Sonaplane Business Blog: April 2017

Friday, April 14, 2017

10 Options for Hosting Your Startup Website

As a startup, you are most likely counting your pennies as you read this. Funds only go so far, so your startup website needs to be near the top of the list when you're prioritizing how to use available resources. Even though most local startups don't need a large website, it is the platform that establishes your brand and serves as a main access point for reaching customers.

Being in the startup world, you're always looking for more cost effective ways to run your business. I've listed some of the least expensive ways to host your startup website, taking into consideration cost, platform and business size:

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Hack PR for Your Startup With These 5 Tools

Apparently, you can hack anything these days. I just read an article that taught me 9 Hacks to Making a Sandwich Faster. (Don’t ask why I read it, it just sucked me in. Plus, who doesn’t want to eat anything sooner?)

Press is cool because you never know who’s going to read or see it. The right press can do wonders for your startup. You can use it to generate mass exposure, leverage it for more press and to build company credibility.

I have some friends that landed on TechCrunch, and through that press, they were able to land a seven-figure investment from a very notable venture capitalist in the Valley (this is obviously the exception, not the norm).
Here’s a quick hit list of five tools to help you hack startup press:

Best Business Advice

Tim Ferriss“The best advice I’ve ever received is ‘you are the average of the 5 people you associate with most.’ I’ve actually heard this from more than one person, including bestselling authors, Drew Houston of Dropbox, and many others who are icons of Silicon Valley. It’s something I re-read every morning. It’s also said that ‘your network is your net worth.’ These two work well together.”
Sheryl Sandberg“The best advice I ever received was from Eric Schmidt, when he was Google’s CEO & I was thinking about not taking the offer from Google. He told me that when picking a job, only one criterion mattered: fast growth. He said, ‘If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, you don’t ask what seat. You just get on.”
Guy Kawasaki“I’ve had lots of good advice but this one is one of the best. ‘As long as people are complaining, they still want to do business with you. When they stop complaining is when you need to worry.’ It was from Marty Gruber, president of a jewelry manufacturer that I was working for in Los Angeles, way before my tech career.”
Vanessa Van Edwards“Every time you think to yourself, ‘I already know this’ or ‘This isn’t for me,’ try turning it around by asking, ‘How can I make this work for me?’ This instantly puts you into a learning mindset and helps you see opportunities everywhere. I learned this from Marie Forleo and it has fundamentally changed how I approach my business life.”
Nir Eyal“The most insightful advice I can remember receiving came from Andy Rachleff, who at the time was teaching at Stanford. He helped me understand the tremendous power of the network effect.”