Posts Tagged ‘online shopping’

The Glass is Half Full, Because the Other Half is on My Pants

Optimism.  That’s the number one characteristic of most entrepreneurs.  Is it raining today?  No worries, because I look great in my raincoat.  No food at the party?  Not a problem, people just come for the beer.  The economy is on the verge of the second Great Depression?  Hmmm…I guess, no worries, because I look great in my raincoat. 

What made me think about the preponderance of sunshine in most entrepenuers’ outlooks?  Well, as usual, it began with a margarita (actually 2 and 1/2 margaritas).  My wife and I were having lunch at Rosa Mexicano.  And as the saying goes, “When in Rosa, order at least three pomegranate margaritas.”  It could have been the humidity, or the sheer weight of the glass, but as I gripped the drink and raised it to my mouth, it just fell into my lap.  I could have quit, but I started scooping the pooled liquid back into the glass (see above drink picture and realize most of that was sitting on my jeans prior to being salvaged).

So, how does this relate to small business and optimism?  I guess it’s a bit tenuous, but making the best of whatever the economy or marketplace throws you (or what you throw on yourself) appears to be a cornerstone for successful entrepreneurs. 

The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business did a thorough study on optimism as it relates to an investment stnadard for start-ups.  The outcome of the study is not shocking (but when you have a GSB study to back you up, you sound more impressive).  The overall gist was that entrepeneurs generally are overally optimistic in their assessment of their own businesses.  This has both good and bad implications for investors in these start-ups.  The Bad:  optimism makes it difficult for the founders to truly asses market acceptance and overal value of the business.  The Good:  Because of their optimism, most founders will work the required nights and weekends to make sure the business is successful.  Of course, the study hedges the overall take-away by claiming that “realistic” entrepeneurs will have a better ability to value the business.

So, is optimism a curse or a blessing?  And did I actually drink the salvaged margarita?

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Posts Tagged ‘online shopping’

Will Online Shopping Be on the Upswing in 2010?

Here’s an original question for you to ponder — Is the recession over?  I know, your head hurts because you’ve never thought about this.  But pick yourself off the floor, take an aspirin and think about the question.  We all have our favorite gauges of whether things are getting better.  Mine is the restaurant test.  Throughout the economic apocalypse, my wife and I continued to go out to dinner.  And since we are creatures of habit, we go to the same 4-5 places.  In March, you could get a table at any time and the service was great.  This Fall, we’ve noticed it is getting harder to just walk in on a Thursday night (especially when I forget to wear a shirt…dang Houston’s dress code can be picky).  So, by my very scientific calculation, we are heading out of the recession.  My Grandma Nanners also claims that times are getting better, because they are charging more that the Country Harvest Buffet.  Let me tell you, Nanners can eat about 5 servings of mashed potatos…what am I writing about?  Oh yes, the recession.

Well, according to a recent report from eMarketer, things are looking up for online shopping in 2010 and 2011.  In 2009, U.S. online shopping was $139B.  While that is a lot of activity, that number is actually down .4% from the 2008 number.  In 2010, eMarketer projects an improvement from 2009, with U.S. sales going up significantly in 2011.

We’d like to know what you’re seeing out there — are you planning for a better 2010?

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Posts Tagged ‘online shopping’

Tell Us About Your Favorite Business: It's got to be better than "Free Stuff"

Here’s a picture that I took when I recently went home.  My Dad owns a commercial building in Fargo-Moorhead.  On his parking lot was a trailer with a “hand-crafted” sign that stated free-stuff.  My first question was “Dad, why do you have a trailer with a free stuff sign?”  (seems like the obvious question).  The second question was, “where’s my phone so i can take a picture of this?”.

The answer I got for Question Number 1 surprised me — instead of going through the expense of having to dispose of certain items (paint, electronics etc), my Dad figured to put out a trailer and label junk “free stuff”.  Every week he fills it up and every week people come by and pick it up.  He saves money.  I hate to admit it, but my Dad is a pretty sharp business guy.  He’s a terrible sign maker, however.

All of this is prelude to the idea of having our readers and customers submit ideas that they have had in running their business (or simply highlight a business that you think is doing a good job).  We’d prefer it be an online business, because that most applies to our readership interest, but don’t limit only to online (as good ideas are good ideas).  Also, if you happen to see a sign worse than my Dad’s free stuff sign, please also share.  That may be a new feature by itself.

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Posts Tagged ‘online shopping’

Diary of a Tech Start-Up: Funding…Dance with the Devil or Not

One of the ongoing debates going on with our tech start-up is whether to seek outside investment or not.  The first point that is often made by one of us is that it is too early to be thinking about it.  Heck, we just launched the beta version of this site and are now getting our first customers…isn’t it a bit presumptive to think about asking for $$ from a stranger? 

This scenario reminds me of a scene in the greatest movie of all time — Waiting for Guffman.  Corky St. Clair is charged with directing a play about Blaine, Missourri’s history.  Corky approaches the City Council and states that the ONLY thing he needs to throw the play is “one hundred thousand dollars”.  When informed that the City’s annual budget is $100k and that includes swimming, Corky responds “there won’t be swimming in my play.”  How does this tie into our discussion for asking for outside investment?  Well, maybe it doesn’t but it’s a great movie.  No, my point is that we before we seek out investment, we need to clearly establish a need for our services and that we have a competent management team that will know what to do with the money if/when we do get it.  We can’t go in all Corky St. Clair, not having a clue as to what is a reasonable amount of investment and establish what we are going to do with the money will have a strong likelihood of showing a return on investment.  See Corky asking for money

Now comes a more pressing question.  Assuming the time is right (and we don’t ask for the entire City Council’s budget), do we seek out investment at all?  As Raj pointed out in an earlier post, there are now a lot of tools that exist that make starting and running a business very inexpensive.  To date, we’ve been self-funding KikScore and we’re pretty good at stretching a dollar.  While it would be great to have a swank office and have the ability to throw an awesome holiday party with a DJ, it may not be worth the equity and control we’d have to give up (it really depends on how good the DJ is).  We’re not alone in our thinking.  According to a recent posting on www.rockyradar.com — 84% of Inc’s Fastest Growing 500 companies never received venture capital (though many did likely get angel financing). 

Several of us on the KikScore team have been part of venture-backed companies previously.  Some of us had good experiences, some of us did not.  So, as we continue to grow our customer base and improve upon our core product, the debate within KikScore will rage — do we continue to self-fund or do we seek professional investment.  We’ll keep you updated (and we’d love to hear your thoughts about it).

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Posts Tagged ‘online shopping’

Lexis Survey Finds that Small Businesses Drink the Ratings Kool-Aid

A new survery from LexisNexis and Martindale Hubble provided a very interesting trend amoung small businesses and their use and perceptions of rating sites.  According to the survey, small businesses rely on rating and review sites — for service and product choices — at a rate that is double the average consumer.  This is in despite of the fact that these same small business owners indicate a couple of things: (1) that the normal review sites are easily biased by positive or negative reviews; and (2) the reviews can easily be faked by the businesses being reviewed.

Why do small businesses find review sites to be of such value when they can be manipulated?  Despite these short-comings, reviews allow for much needed guidance in aggregating data and sorting out, in relatively quick fashion, where to get your goods and services.  Another point that the survey reveals is what something we already know (so it’s really a stretch to say it’s “revealing” anything) — that not all ratings are created equally.  More trust is put into the rating if (a) its from a independent third party; and (b) is based, in part, on actual customer feedback (but again, for some of these review sites, it can be hard to know if the data is from real customers or the reviewed business faking the review).

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