Entrepreneur Geek » Business

Entrepreneur’s Urge with Paypal, Putler brings the solution

Nirav — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:40:13 +0000

Putler: Paypal Reporting, Monitoring and Planning tool for Windows, Linux and Mac

If your business accepts payments via Paypal, chances are you login to the Paypal website a few times in the day to check your balance. You would even keep an eye on email alerts of new sales and feel happy when you close the day with good sales.

The Entrepreneur’s Urge

I can tell you from my own experience that I am on the edge of my seat when we launch a new product. I am biting my nails when we push “Send” on a newsletter with a special offer. I am curious to find out how much money I made while I was sleeping, and check my Paypal balance the moment I start my computer.

You may be a web entrepreneur, a microISV, a startup or an expert offering online courses. The urge to see how well you are selling is common to all. You may be looking forward to the first sale of your newly launched product or want to track your monthly performance against your targets.

The Problem

Logging in Paypal takes time. And if you keep it idle the session also times out quickly. Now this is good for Paypal, but bad for us. All we want to do is check the Paypal balance and find out what products are selling. We want some quick bits of information and get back to our work. The process of logging in and viewing details eats up time. And biggest, it distracts you!

The Solution: Putler

Now sure, you can write-up a small program that will check your Paypal balance. You could host it on your internal server and keep hitting it when you feel like satisfying your natural urge to check your Paypal balance! But why to make things complicated (and spend time understanding and building those scripts) when you can have someone give it to you on a platter?

Welcome Putler!
Putler shows your Paypal balance on your desktop, notifies you of balance changes, lets you set a target, shows today’s transactions and tells you how well are you doing against the target. It’s a simple and effective tool to watch your Paypal account right from your computer.

Just give your Paypal API information to Putler and he will start monitoring your Paypal balance. He will gently notify you when the balance changes. He even draws a nice chart of your daily balances along with a target you may have set.

This gives you a never before visibility on targets vs performance for your Paypal business account.

Apps Magnet Launches Putler Alpha. Get it now for free!

We are releasing a public Alpha of Putler today. Get it free, monitor your Paypal account, achieve business goals, and give us feedback!

Download Putler for free now!

We are starting with only the basic features, but will make Putler smarter and stronger as he grows! Do send in your ideas and suggestions on how we can make him better!

Thank you!

Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements – code for life and personal development

Nirav — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 05:29:27 +0000

Ravi Malagi sent this to me and I found it worth sharing.

Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements – code for life and personal development

Agreement 1: Be impeccable with your word

Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Agreement 2: Don’t take anything personally

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering

Agreement 3: Don’t make assumptions

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life

Agreement 4: Always do your best

Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

Harsh Times, Real Pain – It will end, and will make us stronger

Entrepreneur’s Lesson: Be Frugal, Avoid Temptations

Nirav — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:55:09 +0000

Frugal To the Max

When you are starting your own venture, be frugal. Whether you are putting in your hard-earned savings or have investor backing, take care of every penny you spend.

Cut down on:

Fancy office setups & employee facilities
Expensive hardware, software, equipment and gadgets – you don’t need to flaunt
Number of employees – work with small number of talented, all rounders
Traveling and related expenses – use VoIP / Video conferencing
All expenses!

Staying cashflow positive should be the number one priority for a startup. Bootstrapping is the best entrepreneurial model. Do whatever it takes to generate your monthly cashflow from the business. Set a limit for yourself – you will never go cashflow negative for more than 2 months.

And once you get the cash, be even more watchful. It’s easy to waste money on promising opportunities / people / technologies.

Avoid temptation.

(Image courtesy Buster Benson)

Avoid these customers – five warning signs to say no to customers, plus three signs to die for

Nirav — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:22:26 +0000

Are you feeling the heat of times? There aren’t sufficient interesting & rewarding web projects out there. Everyone either wants to copy some social network / iPhone app or just wants to get it done at weekly grocery cost.

It’s not easy to find projects, so you may tend to pick up anything that comes your way. But beware!

Greg Hoy (on A List Apart) talks about five warning signs you should watch for. He recommends avoiding such customers. They will create problems later. And with my 11 years in web design / development business, I couldn’t agree more. I’ll even share couple of my own warning signs! Plus I have a list of positive signs from customers at the end.

Let’s start with Greg’s list of 5 red flags to Getting To No:

The never-ending contract revisionist: clients who can’t settle on the terms, keep asking for material / mocks upfront before taking decision
The giant project team: more than 3 people on client’s team is harmful. My experience says more than 2 is deadly as well.
Mr. or Mrs. Vague: All of us have them. Ask them plenty of questions.
The prospect with ants in their pants: clients who want it done yesterday. Sure shot problem creator. Charge rush rates.
The vanishing boss: Now he’s here, now he’s not. He’ll be present in the first “vision” meeting, and vanish until you deliver on the second milestone. And then claim “you’ve got it all wrong”. Solution: keep him in loop – email, phone, text – whatever works.

And here are my additions to the list:

Wannabe web millionaire with no commitment: someone who wants to make tons of money with this project, but has no time, money and background. He probably got an idea and his friends told him it’ll tick. But a good idea doesn’t make a business success. A project needs higher commitment from the client to succeed – higher than your own commitment.
Mountain of molehill’er: They give you one line requirement, like, “I want a Facebook clone”. Another version is “I want Facebook + Google Analytics + the next big Web 4.0 startup”. All your alarms should ring when you hear something like that. The spec will grow faster than mushrooms.
The Window Shopper: They ask for price / time estimates first. Have a long list of suppliers they are evaluating, but don’t have clear parameters for evaluation. May not have the time to answer your questions or may answer generically. Such guys will either go with the vendor who bid at 60% of the highest bidder or scrap the project.

Here are 3 signs of good prospects – do whatever it takes to win them

The Lake Water Guy: Such prospects give you clear specifications, are calm and understanding. You can sense their calmness even when you speak to them. They have clear vision of what they want – may not know the technical details – and passionate about it.
Suggestions Welcomed type: a prospect who’s willing to listen to your ideas is grounded and open. They will respect your skills and the discussions will make the project better.
Been There, Done That, But Not Boasting It: These are people who’ve seen the ups and downs, have failed a few times and have seen successes too. They understand there will be challenges and are ready to give you the time and space to handle them.

What kind of customers have you seen? What’s your list of positive / warning signs?

(Image courtesy dev null)

Paypal Sales + Marketing Activity Trend Spotting

Nirav — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:39:34 +0000

I’ve been using Paypal for AppsMagnet sales for a few months now. Paypal is easy to setup and competitive. And the biggest plus is that almost every e-commerce tool has support for Paypal.

Paypal gives you comprehensive business reports – weekly sales, monthly sales, transaction history, downloadable logs etc. But I did not see any sales graph! I searched a lot, but couldn’t even find anything that gives you charts and graphs from your Paypal sales data.

On a side note, I tried Mint / Quicken / Other online finance tools. None made much sense to me as a web entrepreneur trying to track product sales and sales trends.

Google Trends matches search volume with news reports

What I really want is to find out the impact of a new product launch / new tutorial video / ad / promotion on my sales. Surely, there are many tools that track this for affiliates. But what if I don’t have affiliates? What if I want to see sales number side by side my marketing activities?

May be something like Google Trends?

Have you seen something like this? How do you track your sales vs marketing activity?

If I don’t find something like this, I will have to build one!

Next ring the telephone!

Nirav — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:10:16 +0000

We have seen breakthrough innovations in communication media and technologies. From letters to emails and IM. From books to blogs and Twitter posts.

I believe transformation is coming in the way we use our telephone. Convergence of devices, portable numbers, voice mail transcription, SMS integration – it’s all coming.

Keep your ears open for: Google Voice, Ribbit and Gizmo.

Buddying entrepreneurs / techies – there are lot of opportunities in this space. Leap forward and grab some!

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Entrepreneurs, Qualifications, Complicated Analysis and Failures

Nirav — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:42:00 +0000

I do not believe there are traditional qualifications which make a business owner a winner. Drive, common sense and intuition count for a lot more. Even inventors and technical experts who start businesses tend not to be organisational types. They are often mavericks who want the freedom of self-employment. And although entrepreneurs have a reputation as wild risk-takers, in reality they judge the downsides carefully – because they have their own capital at stake, and they have learned about the dangers of the marketplace first hand.

…

Typical entrepreneurs would have never been hired by these corporations – or indeed understood the complex modelling upon which the financiers based their entire business model. But the bankers placed far too much faith in such artificial worlds of computer programs and clever buzz words – and completely lost the plot.

Rajesh Patel, a client who’s starting on his own after an impressing career, suggested a Financial Times article about entrepreneurs and why top companies failed. It was a very interesting reading. My belief in entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship just got thicker!

Entrepreneurs take decisions on gut instincts. They of course study the background and numbers, but more often than not, their decisions are based on their intuitions. It’s managers who decide by spreadsheets!

What’s your take?

Who’s following you on Twitter – bots?

Gogola – Did Google start selling ice golas?

Nirav — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:23:35 +0000

I was shopping with family in Bandra Link Road area two weeks ago and spotted this board. It’s labeled “Gogola: Gola’s made of mineral water ice”. What caught my attention was obviously the spin on Google’s logo. I couldn’t resist and had to take a photo!

And by the way, these guys also have a website! Go check it out! (It’s just one page, but so what? Did you ever see a website for any ice gola vendor??) Gogola says it was inspired by Google. They also have a joint at Fun Republic in Andheri.

For anyone who does not know what an ice gola is – it’s our Indian version of slush or snow cone.

Have you seen any other non-tech business inspired by Google? If so, would love to hear about it via your comments!

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Who is Bhaskar Bharati?

Nirav — Sat, 23 May 2009 13:14:30 +0000

Bhaskar bana Bharti

If you are in India, you may have seen such hoardings around. Who is Bhaskar Bharti you may ask? And why did Bhaskar ditch so many girl friends? (and more interestingly, how did he make so many girlfriends in the first place

Bhaskar (bana) Bharti is a new comedy show on Sony TV.

The story is about a playboy, Bhaskar who has ditched a number of girls and has taken all their curses. One of his girlfriends casts magic on him and one night he transforms into a girl. To adjust his life as a girl he changes his name to Bharti and acts as Bhaskar’s cousin. Bhaskar’s friend falls in love with Bharti who is actually a boy. Will Bhaskar be able to adjust as a girl or will his truth be revealed?

Checkout Baskar Bharti on Wikipedia, and a promo video on YouTube.

Clearly, media companies are trying to innovate their marketing. Not only are they using social networking and Internet, they are also trying to create buzz this way or the other.

Did they succeed? I believe the marketing has succeeded in creating curiosity. Now let’s see what happens to the show once it goes live on Monday!

Are you a ’scale-first’ or ‘money-first’ entrepreneur?

Nirav — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 06:11:43 +0000

Read Jeremy Chone’s post about “Are You a Seesmic or Balsamiq Entrepreneur?” today. I love Balsamiq Mockups and have been using it for more than 6 months now. Peldi – the entrepreneur behind Balsamiq, his blog and ideas were also an inspiration behind us starting AppsMagnet.

The question Jeremy’s asking is whether you are a “scale-first” entrepreneur or “monetize-first”. With scale-first, you would go capture a big market share and then think about monetization. With “monetize-first” you will ensure your venture is cash flow positive from early days. Your plans will focus on getting more money.

I prefer the money-first approach. Guy Kawasaki suggested it in the Art of the Start, and I have experienced that cash flows are one of the most important factors for a business. When you focus on getting cash every month, instead of raising external / venture funding, you are much more relaxed, have faster (instant?) gratification and are on solid ground.

This has been the driving factor for AppsMagnet too. We have sold 32 copies of our Reports module for activeCollab in about a month, and PlannerX has received very good reviews so far. As a matter of fact, we have many people looking forward to the activeCollab version of PlannerX!

What type of entrepreneur are you?