by Dr. Jean on February 11, 2011
I love free stuff, and there is plenty of it on the Internet. Some of the stuff I’m talking about is free, some is cheap. Any of it can save you money on starting your business.
A recent article in Entrepreneur listed some of this stuff that is available to small business owners and others. Here are two examples of free stuff that’s available for your use when starting a business.
My favorite is Open Office. It’s open source, meaning that many people have collaborated to put it together, and it is freely shared. Anyone can download the application and it runs on Windows-based computers. There is a version of OpenOffice for Macs called “NeoOffice.” I’ve been running OpenOffice on my personal laptop because I refused to buy the Microsoft product; the applications are the same (word processing, spreadsheet, presentations) just with different names. It can do everything, including save files in Microsoft format. Pretty cool.
Notice that OpenOffice is “.org,” meaning it is a non-profit. They ask for donations, but it’s not required to give them a donation to download the product.
Mint.com is an online financial program that allows you to input information from your bank accounts and create financial reports for your business. I used it for a while, but I’m still a little uncomfortable with having someone store my bank account information online. I had some trouble with it (this was a couple of years ago) because my bank account has a two-step sign in process (username on one page, then password on the next page) and mint. couldn’t log me in. Now, it appears they have solved this problem.
If you have several accounts, including brokerage accounts, you can view them all in one place and they are updated each time you log in. Mint.com was purchased by Intuit a few years ago (they are the Quicken/QuickBooks people). There should be some benefits to having these two programs integrated.
What other free stuff have you found to help you in starting your business?
by Dr. Jean on October 11, 2010
Startup Professionals Musings urges you to have a plan for social media for your startup, but, even more important, ask yourself “Do my customers use this stuff?” 
If they are using it for social purposes - like I use Facebook - will they connect with you for business? Maybe, maybe not. I was in the grocery store the other day and I saw that they were advertising “Look for us on Facebook.” Really?!? The store’s Facebook page was a list of ads and specials. Now, I suppose some readers might want to know about the specials at the store, but how much time do they have to go look at them? And, a bigger question would be this: “Are the people who use Facebook a lot the same people who care about ads and specials?”
Sure, I know Facebook is the #2 website in the world, with only Google.com ranking higher. But, is that because everyone is using it, or are a few people using it a lot?
If you use Facebook or Twitter, and are hooked by it, does that mean your customers will use it? It’s important to know who your customers are and if your customers fit the demographic (people profile) of users of your advertising/promotion medium.
Paul Kiser has an excellent demographic of Facebook users. Kiser’s charts show that “46% of the Facebook users in the 35 to 54-year-old range.” And Practical Ecommerce says that more women than men use Facebook. Of course, more women buy just about everything than men do.
Find Your Customers/Be There Too
In Facebook and other social media, as with other avenues of marketing, it’s a simple process:
1. Find out where your customers are, by reading, doing research, getting help from an ad agency, and
2. Go there to be with them.
To help you get started, look at Susan Gunelius’ lists of
Top 10 Social Networking Sites and
Top 10 Social Bookmarking Sites
And by the way, I use my basic Facebook page for social purposes - keeping up with family and friends. I use Twitter to find business news and connect with other business people. I also have a Facebook U.S. Business Law & Taxes page where I put updates on how to start a business.
