How To Test Your Business Idea

So you have come up with the next Google/Facebook/Mint website and you think you are going to make a fortune on it?

Maybe you will, but if you are a wise entrepreneur you will test out your business idea first.  Why?

  • After four years, 50% of  startups have failed
  • After ten years, 75% of startups have failed
  • Only 1 in a 1000 startups are a home run like Amazon or Microsoft

Testing your business idea before dedicating your nest egg and years of sweat, blood and tears to it is ABSOLUTELY necessary!… read more “How To Test Your Business Idea”

Make More Money on Your Leads

Nick and I were talking today about our home loans website and discussing the fact that 2/3 of the people who use the contact form or call the phone number on it do not have good enough credit scores to get a home loan.

We were losing money on all these people who called in and were quite annoyed that we had to deal with them, when we realized that there is a whole industry of businesspeople out there who would love to talk with exactly the people we didn’t want:

Credit repair companies. … read more “Make More Money on Your Leads”

Readers- Your Feedback is Needed!

I am thinking about putting a lot of work/money into a new business idea and before I do, I really need to get some feedback on my basic hypotheses.  The idea is to build an web application that helps people to track their productivity and make it into a scoreable game so they can compete against themselves to get better. … read more “Readers- Your Feedback is Needed!”

Government Regulations Crushing Entrepreneurs

Starting a business and operating a business are profoundly difficult activities with no government regulations, but with them it becomes nearly impossible to do everything correctly.  I have firsthand experience with the difficult & confusing government regulations on entrepreneurs.

Entrenched bureaucracies like the Washington State Department of Revenue and the Washington State Secretary of State’s office do not have to answer to anyone and extremely tough to figure out what forms to file, when to file them and even how to submit them. … read more “Government Regulations Crushing Entrepreneurs”

Rules of Basketball

My poor roommate Trent has some difficulties understanding the rules of the game of basketball.  In order to help him further his education, I have decided to repost a few rules of basketball here:

  1. Blocking- impeding the progress of an opponent by extending one or both arms horizontally or getting in the path of a moving player.
… read more “Rules of Basketball”

Dine With Shamu – LITERALLY!

During a show at Seaworld yesterday entitled “Dine with Shamu”, where park guests can have dinner and watch a whale show up close, a whale named Tilikum purposely drowned a female trainer.

Tilikum is an 11,000 pound killer whale and people watching the show said he was not following commands and after becoming more agitated, swam around the tank and leapt out of the water to grab her in its mouth and dragged her into the water.… read more “Dine With Shamu – LITERALLY!”

Homes: Buy vs Rent?

Most people think that it is better to own a home than to rent a home.  Why is this opinion so prevalent?  People have had several ideas drilled into their heads over and over again:

  1. If you pay $1,000 in rent each month, you will never see that money again.  If you pay $1,000 on your mortgage, it is like putting that money into a savings account (because you can sell the house at the end and get your money back).
… read more “Homes: Buy vs Rent?”