the goose

As I think I mention pretty much every second blog post, I’m a fan of the simple world view on building a business that Keith Cunningham expounds.  “Find out what people want, go get it and give it to them”.  The trick is, it is far harder to find out what people want (in my experience) than it is to go and get it.  Building a website/widget/service/car wash is easy and well understood.  Finding out what type of website/widget/service/car wash is the hard part.  That is why i was plesently suprised by my experiences with Ag Tweet so far.  I don’t have to bother asking people what they would want – they just tell me via twitter.  So here are the top 5 unexpected uses for “Ag Tweet”.

1. Updating for FREE with Meteor:  Meteor and a couple of other networks offer free on-network texting which means that there is no need for you to pay for your mobile tweeting at all.  I had started off with an 087 number but added the 085 after getting some feedback (aka: abuse ) by users.
2. Group Texting:  @trinitysailing have done something this afternoon I thought was very neat.  They are registering multiple mobile numbers against the same account so it means that anyone on the committee can text to update their twitter feed (and also their website as far as I know).
3. Sports Reportage:  @Orwell_Wheelers and @killorglinrowin have been busy updating from the field by text.  It has been fun to follow along even though I have no idea who they were talking about. This of course isn’t something you couldn’t do from a regular smart phone but I’m suprised by the number of sports clubs that seem to be using the service in this way.
4. Texting to Europe:  A few blogs has mentioned that they’d love the same service in other countries.  I know that peophaps no-one else is doing this because the anticipation is that Twitter will do it eventually but there is definite demand.
5. Broadband replacement:  Well – sort of.  Some proper nerd types with new-fangled smart-phones get caught out in the back of beyond without coverage from time to time.  I hadn’t expected anyone to use the service if they had an iPhone – but it seems AgTweet is a handy backup when emergency tweeting in far flung places is required.

I also hadn’t expected to do anything but avoid my tax returns and lose money on this.  However – it turns out that I have had generous offers of support in the form of sponsorship which I hope to go ahead with.  I am slightly worried that sponsorship might make the whole thing look a bit corporate and lose some of the great good-will we’ve been receiving.  Then again – bills to pay etc.

Having pints on the train with @revahealth does wonders for my pontification muscle.  We were on our way back from Bizcamp Belfast where we’d done a two handed presentation on building niche directories.  Windows 7 garbled our powerpoint presentation as soon as we plugged it into the projector so it was even more hap hazard than expected.  It was a hoot though and it got me thinking.  Caelen’s business is going for the jackpot. In a massive market, RevaHealth is investing its time with a view to achieveing a big win.  It contrasts with our approach and got me thinking about how there are really three ages of ‘investor’ – or entrepreneur.

1.  Survival

First up is having enough money coming in every month to cover the basics.  Food, rent and kids education.  This is the level I’m at and for me that really means automating enough income to make sure I don’t have to work for someone else.  This is as much about frugality as it is revenue generation and the aim is to simply build enough income to be in control of your own time.  Profit it key here.  We are looking for a steady stream of reliable income.  With as little risk as possible  – bring in the bacon.  Fancy newfangled ideas need not apply.  Proven methods of creating a cash flow are the rule here.  That included (or used to include) property investment, share dealing and in our case the safest of internet businesses.

2.  Enrichment

Having covered the basics and avoiding selling time, we can start to look at ventures which have potential for greater reward but may involve more risk.  I guess on some level I have been tinkering with projects such as agtweet which don’t really have much potential for cash flow generation on the face of it but do help me learn a little, build profile and potentially bring in a bigger pay day.  Given that the basics are covered we can afford to play around a little more.  I’m willing to take on a little more risk – although if truth be told I should really be sticking to the day job and building on what we already have.  A good example here might be expanding Piehole into other terretories.  It is riskier and harder to do but could bring in much greater rewards. The aim here is to basically pay for a far higher level of lifestyle.  For us it means building a spectacular lifestyle where we can do pretty much anything we chose.

3.  Jackpot

Having secured the basics, and generated a revenue stream that really caters for a dream lifestyle (whatever that might mean to you) – it becomes about winning big.  The super-rich can afford to assign some of their investment income to risky ventures which have potential to create a spectacular return.  Money per se isn’t an issue any more.  It is about building a legacy and proving what you are truely capable of.  Typically this means building something for IPO or trade sale.  Profit is not so important here.  What is important is the return -  a big pay day.

I’m not sure that I’ll experience the third or even second level of investment but it does strike me that each requires a very different type of business.  While a business that provides survival might migrate to one that provides enrichment and even a jackpot, their goals and metrics are very different.

I don’t doubt that some people look at piehole and wonder why we are putting so much effort into a market that is so small.  The maximum potential income is pretty slim by most standards.  At the same time I look at larger ventures and am a little befuddled by why anyone would take such risks.  Of course it all depends on what stage each entrepreneur is at.  Some might be going for survival while others are already ready to go for the jackpot.

It has been a bit over a month now since I put agtweet.com together now.  It has been undoubtedly a bit of a distraction from the day job and if I were mercenary enough I’d shoot it dead.  On the other hand, it has been rather fun and I get little tweets every day thanking me for putting it out there which strokes my ego just nicely.

To date – here is the progress.

The marketing plan although having come under some criticism was made mostly up of a mix of off and online strategies from following other people to sending out a press release.  After some initial interest generated by following some ‘big twits’ like the IIA and EvertB things died off a little.  I had kind of hoped that I could put my feet up but although we have people using the service daily there was no growth.  No viral effect here.

So it was time to dust off MS Word and type out a press release.  First up I found it a little harder than expected to get a list of email addresses to send my release to.  Many news outlets don’t seem to have an obvious email address to send press releases to on their websites.  I did manage to get tweeted about by by Ewan from SMS Text News but the big success came via siliconrepublic.com.

I did consider using http://www.get2press.ie/ and http://www.irishpressreleases.ie/ but was defeated by their unclear pricing and bad user interfaces.  Overall I’m pretty impressed with PR.  It really didn’t take much to put a press release together.  I cogged one Priscilla put together for the everydayisasaturday.info website and just mailed it out.

I haven’t really been on the Tuesday Push bandwagon partly because this is mostly a blog for my own thoughts/clarifications than one that actual real people read.  On the other hand, I’ve met the RevaHealth.com guys down at BizCamp and will be giving a talk at the upcoming BizCamp Belfast gig with Caelen.

Disclaimers out of the way, Reva’s blog has been an excellent resource for me over the last couple of months.  Although the guys have a background in the healthcare industry they haven’t limited content to that sector and there are excellent resources for anyone looking to develop a web based business.  Assuming you are hale and hearty upon reading this I’ll recommend you check it out.  If you aren’t, there are thousands of health care professionals ranked on the main site.

It has been an eventful April chez James and Priscilla.  The global economic downturn finally arrived at Sir John Rogerson’s Quay and Priscilla is now no longer working at Ireland’s leading advertising agency.  In typical South African style, she turned the frown upside-down by launching http://www.everydayisasaturday.info.  It is a daily walking club for people how have been ‘retrenched’.

We promoted the site initually via twitter and last weekend we were picked up by RTE’s The Business.  There was about a five minute interview and we were sure it was gonna kick the project into the big time.  As it turns out – twittering seems to have been just as effective at driving traffic to the site as a five minute spot on the national broadcaster.

I’ve always kind of dreamed of having an online business that could be promoted through the national media but would ‘provide value’ online.  This little experiments kind of kicks that theory in the nuts.  I guess when you are listening to the radio it is a long shot that you are going to remember a URL and head to the nearest computer to check it out.  Much better to promote your service online to people who are only a click away. Common sense I guess but this is the first time I’ve seen it first hand.