Entrepreneurship Archives

Entrepreneurship, The World Wide Web And Women’s Day

Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it. - Mahatma Gandhi

Most of the big and successful organizations of today have been humble small start-ups in the past. If we trace the history of any successful organization of today we will find that there has been a person or a group of people who had a vision, mission and a passion to create, innovate and build something and thereby earn the profits and not the other way round.

It all starts with a need, a passion for something or just the desire to do something different and flow with one’s thoughts and reach a destination which even he/she might not be aware of. As along this journey of entrepreneurship the entrepreneur has to face challenges and many ups and downs which may not have a cushion when you fall. One may even have to face the ridicule of people who have secure jobs and even might get the looks of “see I
told you so”… when you falter or fall.

Many businesses fail in the first few years as people create a job for themselves and not businesses which will run on autopilot in the long run. Initially, one may start off doing everything by himself but if you are not moving away from the day to day activities of the business then you have just created a job for yourself and you are not in the process of innovating and creating a business.

Every entrepreneur does not only own a business but promotes capital, creates wealth and generates more jobs which does not only make him wealthy but also contributes to the wealth of the nation.

Well, I do not run avery big business with a big list of employees but yes I think I do contributein a small subtle way.I run a web solutions company as a solo entrepreneur and try to do all the technical work, blog writing and communicate and coordinate with the clients also myself . Yes, in a way you can say I have created a job for myself which gives me the job satisfaction with the ease of flexible timings and the option to innovate and take my own decisions. As my main focus is on SEO services I thank Google for being so popular as a search engine that I even manage to make a decent profit along with a lot of time spent creatively.

I think every SEO operating from any part of the world is contributing to the larger picture by helping their clients get a local and a global reach. SEO is not only about inbound visitors to your site.Apart from reaching out to the globe , every true SEO helps the client’s business get a search presence that helps in establishing its brand and identity on the web which
in the long run establishes its reputation.

It gives me immense satisfaction and pleasure when a
WebPro Technologies client tells me that we have got such a good response from the SEO Services that we have decided to have a complete team dedicated to keep upgrading the site qualitatively and focus on social media. (More jobs generated – Thanks to Google and the WWW). Or the other day when one of our clients from
the education field told me - our online classrooms for Maths, Science and English are doing so well that we have decided to focus only on online teaching rather than real time classes that we were running.(The business gets a global reach along with a local reach and identity)

We also conduct SEO Training and when a person who did not know what to do after his graduation as he had barely managed to pass his degree in Arts comes after 3 years and tells me that after the SEO training he had attended at WebPro Technologies he had got a good job with a decent salary and now after 3 years has started his own company for web solutions.

The WWW has opened up new vistas for learning and earning and at the same time also offers a good platform for women who are well educated and want to work from home or work within their own framework of limited targets so that they can do full justice to their homes, family and
also at the same time not give their careers entirely.

Today women can work from home as content writers,web designers, programmers, SEOs, social media executives, etc. Due to some reason or the other, women do have to give their careers a back seat at some point of time in their lives but I think they should not totally give up as you never know the humble beginnings and the baby steps taken, might in future result to
some business giant in the making or at least will keep the creative side of your personality burning bright.

Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it. - Mahatma Gandhi

Photo credit: http://www.dlcounseling.com/images/dlc-photo-bookcover.jpg

Entrepreneurship - 03/08/2013

The Top Five Entrepreneurs of 2011

The top five entrepreneurs of 2011 truly demonstrated their ability to start profitable and sustainable businesses. The top five businesses and entrepreneurial founders are as follows:

cc licensed flickr photo shared by techatnyu

1. Rohit Arora: Biz2Credit

Rohit Arora, founder of Biz2Credit, capitalized on the banks’ ability to develop profitable portfolios with small business loans. He also noticed that ethnic-owned firms had the least defaults and used this information to develop his business model. Since immigrants’ largest impediment to getting loans in the United States was a result of lack of understanding, Biz2Credit developed an immigrant-friendly online application process for commercial loans and credit reports.

Once credit scores are determined, immigrants are matched with three to 10 potential lenders. Financial documents can be stored online until a loan is granted or denied. The process is streamlined and innovative. Immigrants can build their business credit and expand their businesses with these opportunities.
To date, this Manhattan firm has facilitated a total of $400 million in loans. The loan amounts are typically
between $200,000 and $4.5 million. Fifty-five percent of the Biz2Credit’s customers are immigrants.

2. Anthony Casalena: SquareSpace

Squarespace developed from Anthony Casalena’s frustration of integrating photos, analytics and blogging tools. He developed a publishing platform to solve the problem. The software integrates websites, Flickr and Twitter easily. He used a $30,000 investment to buy servers to support his platform.

The platform costs between $12 and $36 per month and supports clients such as Kiehl’s, a cosmetic retailers and Marc Ecko Enterprises, a fashion firm. In 2010, the company reported sales of as much as $10.2 million.

3. Michael Dorf: City Winery

City Winery founder, Michael Dorf, addresses the need of winemakers who need fresh grapes from California, Oregon or Chile vineyards. The company also hosts concerts, wine tastings and sells wine by the glass. The event space is used for wedding receptions and private parties. The main portion of his business sells memberships to produce wine for companies. In 2011, Dorf expected to produce $10 million in revenue.

4. Karen Grando: International Asbestos Removal

International Asbestos Removal founder, Karen Grando, went into the asbestos-removal field after hearing her husband repeatedly turn down clients requesting the service. She enrolled in a training program to earn city and state licenses to perform this trade. She has won contracts with Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Dormitory Authority of the State of New York and the School Construction Authority. In 2010, the firm had revenue of $10 million.

5. Michael Kirban: Vita Coco

Vita Coco was started by Michael Kirban and Ira Liran after over-hearing a conversation about coconut water from two Brazilian ladies. The founders felt coconut water could be as profitable as orange juice. The two guys used $100,000 of their own savings to start manufacturing in Brazil. The popular drink made its debut in Whole Foods in New York. Vita Coco is also sold at many Walmart and Costco locations.

Demi Moore and Matthew McConaughey both invested in the popular drink. Celebrities have donated over $10 million for its development. The business growth was only limited by the number of coconuts it could obtain. Last year, the company managed nearly $80 million in sales. The company is also charitable and donated $2 million to the American Heart Association, Special Olympics and other charities.

Guest Post: Robert Kurtz is a career consultant and contributor for Top Business Degrees, a site with detailed information, reviews and guides about online business degrees.

Entrepreneurship - 04/30/2012

Entrepreneurship : Many Times All is Not well At the Very First Go

Today I just came across this video and hence thought of sharing some past nuances about WebPro Technologies

Every entrepreneur starts a business venture with a dream of being successful but many times all is not well at the very first go. When you decide to take up a job you learn on the job and try to be better with every passing day gaining experience and knowledge and also you are assured of a pay packet at the end of the month.

But, when you venture out to invest in business you do get experience with every decision you take but you may not always end up with monetary gain at the very first go. So that is the difference one needs to take risks and also be prepared for unforeseen situations or vagaries of the market despite taking wise and careful decisions. Always have a backup plan ready for such situations.

I am not writing all this hypothetically, I have gone through these situations and experienced it . I have been on both the sides . I started my career in 1987 working as a faculty at DataPro (Mumbai –Bandra) , Placement Head at NIIT (New Delhi ) and then finally as Centre Manager at TuLec (A division Of Tata Infotech – Ahmedabad) . After that planned to take up a franchise of DataPro for Ahmedabad but after a good start due to the changing market conditions as we are all familiar with the dot com bubble burst period of early 2000 it became very difficult to survive and meet the salary expenses of the SCJPs and MCSEs and the huge infrastructure cost of running a training institute.

But we had to continue even at a loss as we had enrolled students for 3 year Diploma courses and had to keep up to our commitments . The final blow came when DataPro – the Parent Company announced its closure and we had to now create an identity of our own. We had to remove the DataPro Sign Board and decided to start under the name of WebPro Technologies. Designing our own courses and setting marketing plans.

We started with Web Designing and Web Development courses and also got projects for web development.After the initial hiccups and teething problems we managed to get out of the loss and actually reached a decent profit margin with the web development and web designing courses we started for B.E’s (Engineers) only and we tiled the course as 'The eEngineer' . The first few batches were the saving grace and we came out of the difficult times.

The website owners whose website we had developed wanted to know how they can rank on Altavista, Lycos, Yahoo, Hotbot,etc. the search engines which were widely used. I started working on that and since then I have never looked back . I personally got so interested in optimizing sites that SEO services became the focus of our company.

Once you are out of the difficult times then it is in your hands to restructure, reorganize and rework the entire set up to narrow down or expand and go ahead more confidently.

Hence, every business venture will have its ups and downs but only during these times the entrepreneur has to prove his/her mettle and integrity as these are the true testing times and many times you are left alone to face these situations or the most faithful few of your team may help you.

Entrepreneurship - 04/30/2011

Search Marketing A Valid Career Choice

If one fine morning you go to your parents and tell them that you have decided to be a search marketer then it is quite likely they will expect a detailed explanation about what this career choice is all about and what will the future be like a few years down the line.

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of search engine optimization, paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.[Usage of the term "search engine marketing" has been inconsistent. The trade association Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) includes search engine optimization (SEO), and SEO is also included in the industry definitions of SEM.

The world wide web has reached nearly every nook and corner of the world and people refer the search engines for more information, buy and sell online and also make friends online. The web has got woven in our social and business fabric like never before and is here to stay and influence our life decisions.

Hence, traditional methods of marketing have been replaced by web marketing and as a result there is a lot of demand for people who are equipped with the knowledge of web marketing.

A Classic example of this can be read on this link:

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ariel-schwartz/sustainability/pepsi-ditches-super-bowl-embraces-crowdsourced-philanthropy-inste

Like in every field in this field also you can take up a job in a web marketing firm or start on your own as an entrepreneur with a small investment or work as a freelancer.

A few years back Search Marketing mainly meant SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or PPC (Pay Per Click) but now search has a wider connotation and the search engine also have wider search options. Social media Optimization has also come under the umbrella of Search Marketing now.

Once you decide to take up search marketing as a career then be prepared to constantly upgrade yourself with the latest developments as regards their algorithms and techniques which keep on changing.

Enroll yourself for a training course on Internet marketing
Work on projects passionately without giving much importance to the pay packet initially
Once you gain the expertise and skill for marketing a website the future is promising, provided you are prepared to work hard.

WebPro Technologies has been optimizing websites since 2003 and conducting training on SEO since 2007. At WebPro we believe that one never ceases to be a student. The charm of being truly educated is to accept that we all keep on learning something new at every stage of our lives and career. This applies very aptly to the field of SEO.

Read More On The Following Related Articles:

http://www.webpro.in/seo-training-at-webpro-technologies-ahmedabad-in-depth-courses-as-well-as-week-end-courses-for-corporates/

http://www.webpro.in/the-pros-and-cons-of-being-a-solo-entrepreneur/

http://www.webpro.in/using-the-internet-effectively-for-studies/

http://www.webpro.in/pagerank-obsession-patience-perseverance-and-seo/

Bing / Education / Entrepreneurship / Google / SEO - 07/11/2010

The pros And Cons Of Being A Solo Entrepreneur

I think every career oriented person secretly nurtures the dream to run a company and given a chance would prefer to be their own boss.

The dictionary definition of the term 'entrepreneur' is 'a person which runs a small business and assumes the risk and rewards that come from it'.

Yes, we all know that when a business is successful there are the rewards in terms of profit, recognition, appreciation, the sense of achievement, etc. but, the most important thing to keep in mind when one decides to undertake this journey alone is the risk factor which goes along with it and in fact it this risk factor is something the entrepreneur has to deal on a daily basis .

If you are the kind of person who wants to be ensured of a paycheck at the end of every month and prefer the security and perks that a 9 to 5 job offers with regular week-ends and holidays then trust me being an entrepreneur and running a one person company is not your cup of tea.

As people who have the responsibility of running a business on their shoulders have to go without having any monetary return many times especially when you just start your business or launch a new product by ploughing back the amount you just earned from the last deal in the business. On the other side once the business gets established successfully you can reap good rewards.

Once you decide to call yourself an entrepreneur, identify something that you have a passion for and contemplate if you would like to work on it day in and day out without getting bored and most important would you enjoy working on it. If yes then you have got an idea start funding the project and be prepared to work hard.

Initially at the time of start up the first and foremost objective is to gain as much as market reach as possible with the lowest possible cost of operation. All this is possible if you have a website of your company which has a presence on the search engines for the relevant keywords. As nowadays people find your company reference through the search engines more than the yellow pages or any other media.

Trust me initially people will doubt what you say till you prove it by achieving the results. The real challenge will be to get the first few projects as you will not have any testimonials, references or examples of work to show but after that if one keeps moving ahead with sincerity then there is no looking back .

If you are sincere, honest, hard-working, responsible and committed to your venture then surely it is not you who has to run after success but success runs after you. Again, success is a very relative term. Decide what success means to you and measure your growth in terms of success accordingly.

Yes, all this is easier said than done but for any kind of business having the patience and perseverance is very essential because there will be times when you cannot see the road ahead and cannot identify why things are not picking up but it takes time to establish the goodwill and prove yourself.

As Theodore Isaac Rubin has rightly said:
Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.

Education / Entrepreneurship - 05/20/2010