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Palm recently announced the launch of it’s new Pre Plus, the successor to the now year-and-a-half old Pre.
The Plus offers double the memory (16 GB) and RAM over it’s predecessor. This time, it will be launched under Verizon, and it comes with one very cool feature: the ability to turn anywhere into a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot.
The Plus allows for up to 5 wi-fi devices to operate under it. It’s not hard to see how others could benefit from this: wi-fi for all on long car rides, or even the freedom of providing your own wi-fi network when others are running poorly.
There are obviously a few drawbacks to this, however. First, running a number of additional devices can be draining on the Pre Plus’ battery. You can expect to enjoy a few hours of wi-fi for you and your friends, but don’t expect much more than that. Additionally, the Pre line has had a history of heating up under hard use.
Even the current Pre heats up when the navigation is used (ask me how I know). Finally, Verizon charges $40 p/m for up to 5 GB of data. That’s a lot of money to pay fora monthly wi-fi service, but what price to you place on fun?
Today’s interview is with 20-year old entrepreneur Daniel Meade. Daniel is involved in a number of different projects and businesses online, mainly BusinessNoob and his personal website, DanielMeade.net. He’s here to talk today about business, entrepreneurship, and getting started online. So here’s the interview:
Daniel Meade
Daniel, for the readers who haven’t heard of you and your website, Businessnoob, why don’t you give us a brief overview of who you are, where you came from, and what your site is about.
Ok well I’m a young entrepreneur from the south coast of England, I’ve been quite an entrepreneurial character since a very early age and have already had my fair share of set backs. Though each set back has allowed me to learn from the experience and develop the way I do business to further my chances of success.
BusinessNoob.com is a recently established project I set up to help encourage entrepreneurs both young and old (and those who have yet to realize they are
entrepreneurs) to take the first step and get started up in business for themselves. The
site also welcomes entrepreneurs already in business that are just looking for a
reference site that is open and friendly and will help assist them in the running of
their company.
How did you get started in business? What caused you to try and break the mold of the typical 9-5 job and start to make money off of the internet?
I first started (officially) in business when I became a Business Development Executive for a Marketing firm based In Brighton. It was here that I learned a lot about the norms of business and was able to excel within the role, helping others alike to build their business. After leaving the firm I went on to set up a small marketing company of my own, which received a small number of consistent clients, this business only came to an end because I decided that I wanted to further my Marketing knowledge by becoming a student at the University of Portsmouth.
This is when I looked to the internet for the basis of my business, the freedom of time it allowed enabled me to continue my studies whilst also developing further my time and work management skills. When working at the Marketing firm back in Brighton I found a love for people management and business development; and so I wanted to continue this through BusinessNoob.
Can you share what you’ve accomplished so far online and where you see yourself in 5, 10, and even 20 years?
Well if I’m honest my online activities are still relatively new and so it is probably a little early to talk about what I’ve been able to accomplish so far. BusinessNoob though, was able to quickly establish a good and consistent flow of traffic, bringing along with it a number of loyal readers. Five years from now, I aim to have in its infancy a whole portfolio of businesses based both online and off. Over the next few years I’ll be focusing a lot of my efforts into building my personal brand and so I hope to be able to speak, encourage and inspire entrepreneurs alike at various conferences around the world. Ten years from now, I hope to establish a Non-Profit organization that acts as a school for entrepreneurs, encouraging entrepreneurial activity throughout Britain.
Twenty years down the line? I see myself settled down with a beautiful wife and children, I want ultimately to be able to provide them with the best possible chance in life, and I want to be around to share all the significant moments with them as a family. With a number of businesses running quietly in the background, that’s exactly what I’ll be able to do.
Businessnoob is just one of the projects that you are working on. Can you share with us what else you are involved in, including your personal website, Danielmeade.net?
Well at present I am working on the development of a few other online based projects, covering a range of topics and niches. To give you an idea of what you might expect, I will be tapping into the fashion and beauty niche with a couple of sites based around that area, whilst also releasing a site within the music production niche.
Without giving too much away I am currently carrying out research, establishing links, and developing plans for a couple of projects I will establish over the coming year or so, and am greatly excited about these.
DanielMeade.net was a site set up for two reasons mainly, the first is that I wanted somewhere that i could share my thoughts and ideas, maybe even the odd rant or two. The idea of a journal doesn’t appeal to me and so I thought it would be a good idea to base this online. The second reason behind starting the site is to assist in the building of my personal brand. I want people to see me as a person, to get to know me for who I am. Throughout all my activities in business I want everyone I come into contact with to feel that I can interact with them on a personal level. The site helps me to do that.
What is the best advice you could give to the beginner blogger or internet entrepreneur who is trying to find his identity online and make some money?
The first thing I would advise is to not be fooled by those promoting a passive income with only an hours work a day, that’s complete rubbish. I’m not disputing that it cannot be done and that these people are not doing it, I’m just pointing out that if you want to make a real success of it, then it’s going to require some real hours. Only later, when the site has established itself as a key player within its niche are you able to sit back and monitor its progress with minimal work.
Secondly, be sure to realize that success on the internet isn’t as easy as it may first seem, yes there is an opportunity to potentially reach millions of users across the world, but there is also a million other sites competing against you, if you’re serious you’ll have to prove it. As for identity, be sure to be yourself. In business, it’s hard for a consumer to relate to a company or its products/services without a personal interaction of some kind, without this the likelihood of a completed sale is minimal. And it is much the same way for a blog, you’ll want your readers to know that you are a real person, so don’t be afraid to show your personality.
What are some of the problems that you’ve encountered in starting and running a business? What would you say has been the greatest challenge?
I have been fortunate enough to suffer minimal troubles when starting and running a business, for me the greatest challenge has been in obtaining the finance necessary to get things off the ground. For instance, if you were to shift through the mountain of paperwork I have cluttering up the side of my desk you’ll see countless plans and ideas for future businesses, businesses that if I had the finances to set up today, I wouldn’t take a moment to hesitate. Few people know this but just last year I decided to get myself a part time position at the fast food chain Dominoes in order to raise some extra capital that I could invest in upcoming projects, sometimes it takes a swallow of pride to get things going, however long it may take.
Obviously I’ve had my fair share of minor problems too, there’s been issues with the Inland Revenue and, as most my readers are aware, with Mailchimp, the email marketing client I use for the distribution of the start-up eCourse. Generally the problems you encounter when starting and running a business are merely oversights, things you just hadn’t thought of. That’s one of the reasons why BusinessNoob exists, to help ensure that these problems aren’t overlooked and that the process goes as smoothly as possible.
For the readers: What are you involved with online? What have you accomplished so far, and what are your goals for both the short term and the long term?
I’d like to say thank you to Daniel for doing this interview and to wish him good luck in all of his ventures.
Today I’m extremely excited to introduce to you Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. I’m sure that everyone has heard of Zappos before, but not many are familiar with the companies origins, and better yet the story of Tony’s success.
Tony Hsieh
To make a long story short, Tony had started a business selling pizza in college. In 1996 he started a web-based company called LinkExchange and after just two years, he sold LinkExchange to Microsoft for a whopping $265 million. Tony invested a portion of that money into a number of different internet start-ups, among them: Ask Jeeves, Tellme Networks, and of course, Zappos.com. This was back in 1999 and Tony had poured $500,000 into the idea of Zappos, which at the time was called ShoeSite.com. After realizing that Zappos had the most potential of all the investments, he decided to join Zappos full time about two months later. The rest, as they say, is history. Gross merchandise sales in 2000 totaled $1.6 million, $252 million in 2005, and exploded to over $1 billion in 2008. Zappos has been named the #23 company on Fortune Magazine’s list of the 100 Best Companies to work for in 2009. From day 1 Tony has always stressed the importance of good culture in a business as well as excellent customer service and he attributes these two aspects of Zappos to its huge success.
So now that you know a little bit more about Tony Hsieh and his background in business, let’s get to the interview:
How would you describe the transition from Link Exchange to Zappos, where you began to deal more with customers and products?
I gave a talk at SXSW Interactive on March 14 where I talked about what led me to Zappos.
Back in 1999, there really weren’t any great destinations online for buying shoes. After learning that it was a $40 billion market in the US, and 5% of it ($2 billion) was being done by paper mail order catalogs, it seemed like a good investment opportunity. I got involved with Zappos about 2 months after it started.
You talk a lot about how important culture is to Zappos. Can you see this becoming a popular trend for large businesses in the future, or do you think that it is still going to be unique to Zappos for a while?
I don’t think the Zappos culture can or should be cloned, but I do think the idea of being transparent and running a business based on core values and a meaningful vision that’s not just about money or profits can work for any organization. It doesn’t really matter what the core values are, as long as the entire organization commits to those core values. The most important thing in any large organization is alignment.
What advice would you give to the entrepreneur that’s looking to start a business in 2010? How much emphasis would you put on customer service and maintaining solid core values within a new business?
I would say rather than focus on what will make you the most money or be best for your career, figure out what you would be passionate for 10 years and go pursue that. A lot of people work hard at building a career so that one day down the road they think it will bring them happiness. And most of the time, when they finally accomplish their goal, they realize that it doesn’t really end up bringing happiness or fulfillment for the long term. One of the things that the research has shown is that people are very bad at predicting what will make them happy. If the ultimate goal is to achieve enduring happiness, it seems like it’s worth spending some time learning about the science of happiness so you don’t wind up in the same situation
If you had to go back in time to when you were running Link Exchange, what would you do differently?
Prior to Zappos, I never really paid much attention to company culture. In fact, at LinkExchange, which I co-founded, by the time we got to 100 people, the company culture had gone really downhill, which is why we ended up selling the company. At Zappos, I wanted to make sure I didn’t make the same mistake again.
Where do you see Zappos in the future? Besides expanding into jewelry and apparel, what are your goals for both the short and long term of Zappos?
A lot of people know us for shoes because that’s how we started. But we are making a big push into clothing this year:
10 years from now, we’re hoping that people don’t even realize we started out selling shoes online. We just want the Zappos brand to be about the best service, which includes free shipping both ways and our 365-day return policy. A lot of people order multiple pairs of shoes from us, try them all on in the comfort of their living room, and then just send back the ones that they don’t like (and we pay for the shipping back to us). We’ve had customers tell us that it’s the easiest and most convenient way for them to buy shoes from us, and we want them to feel that way when buying apparel from us as well.
Without the internet, where do you see yourself today? Do you think that your pizza business in college could have taken off and been as wildly successful as your other businesses?
I’m not sure exactly what business I would be involved with, but it would almost certainly be some sort of consumer business where the customer experience would be a big focus. I guess in theory it could be a pizza business!
I think that by now you guys can understand why Tony is one of my favorite CEO’s. He approaches business from an angle different from other large companies- he’s not in it to make the most money, but to enjoy every day that he works. This is a very unique take on business, but I think that at the end of the day, Zappos employees and officers are generally happier than those of other large companies. It’s definitely something to think about when going into business.
Random fact about Tony: His first dream job was to be a robot inventor.
PS. In September of last year, Tony locked himself in a cabin at Lake Tahoe. He was working on a book titled “Delivering Happiness” that’s now due to be published on June 7! You can pre-order it on Amazon:
Palm recently announced the launch of it’s new Pre Plus, the successor to the now year-and-a-half old Pre.
The Plus offers double the memory (16 GB) and RAM over it’s predecessor. This time, it will be launched under Verizon, and it comes with one very cool feature: the ability to turn anywhere into a mobile Wi-Fi [...]
Hey guys,
I just wanted to let you know that I’m working on some huge interviews that I’ll be sharing with everyone very shortly. I’ve got some big time entrepreneurs lined up that have some great information for all of you. I’ll be working pretty hard in the upcoming days to make them work, so [...]
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