Our Final Roundup of Small Business Week Announcements |  |
- Our Final Roundup of Small Business Week Announcements
- Why a 5 Percent Lending Increase Matters to Veterans
- Tom Byun of Yahoo! Small Business: Making That Next Sale
- Success Story of an Indian College Drop Out
- I like You Tompkins; Waddle With Me
| Our Final Roundup of Small Business Week Announcements Posted: 21 Jun 2013 07:15 PM PDT
The list of small business announcements coming out of National Small Business Week just keeps on coming. We’ve covered many products, tips, services and other small business news items thus far in our special collection of small business posts. If you missed them, please check the first and second editions of our Small Business Week announcements. Let’s kick off our final roundup of Small Business Week announcements with two contests of interest to the crowdfunding community: NASE crowdfunding with Fundable. The National Association for the Self-Employed and the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council have teamed up with crowdfunding platform Fundable. The idea is to hold a contest the organizers claim will teach startups and existing small businesses more effective fundraising skills. Participants will use the Fundable platform to create their fundraising pages. Winners will be announced after Labor Day and will receive the money they’ve raised. Crowdfunding community announces competition. Crowdfunding incubator ProHatch announces its first #GET_HATCHED crowdfunding competition. The incubator is now accepting project applications. Projects must be fully built and submitted for competition by July 29. A prize package includes $5,000 and mentoring. Learn more here. Health care and immigration reform not big issues. At least, that's according to RocketLawyer's Small Business Index. It says only 10% considered health care reform a top priority issue, and only 50% were aware of insurance exchanges. Just 3% call immigration reform a top priority for the country. Such issues, however, tend to impact businesses differently, depending on their size. The survey covered small business users of RocketLawyer's services, which may skew toward fairly small businesses. Small businesses are seeing the value in Facebook. The social media giant took the opportunity during National Small Business Week to share some stats about small business use of its advertising. In a small business roundtable called "Bringing Main Street to Madison Avenue," Facebook announced one million advertisers on its platform. Facebook says these numbers largely reflect small businesses using the platform to grow. IT managers say network disruptions can take you out. Or your business, that is. In fact, 97 percent of IT managers say network disruptions had a detrimental effect on business last year. An eWeek Infographic looks at how virtualized systems have changed how business is done. Document Sign Off Service Launched. ApproveForMe is a Web-based tool. Businesses use it to create, track and manage document sign-offs from internal team members and external clients. The service was officially launched this week. Small Business Person of the Year. The Small Business Administration announced the Small Business Person of the Year in the United States for 2013. It's John L. Stonecipher, CEO of Guidance Aviation, a high altitude flight school in Prescott, Arizona, established in 1998. Runners up include: Noah Leask, CEO of Ishpi Information Technologies, Inc. of Mount Pleasant, S.C., and Kari Block, Founder/CEO, Earth Kind, Inc. of Bismarck, N.D. Congratulations! Mobile: How does Your Business Compare? According to a survey of global small businesses by Podio, a Citrix Systems company, 68% of employees in small businesses use their own personal devices for work — whether or not the company has a formal policy on it. And 76% of small business employees say they spend up to 10 hours a week in meetings. Let's hope they're productive! Cash or check, please. According to a Small Business Week infographic by WePay, 72% of small businesses prefer to accept payment by cash or check. Now that’s interesting — cash is easy to understand, but NSF checks can be a costly pain to deal with. Even more to the point, the majority of customers prefer to shop at places where multiple forms of payment, including credit cards, are accepted. Image credit: Citrix infographic The post Our Final Roundup of Small Business Week Announcements appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Why a 5 Percent Lending Increase Matters to Veterans Posted: 21 Jun 2013 02:30 PM PDT
By now, you may have heard about the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) vow to increase lending to veteran owned businesses by 5% a year for the next five years. Twenty big banks and 100 community banks across the country have signed on to become SBA Lending Partners through the SBA Veteran Pledge Initiative. Collectively, they are aiming to lend $475 million in expansion and startup loans to 2,000 veteran business owners over the next five years. A 5 % Lending Increase to Veterans MattersSome of you might be wondering why such an initiative is necessary. Veterans already have access to dedicated resources through The Veterans Administration (VA) and Veteran Business Outreach Centers. Is it really necessary to commit additional resources to the veteran business community? The answer is yes. Here's why a 5% lending increase to veterans matters:
The Numbers Tell a Compelling Story On the one hand, veterans have already proven themselves to be savvy entrepreneurs and small business owners. Their businesses contribute heavily to growth of the economy and to employment. The SBA hopes to support the continued growth and success of these businesses through expansion loans. On the other hand, many veterans retire from active duty with four plus years of military experience that is not necessarily transferable to the traditional workforce. Many of them have skills that are valuable to the U.S. economy but little means to utilize them. Startup loans through the SBA Initiative could help these veterans put their skills to work. Veteran Businessman Photo via Shutterstock The post Why a 5 Percent Lending Increase Matters to Veterans appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Tom Byun of Yahoo! Small Business: Making That Next Sale Posted: 21 Jun 2013 12:05 PM PDT
We're back with another 1-on-1 interview. This week's guest is Tom Byun, Vice President of Yahoo! Small Business. He joined me in a live Hangout, and yes, we have video! According to Tom, Yahoo! Small Business serves over 1 million small business customers, primarily from the U.S. Yahoo! helps them with their online presence, Web hosting, and eCommerce solutions. Yahoo! also assists small businesses in driving more sales, he told us. Yahoo! serves small businesses of all sizes – from solo entrepreneurs to ones with many employees — from local businesses to online businesses. Many of them fall in the 10-employee-or-under size range, however. Below are a few highlights of that discussion, paraphrased in places. Question 1: What have been some of the biggest changes you’ve seen [since last year] when it comes to small businesses? We have a large group of merchants that [we serve] and year over year, we're seeing double digit growth, but it is slowing down. Another trend we're observing is … we all know with the Internet that there’s been a fair amount of fragmentation in terms of services that small businesses use to get customers. Back in the old days, you just put up your listing on the Yellow Pages or the White Pages and that’s how people called you. But now with the proliferation of Internet services, you have everything from search and SEO and now with social and mobile, the acceleration of mobile, there just continues to be more and more outlets for small businesses to access customers. Question 2: When you talk to small businesses … what are they asking you to help them with? What's top of mind is … they want to know [what it takes] to get that next sale. It's all about getting that next customer. They want to be able to cut through the clutter and just find one or two tools that can help them. And often the advice I start with is, focus on the fundamentals. You’ve got a business to run… . And you only have so much time in the day. So just focus on some very basic things… to attract that next business that you need. Question 3: Are a lot of them focused on how they can leverage social media? Social media is clearly important and it’s clearly playing a more critical role. Putting links on social media … is becoming a vehicle for driving traffic to their business. That's how a lot of small businesses are being found…. But when you think about social, think about which customers you are going after. I was meeting with a merchant … they're in the … wholesale lighting business. Facebook is not necessarily a place where they're going to try to do online sales. … So really understand your audience. … Start out with which audience you're going after, and which medium you're going to use. Small businesses are still struggling … with marketing … [having only so many dollars to spend]. Focus on the fundamentals. Things like directories. You'd be amazed if you … look at stats … a lot of consumers are still finding [businesses] through directories. A lot of these directories are being accessed not only through desktop, but … through mobile access points. Resources mentioned in this video: Yahoo! Small Business, Yahoo! Small Business Advisor (an information resource), and Yahoo! LocalWorks (a place to list your business accurately and manage how it appears on 40 directory sites across the Web). To listen to Tom in his own words, and to hear the full interview, we've embedded the video below. The post Tom Byun of Yahoo! Small Business: Making That Next Sale appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Success Story of an Indian College Drop Out Posted: 21 Jun 2013 07:30 AM PDT
In India, college drop outs are not looked upon favorably. You can try telling the stories of super heroes like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates all you want, parents will go, "Um hmm, Um hmm, now go study for your IIT exams." If you say you want to be an entrepreneur instead, you will get a whack, a spank, an outburst and any number of other unappetizing reactions. Senthil Nayagam, co-founder of RailsFactory, a premier Ruby on Rails application development company, is the epitome of the new 21st century Indian entrepreneur – a college drop out. In 1999, having started his first business, an Internet center, to mediocre success, Senthil taught himself an assortment of other skills such as troubleshooting, Linux and eventually Perl, php, python and mysql, to help supplement his income and support his family. Not disheartened by his first relatively failed business attempt, Senthil moved to Bangalore in 2004 to try his hand at a software career. It was then that he discovered the potential of Ruby and Ruby on Rails to explode onto the software scene. It was also here that Senthil met Dinesh Kumar, who shared Senthil's passion for business. Two years later and with the help of his newfound friend and co-founder, Dinesh, RailsFactory was born. Think of RailsFactory as your extended team, or in the spirit of NBA playoff season, your 6th man on the court, designated to accelerate your current development by hiring additional developers to meet your company's tight deadlines. RailsFactory focuses on consulting and delivering cutting edge Ruby flavored solutions to its global customers. In the last seven years they have gained over 150 employees, completed over 200 projects and over the past five years they have maintained an enviable 100% year-over-year growth. And RailsFactory can deliver these solutions without putting a hole in your pocket, too. While big tech companies in the Silicon Valley are "acqhiring" most large US Ruby consulting firms (i.e. Groupon acqhiring Obtiva), which keeps rates high for their services, RailsFactory remains a volume player with the freedom to work with both small startups and enterprise businesses. RailsFactory does this by utilizing two different billing options; fixed price and the elastic staffing model, both designed to provide the most bang for your buck. The fixed price option is geared toward start ups and small companies that need additional short term help developing a specific product, whereas elastic staffing gives businesses the opportunity to hire their own team of Ruby developers to work side by side with their staff for as long as they are needed. Whether a company needs iPhone or Android apps, complete eCommerce solutions, or even long term partnership for IT projects, RailsFactory can deliver quality, cost-efficient services with minimal turnaround time. Their expertise in Ruby on Rails and adoption of strictly agile development principles makes RailsFactory one of the premier end-to-end RoR (Ruby on Rails) solutions development companies. Although RoR was practically unknown in 2006, now all major companies in India, such as TCS, Infy and HCL, as well as companies around the world like Amazon, Cisco, NASA, BBC have dedicated teams to work on their RoR. With the RoR demand dramatically increasing and the availability of RoR resources much slimmer than the resources for, say, Java, or .net, RailsFactory has an unparalleled advantage in the market. In fact, the Ruby programming language is now being used in more ways than ever before. Whereas Ruby is gaining in popularity with companies such as global code sharing fulcrum, github, which is built on it, a language like Java is now only more useful as the JVM than the language itself. Plus, there is Jruby, a Ruby implementation in Java, which allows for the combination of Java's good parts with the greatness of Ruby. Software synthesis at its finest. So how did RailsFactory, originating in the humble region of Chennai, India, grow to become a global player in RoR solutions? With determination, creative problem solving and the desire for solidarity amongst fellow Chennai based software techies. Chennai is a close knit region that has received major visibility and funding over the last two years, but back in 2006, when RailsFactory began, there were no role models or mentors to turn to for guidance. So Senthil took it upon himself to create his own network within Chennai's software ecosystem so that he could ask crucial questions regarding RailsFactory's growth spurts. With the help of a few other Chennai tech enthusiasts, Senthil eventually formed Chennai Open Coffee Club, a networking group that holds monthly meetings in person and online. This group has inspired many other tech networking groups and events such as Chennai Geeks and Nerd Dinner. Transforming from a self proclaimed "lone wolf" to an inspiring leader in software services was no easy feat for Senthil, but with power comes great responsibility and he hasn't shied away from moving his company forward with authority. Senthil's keen eye for identifying and capitalizing on growing industry trends has helped RailsFactory stay afloat during this age of ever evolving technological capabilities, one trend of which is particularly important; polyglot programming. Polyglot programming allows for developers to combine the most advantageous aspects of any programming language so that they can use the best tool for the technology being produced. For example, end users on a mobile phone or browser don't give a hoot what technologies are used in the server; they just want a fast, responsive service, am I right? And although RailsFactory prefers Ruby, what is best for the customer comes first. RailsFactory uses other languages and components built on these other languages all the time, ensuring customer satisfaction regardless of programming language prejudices. Gee, if only every company had our best interests in mind instead of forcibly trying to sell a label to us lowly consumers. But the reality is this; with more companies turning to polyglot programming, as well as the addition of yearly UI paradigm changes causing many startups to desire mobile play along with their web app rewrites, and on top of THAT start ups are exploring new ways to monetize using big data, a software service and consulting specialist like Senthil must keep pace in order to continue enjoying success and growth. And this is where Senthil's inherent curiosity, passion for all things software and desire to transcend conventional industry limitations separates him from the pack. Senthil and Dinesh have made RailsFactory a prototype for what they call "Centers of Excellence." They have started developing new business units in the form of independent COE's for various technologies and they operate under the umbrella firm, Sedin Technologies, Pvt. Ltd. As of now, Sedin Technologies has RailsFactory, MobileTechFactory and PHPFactory, each dedicated exclusively to help clients manage the global convergence of software, mobile applications, Web applications, big data and cloud services. So what's next for RailsFactory? Naturally, they want to be the world's largest RoR development company in the world. With over 150 developers growing and counting, an office in Chennai and the Silicon Valley, RailsFactory is determined to set up operations in every global region that brings in more than ten percent revenue. That leaves Senthil contemplating a physical presence in Australia, the UK, as well as other additional locations in India for starters. Not too shabby for a guy who dropped out of college, flopped on his first start up venture and got fired from his job in Bangalore in 2004. Moral of the story: India needs to start thinking outside of the box and let its youth take more chances, fail more often and chart their own courses. Success Photo via Shutterstock The post Success Story of an Indian College Drop Out appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| I like You Tompkins; Waddle With Me Posted: 21 Jun 2013 05:00 AM PDT
This cartoon took a while. For some reason I had, “I like you, Tompkins, walk with me” in my head. I could not figure out quite how to do it though and I tried all sorts of variations:
Once I changed the executive into a penguin – everything just fell into place. The post I like You Tompkins; Waddle With Me appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Small Business Trends To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment