google, yahoo), e-mail portals (google, microsoft, yahoo), blogging sites (blogspot, wordpress) and social networking (facebook, linkedin, twitter) feature highly. No surprises to see plenty of Chinese, Japanese and Indian appearing there as well.
One surprising aspect is that adult entertainment sites only start appearing around position 50 (no pun intended). Maybe the social networking sites have taken over?
The research is more interesting when you start looking into categories. It is a quick and handy way to see what your future competitors are up to.
The answer to the why these sites pull in so much traffic seems simple. The harder bit to answer is how you can get your website up the league tables?
We will write about POF another time, but yields an interesting story of web traffic and turning this into revenue.
| Rank | Name | URL |
| 1 | google.com | |
| 2 | facebook.com | |
| 3 | YouTube | youtube.com |
| 4 | Yahoo! | yahoo.com |
| 5 | Baidu.com | baidu.com |
| 6 | Wikipedia | wikipedia.org |
| 7 | Windows Live | live.com |
| 8 | Blogspot.com | blogspot.com |
| 9 | twitter.com | |
| 10 | Amazon.com | amazon.com |
| 11 | QQ.COM | qq.com |
| 12 | Taobao.com | taobao.com |
| 13 | Google India | google.co.in |
| 14 | linkedin.com | |
| 15 | MSN | msn.com |
| 16 | Yahoo! Japan | yahoo.co.jp |
| 17 | 新浪新闻中心 | sina.com.cn |
| 18 | WordPress.com | wordpress.com |
| 19 | google.de | |
| 20 | eBay | ebay.com |
| 21 | Google谷歌 | google.com.hk |
| 22 | Яндекс | yandex.ru |
| 23 | Google 日本 | google.co.jp |
| 24 | Google UK | google.co.uk |
| 25 | Google France | google.fr |
| 26 | Bing | bing.com |
| 27 | 新浪微博-随时随地分享身边的新鲜事儿 | weibo.com |
| 28 | t.co | t.co |
| 29 | Microsoft Corporation | microsoft.com |
| 30 | 网易 | 163.com |
| 31 | Apple Inc. | apple.com |
Let’s see if this list changes much in the next few months.
.
You might also enjoy:
+ The Startup Dictionary – Learning the Lingo #3
+ Learning From Other Startups – 6 Real Life Stories
+ Startup Myths – I shall not be fooled again by gurus
+ The Bootstrap Challenge – Walking the Talk
Welcome new readers! If this is your first time here, you might want to start with a new article or read through our older submissions.
Where to next? Check out a random article.
Stay in touch: Check us out via RSS Feed, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
Join the conversation: Leave a comment or tweet this post.
