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How to Bribe People to Start Companies

Guest post by: Timothy Ferriss

Article Overview: Once upon a time, two entrepreneurs had an idea: what if we used traditional bookbinding to make iPad cases? It was a fun idea.

How to Bribe People to Start Companies

Once upon a time, two entrepreneurs had an idea: what if we used traditional bookbinding to make iPad cases? It was a fun idea.

Then it suddenly became very, very profitable. The two entrepreneurs, Patrick Buckley and Craig Dalton, named the idea DODOCase and soon had sold more than 10,000 iPad cases at $60 a pop.

Soon thereafter, they were featured in The New York Times and had a multi-million dollar business on their hands, to the tune to $4-5 million a year.

That could be you.

See, DODOcase was far from alone. They were part of a simple experiment, a business-building competition I launched jointly with an incredible start-up called Shopify.

The results were amazing:

Revenue PER HOUR for the duration of the contest: $696.38

Total number of orders placed: 66,503

Most important - Total businesses created: nearly 1,400

1,400 &^%$ing businesses, created by people just like you.

People who'd become comfortable in a routine. People who'd dreamt of starting their own company... someday. People who just needed a quick slap to get off the tranquilizers of their 9-to-5. But did I say "people just like you"? Scratch that - 1,400 businesses, many of them created by people far less capable than you.

The Shopify Build-a-Business competition is back, bigger and better than ever. There are more than $500,000 in prizes, including:

$100,000 Grand Prize

VIP trip for two to New York City, where Seth Godin will cook you dinner

One-hour power session with Gary Vaynerchuk

VIP trip to San Francisco, where you'll visit the Googleplex and have dinner (and wine, of course) with yours truly at one of my favorite restaurants in the world...

This time, it's also international!

The contest is open to residents of the U.S.A. (excluding residents of Arizona, Maryland, Vermont, and Puerto Rico), The U.K. (excluding N. Ireland), Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Regardless of location, EVERYONE can participate to take advantage of the educational portion. You don't need any experience starting or running an online store. Forget the "prizes." Those are just window dressing. The real prize is creating a profitable business that could be the next DODOcase, the next 4-Hour Workweek, or far beyond both.

GigaOM noted today:

"The competition isn't simply about the money. Shopify is teaming with marketing guru Seth Godin, wine video blogger and author Gary Vaynerchuk and angel investor Tim Ferriss, along with sponsors Google, MailChimp and PayPal to offer advice and counseling to start-ups. That along with AdWords credits help bring the total payout to $500,000."

To reiterate the dilemma and solution, as I wrote last time:

"This competition is intended as a benevolent and encouraging kick in the ass. This stuff isn't rocket science, but it does require stepping outside your comfort zone for a bit to realize: this isn't that hard. It's just unfamiliar. If you do it now, a lot of people will be in the same boat and you'll take the trip together."

Ready to join the ranks, shed a little blood with your brethren (mere papercuts, guys), and fundamentally change your life forever? If not now, when?

Go here. Get excited. Pull the trigger.

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Article Tags: bookbinding



Related Forum Posts
Re: Most and Least Profitable Businesses to Start - I can say something about the "Least Profitable Businesses to Start" when someone thinks about creating a product before knowing what the market really wants. This happens more often than people realize. People often get trapped into coming up with something it might work but if the market doesn't want that kind of stuff, no matter how innovative the idea may be, it'll turn bad. Like I might be able to come up a way to "... store all of my spam emails into one junk box and keep it stored on the web forever!" -- hey, who wants that kind of stuff.
Profiling Famous Women Entrepreneurs - Great suggestion Leanne! The PROFIT Companies are always great sources!
Re: The Best Method for Online Marketing - Using multiple marketing methods is best. Remember though, Marketing is a process and all processes should be tracable. It's good to have each online tool you use point to eachother and your main website. For example. Start a blog on blogger.com. Blogs usually act as an organic SEO and you'll find your blog at the top of google search results provided you use the right key words within your blog title and content. The blog should not be a selling tool. It should be informative to draw attention and have people coming back to learn more, but you should always have your blog point towards your selling tools, especially your website. People love to share good reads, get new contacts by ensuring that your written material is approved to be shared by you, ask people to email you if they want to share what you wrote and to give credit to (Name + website). Now for every contact that asks to share your material, you will be able to track the results and if they turn into customers, you can calculate and ROI for your time. facebook/twitter. Start a promotion campaign, Tell people that if they invite 5 people to your facebook page, they can recieve a special offer for them and the 5 people that they referred. Ask them to message you on facebook for a special promo code. Make any code you want, but this gives you the chance to track the results of this campaign. Post on free classifieds sites. Every paid website has an equally effective free site.
Creating Your Advisory Board - Part 1 Steps 1 & 2 - Thanks Kevin, I will go through each step in detail, starting with this post. 1) determine the objective of your advisory board. Why do you want an advisory board? to generate better ideas, open up new markets, launch new products? brainstorming, problem solving, fiduciary duties etc? Whatever you need from your board, be very clear in presenting what you want to accomplish by building this team. A good advisory board can be general in scope or targeted on specific markets. know how often you want to run meetings and set agendas appropriately. 2) Choosing the Right People once you are clear in what you want to accomplish it will be substantially easier to find the right people. Consider this a full time recruiting process to begin with. Start with your dream list of advisors. Perhaps you want to launch a new junk removal service, wouldnt it be great to have the CEO of 1-800 Got junk? start there. determine the areas of expertise that you need to recruit. Big names can be a bonus but not always. Find people who are going to be able to give you the time you need. People who will be honest, open and free with their ideas, resources and connections. You will want problem solvers with diverse skills, expertise and experience. If you need help approaching people, email me and I will give you some direct assistance. Until next issue, items 3 & 4 Jude
Re: Getting *back* to the next step - I think small things can make a big difference. Cut corners when ever possible. To the point that you don't lose any business. For example: start using cheaper products around the office. You'd be surprised how much money you can save just by going to a less expensive brand for the same items. Start soliciting referrals. People are happy to give you a good one if you've done a good job. You just have to ASK. Word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising and it's the least expensive = free! Turn off lights and computers and even pull plugs on appliances on the weekends, or even every night if you have time and aren't using them. This saves a lot of energy in the long run and you should be conserving energy anyway. Dare I say this......shake the printer ink and make it go another 50 copies. Over a year you can save quite a bit in ink costs. There are other cuts you can make that won't impact the quality of your service/product if you sit down and really think it over, but this is a start.


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