Category: web 2.0

Top 100 business blogs

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

It’s nice to be recognised for a consistent effort occassionally. As can be seen below Startup blog makes the top 100 business blogs – number 82.

Honestly, I’d still do it if no one was reading – because it’s worth doing.

  1. Business Opportunities Weblog T: 12 A: 16,213
  2. Copy Blogger T: 36 A: 7,825
  3. Seth Godin T: 47 A: 10,314
  4. MicroPersuasion T: 169 A: 33,643
  5. How To Change The World T: 180 A: 14,709
  6. Duct Tape Marketing T: 215 A: 31,714
  7. Freelance Switch T: 312 A: 10,638
  8. A VC T: 1,226 A: 27,737
  9. Rough Type T: 1,253 A: 69,429
  10. Successful Blog T: 1,432 A: 44,935
  11. Small Business Canada T: 1,517 A: N/A
  12. David Allen, Getting Things Done T: 1,549 A: 53,592
  13. Springwise T: 1,913 A: 23,858
  14. Small Biz Trends T: 2,155 A: 63,364
  15. Fast Company T: 2,310 A: 12,141
  16. Instigator Blog T: 2,477 A: 58,816
  17. Occam’s Razor T: 2,548 A: 45,541
  18. Smart Wealthy Rich T: 2,879 A: 79,415
  19. eMoms At Home T: 3,443 A: 27,125
  20. Escape from Cubicle Nation T: 3,467 A: 202,751
  21. The Marketing Technology Blog T: 3,496 A: 47,038
  22. Business Pundit T: 3,724 A: 114,669
  23. The Engaging Brand T: 4,404 A: 433,644
  24. Influential Marketing Blog T: 4,779 A: 98,886
  25. Drew McLellan – The Marketing Minute T: 4,820 A: 129,669
  26. The Digerati Life T: 4,873 A: 53,353
  27. Success From The Nest T: 4,908 A: 95,008
  28. Business Blog Consulting T: 5,186 A:237,901
  29. Church Of The Customer T: 5,576 A: 250,201
  30. Todd And T: 5,643 A: 161, 019
  31. Net Business Blog T: 5,936 A: 36,107
  32. Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing T: 6,583 A: 92,784
  33. Bootstrapper T: 7,497 A: 50,304
  34. About.com Entrepreneurs T: 7,797 A: N/A
  35. Blogtrepreneur T: 7,897 A: 53,011
  36. Branding & Marketing T: 8,200 A: 710,326
  37. Simplenomics T: 10,252 A:288,753
  38. Freelance Folder T: 10,543 A: 63,590
  39. HELLO, My Name Is Blog T: 11,395 A: 422,218
  40. Self Made Minds T: 11,704 A: 39,719
  41. Sox First T: 12,894 A: 994,161
  42. Young Go Getter T: 14,239 A: 45,373
  43. Trust Matters T: 15,462 A: 58,403
  44. Small Biz Survival T: A: 18,074 A: 875,069
  45. The Personal MBA T: 19,207 A: 142,649
  46. The Entrepreneurial Mind T: 21,958, A: 155,166
  47. Blog Business World T: 23,025 A: 252,405
  48. Working At Home On The Internet T: 23,247 A: 423,900
  49. Biz Informer T: 24,631 A: 904,745
  50. EmpowerWomenNow T: 25,837 A: 117,085
  51. Biz Plan Hacks T: 27,048 A: 1,335,732
  52. CreateBusinessGrowth T: 32,949 A:197,290
  53. Business Opportunities and Ideas T: 33,205 A: 282,805
  54. The KISS Business T: 35,496 A: 621,082
  55. Startup Spark T: 35,747 A: 386,949
  56. Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Blog T: 41,092 A: 467,418
  57. MindPetals T: 41,714 A: 128,487
  58. Marketing Deviant T: 43,764 A: 281,072
  59. Go Big Network T: 44,842 A: 25,303
  60. Cool Business Ideas T: 49,679 A: 187,126
  61. Neville’s Financial Blog T: 52,048 A: 140,296
  62. Atlantic Canada’s Small Business Blog :T 52,589 A: 795,253
  63. College Startup T: 53,143 A: 184,398
  64. Reflections Of A Biz Driven Life T: 79,365 A: 361,398
  65. Branding Blog T: 93,462 A: 1,110,518
  66. Carnival Of The Capitalists T: 93,462 A: 1,897,375
  67. Young Entrepreneur T: 104,933 A: 26,491
  68. Marketing Genius T: 132,066 A: 2,222,119
  69. Better For Business T: 137,774 A: 590,797
  70. The Small Business Blog T: 140,824 A: 577,490
  71. Focused Mind T: 162,356 A: 520,971
  72. Small Business Tips T: 166,367 A: 74,005
  73. Lifes Perspective T: 194,358 A: 179,801
  74. Business Opportunities Blog T: 199,700 A: 832,678
  75. The Savvy Entrepreneur T: 224,227 A: 391,147
  76. Egg Marketing Blog T: 231,062 A: 740,867
  77. The Franchise King Blog T: 273,240 A: 520,732
  78. Small Business Entrepreneur T: 317,977 A: 883,094
  79. The Great Startup Game T: 331,293 A: 421,492
  80. Work At Home Start Up Guide T: 345,597 A: 1,190,178
  81. Dorm Room Biz T: 360,865 A: 957,072
  82. Startup Blog T: 377,609 A: 2,552,189
  83. Open Innovators T: 395,824 A: 1,230,257
  84. Get Entrepreneurial T: 437,475 A: 446,085
  85. Bplans Blog T: 437,475 A: 1,373,525
  86. Stuff4Restaurants T: 461,534 A: 298,982
  87. Canadian Entrepreneur T: 484,461 A: 237,901
  88. Strategize T: 487,964 A: 2,856,731
  89. The Marketing Spot T: 587,893 A: 2,550,840
  90. The Ravings Of A Mad Entrepreneurial Scientist T: 587,893 A: 566,836
  91. More Than We Know T: 871,446 A: 2,964,420
  92. Solo Entrepreneur T: 1,212,405 A: 471,491
  93. Stuff4Business T: 1,391,575 A: 298,982
  94. Consultant Journal T: 4,262,598 A: 667,342
  95. Startup Addict Musings T: 4,446,976 A: 1,03390,690
  96. Edith Yeung T: 8,911,336 A: 125,290
  97. Boostrap Me T: 8,911,336 A: 550,348
  98. The Selling Sherpa T: Not Listed A: 772,292
  99. BizzBangBuzz T: Not Listed A: 1,484,797
  100. The Freestyle Entrepreneur T: Not Listed A: 1,519,518

How to blog about your business

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

We all know it’s good practice to blog about our business or start up. We want to be authentic, transparent and build a relationship. But often we struggle with what to write about. 

What we’ve done at www.rentoid.com is try to make sure it’s a dialogue and not a monologue.

 

You can check out the rentoid blog here.

 

So here’s a super list of ideas on how to blog about your business:

Don’t just blog about your business

Blog about other things your people may be interested in

Comment on other blogs similar to yours

Ask for feedback

Act on feedback

Answer comments on your blog

Put pictures on your blog

Tell your people about cool stuff your business is doing

Tell your people about mistakes you’ve made

Tell your people about delays in product releases

Ask your people what they want to hear about

Find other blogs / business geographically close to you and connect

Blog about your company values & beliefs

Blog about other cool businesses with similar ‘values’

Put a blogroll on your sidebar of similar businesses

(sounds counter intuitive, but keeps you honest and frames where you belong)

Put what your blog is about in the sidebar

Give your people a reason to come back

If it’s relevant link to another story or blog

Blog about your launch

Give a sneak preview

Blog about something funny that happened in the office

Blog about your people

Blog about your media coverage

Blog about why you’re better than the competition

Blog about why you’re worse, and what you’re doing about it

Show pictures of product / design / your retail outlet

Post your advertising

Run a sampling campaign via your blog

Focus on the theology of your site & business

Add comments to this blog entry to add more ideas….

Business valuations & Facebook

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The recent deal where Microsoft took a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $US240 Million valued the company at $US15 Billion.

 

Here’s some numbers:

  • Facebook has a revenue of approx $100m per annum. 

  • Although profit is currently undisclosed, even a generous 50% profit on sales margin would result in a diminutive profit of $50 million.

  • This would result in a PE ratio of 300 times!

  • Which means, it will take Microsoft 300 years to pay back their investment.

Start up blog view: This could be the most ridiculous sale price anyone has ever paid for a company.

Has everyone forgotten about these start up web 1.0 heroes of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s:

kozmo.com

Global crossing

Worldcom

govWorks.com

eToys

Boo.com

Pets.com

theGlobe.com

Where Investment banks and reputable companies such as Microsoft paid exorbitant  prices for many now non-existent companies with zillions of page views, sessions and ‘potential’?

It’s different this time, right?

At some point in our journey we all have to value a business. So we must remember the following:

When selling: Potential, emotion and short memories can get you a great price

When buying: Forget ‘potential’ and focus on ‘current’ earnings and investment payback period.

Bonus conspiracy theory: Microsoft really bought the personal information of the 42 million active Facebook members.

The truth about social networking

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

 

The old fashion methods of social networking have always been and will always be, the best way for making connections.

 

Sure, I’ve got a facebook and linkedin page. But the reality is this:

 

Unless we have a persons phone number in our cell,

their email in our address book,

we would say ‘hello’ if we passed them on the street,

or we could comfortably have coffee and chat,

they are not a ‘real’ contact.

 

This is not to say that we should limit ourselves to who we already know, but to nurture our current ‘real’ relationships, which will lead to more ‘real’ relationships. Repeat.

Facebook et al are a great way to ‘re-find’ people, but can we imagine going to meet someone we’ve not been introduced to the old way and have a valuable business meeting with them? Can we imagine meeting with a random social network inviter and becoming close business or personal associates?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Old in the new New.

Number 1 tip for web entrepreneurs

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

 

GO OUTSIDE !

 crowded-city.jpg  

Sounds ironic or even slightly crazy. But here’s what we must consider.

We are not really in the ‘online’ business. We have a business which just so happens to have an ‘online’ presence.

Itunes is in the music business

Ebay is in the second hand (new) goods business

Google is in the advertising business

McDonalds is in the real estate business

Wikipedia is in the democracy business

Everything is not what it seems. The best opportunities are out in the world where our people are living their lives. The best ideas come from conversations we have, not spreadsheets we do. The best way to engage business associates and customers is to meet and interact with them…

…The best way to market to our world is by being in it, not isolated from it.

In the words of marketing polymaths Reis & Trout: “An office is a very dangerous place to watch the world from”

Keeping promises

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

We’ve recently challenged ourselves at rentoid as part of our clustering strategy. We promised our members in ‘Melbourne Australia’ that rentoid has ‘anything’ they could possibly want to rent. Especially given our moniker for Rentoid is “the place to rent anything”. The promise can be seen here.

 

Some may think this is crazy. The fact is we couldn’t possibly have everything available for rent. But that’s where the depth of idea is:

 

Here are the possible outcomes:

  • People search Melbourne and see the depth of items for rent.

  • They may find what they need, or not.

  • If they don’t, we have promised to find what they need.

(unless they ask for something like elephant tusks!)

 

We’ll find what they need by asking other members if they have it, or we’ll find it through other means. In short we’ll keep our promise. We’ll find them what they need. 

 

The idea ensures we stretch ourselves to serve our customers and it gives us an authentic way to create a positive customer experience. Which we hope they’ll talk about.

 

If you’re in Melbourne, test us!

Momentum

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Momentum is the key to the success for any start up. 

In classical mechanics, momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. P=mV

 momentum.jpg 

The start up blog definition is a bit simpler: 

Momentum  = How big you are X How quick you do things. 

Hence, the momentum of anything will increase if either of the above factors increase while the other factor remains constant. That is, you don’t need both factors to gather momentum.

 

A small thing moving fast can gather momentum. A big thing moving slowly can gather momentum. This is why big companies (although they react slowly) still have momentum, their mass helps them maintain their forward motion and ulitmate power.

 

The lesson for start ups is simple;

We want to gather momentum

We are small

We must focus on speed