$1 billion in auction sales online

Posted February 15, 2012 at 2:32 am

Founder Scott Finkelstein is expanding NextLot, this week’s Inc. 5000 applicant of the week, for the next generation of Web users.

by Eric Markowitz

As we process applications for the 2012 Inc. 500|5000, we thought it would be worthwhile to shine a spotlight on some of the companies that are vying to appear on our ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in the United States. (For more information and to apply, click here). One that caught our eye was NextLot in Raleigh, North Carolina.

If Scott Finkelstein has his way, the online auction business will never be the same.

Finklestein, the third generation of Finklestein men to work in the auction business, founded NextLot, a privately branded auction software for online auctions, in 2007.

“What we do is help auction companies post timed Ebay-style and live webcast online auctions,” he says. “People can watch and listen in and bid from all over the world.”

Each year, nearly $300 billion items—from farm equipment to artwork—are sold in auctions. Last year, NextLot sold $1 billion of that sum, netting nearly $2.5 million among 100 clients in various industries. The company sells [continue]…

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True Blood and entrepreneurial vampires

Posted February 15, 2012 at 1:53 am

by Troy White

I admit it…

…I recently got hooked on True Blood.

I have watched the first season, and it is fantastic!

Between the darkness, the characters, the blood and the fantastic story lines they use… I am a fan.

Much like Sons of Anarchy that I wrote about before.

For far too many years, the shows that were playing on late-night television were awful. No creativity. Copy-and-paste
plot lines. Crap characters.

Every once in a while one would pop up that was ok… but most stunk up the bloody screen.

Something shifted and the writers and creatives are cranking out some genuinely good shows.

Considering I am not much of a tv guy, it pains me to admit I am taken in by some of these new series.

Like True Blood.

The story of Vampires and Humans co-existing on earth.

The story of how the vampires feed, and convert humans to vampires.

The stories of some very unusual personal powers that some of the humans have… bordering on as scary of a power as fangs are.

And Anna Paquin is just hot in this show!

She makes True Blood shine.

I also LOVE the names they have created for the show.

“Fangbangers” is one I love!  This is the name of the humans who love to get bit and banged by the vampires.  It’s a whole subculture of humans that take great pleasure in this.

Creating unique names like this is a skill and art in itself.

One you should be practicing!

It makes book titles more interesting.

Subject lines.

Headlines.

Product names.

Even dog names.  My daughters and I have a game we play at the dog park.  We go around and create new names for each dog we see, based on how they look and their personality.

We have a blast doing this… and it is teaching my girls how fun it can be to create names like this and to use their creativity in all kinds of innovative ways.

Try it.

True Blood also makes me think of a few other things that relate to you and I.

…and our ability to shine in our own businesses.

The first thing us humans need to be weary of… Time Vampires. They are everywhere!  

Those innocent looking phone calls or emails that drain you of a precious hour out of your day.  It may not seem like much to the person calling, but each hour sitting on the phone is a significant chunk of real, money-making, work not getting done.

Be very, very careful of the time vampires.

Avoid them like the plague if possible, and cut off their blood supply (your time) at the pass.  ”I have another call in 10
minutes” usually repels them like garlic.

Also be very careful of the entrepreneurial spirit vampires.

They are the ones who try and suck the passion out of your entrepreneurial drive.

They try and make you believe that going back to a job is the most honourable thing a mere mortal can do.

They do everything in their evil power to suck you dry and make you feel completely drained…

…energy-less and ready to sink deep into the deep dark hallows of depression.

Been there, done that… got the bumper sticker.

Avoid it.

Do whatever it takes.

My mission this year is change.

BIG CHANGE.

Positive change.

Forward change.

…And I have made many changes already.

But they weren’t easy to do.

Nor will they ever be.

BIG CHANGE takes guts.  It takes ‘testicular fortitude’ as one friend says.

Few can do well on change…

…but the new era of entrepreneurs THRIVE on change.

Care to join me in a whole new world?

One where YOU are in control… and one where YOU know what types of garlic, sunlight, or wooden stakes it takes to slaughter the vampires in your life.

You in?

Good.

Start with the biggest areas of your life that need change right now.

List them out.

Pick one.

GET IT DONE.

No more excuses.

Just do it.

Fight the fear and do it.

Deal with the tears that may come…

…and move forward faster.

I am there at your side right along the way.

Promise.

Let me know how it goes and what I can do to help.

Troy

PS: One of the greatest things I personally did to help myself make the necessary changes at a faster pace was to start writing more.

There is a therapeutic quality to writing that can propel your business forward at breakneck speed.

But again, it takes guts to do and motivation to start.

If you want to start now… get the Story Selling Home Study Course and I will also give you my 31k club training series.  For the next 31 days I will fire you up and get you writing more often, with greater profits as your goal.

The 31k club has transformed many lives of those who went through the Story Selling Coaching.  Now you get it free with the Story Selling Home Study course!

PPS: One other way you can crank up your ability to innovate and implement is to get more ideas with action plans.

If you aren’t on my daily email list yet, you should be!

Mon-Fri I send you shorter articles that get you thinking differently about growing your business.

You will love them.

One click and you are signed up…

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iFixit: Over $4 million in sales

Posted February 8, 2012 at 12:28 am

Hey there, freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy.com, home of the ambitious upstart. The place where proven entrepreneurs come to tell you how they did it. How does a bootstrapper, an entrepreneur with no outside funding, create an online repair manual business that generates over $4 million dollars in annual sales?

Kyle Wiens is the co-founder of iFixit. You probably know that company as the guys that take apart every new iPhone and every new product that comes out there that’s shiny, and they tell you what’s inside it.

What their business is they have a collaborative wiki with a goal of crowd sourcing gadget repair manuals for every type of device imaginable.

We’ll find out how he built that business. I also want to find out about his new product, his new site dozuki.com. It’s a site that lets companies create vibrant product manuals that their customers will actually enjoy reading. Kyle, welcome to Mixergy.

Kyle: Thanks for having me on.

Andrew: Hey, the $4 million number that I got came from Inc. Magazine. I think it was sales for 2010. Can you update us? What were the revenues for 2011?

Kyle: North of that, I’m not going to give a specific figure, but we’ve been on the Ink 5000 list the last three years in a row. 5000 fastest growing company list. We were actually probably I think the only retail e-commerce company to ever get on the Ink 5000 list running out of the garage.

Andrew: Really?

Kyle: We started actually in the dorms and then sort of kept moving from garage to bigger garage to bigger garage.

Andrew: And the difference is of course, if you’re selling bits or advertising, it’s much easier to grow and to get those triple digit growth rates that Inc. Magazine likes to feature at the top of their list, but if you’re selling stuff then it’s a lot harder. Every time you double sales it means you’re kind of roughly doubling the products that you’re sending out.

Kyle: Right, it’s not just what you’re sending out. You have to double the amount of physical inventory that you have. And the problem is that if I increase my inventory by $100,000 in a year, so at the end of the year I have $100,000 more in inventory than I did at the beginning of the year, I have to pay the IRS 40% taxes on that $100,000 inventory that’s sitting on my shelf and I haven’t made any money off of.

So it’s incredibly difficult to grow an e-commerce company bootstrapped fast. You can get venture capital and use that money to buy inventory and grow fast, but doing it bootstrapping is much more difficult.

Andrew: All right, I’m going to come back and ask you about the model and why you didn’t do what everyone else online seems to do, which is run an ad only business and make everything else for free. First, I’ve got to ask you this. I get a lot of entrepreneurs to tell me how much revenue they’re making. It feels to me like Ink does an even better job. Inc.

Magazine gets even more entrepreneurs to do it.

Why do you tell Ink Magazine what your revenues are? [continue]…

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Richard Branson’s advice for entrepreneurs

Posted February 1, 2012 at 12:34 pm

Since Branson founded Virgin in 1970, the company has grown from a small record outlet to a global powerhouse. Can the brand continue its success without him?

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Making a lot of money is a damn good thing…

Posted February 1, 2012 at 3:26 am

by Justin Goff

I’m sure this post will piss a lot of people off.  But if it motivates just 1 person… then it will be well worth it.

And while you’re reading – make sure you look at this as a business advice post.  This isn’t  political. This is NOT about republicans vs. democrats or anything like that.  As a matter of fact, I don’t support either of those parties and frankly despise 99% of politicians.

So unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 6 months, I’m sure you’ve seen the discussions of the 99% vs. the 1% in the United States.  Many of the 99% believe that the wealthiest people in America make too much money, and that more of that should be shared with the lower level workers in companies.

It’s a good rallying cry, and it makes a great political angle to exploit.  And just a few years ago, I probably would have been in the corner cheering on the 99%.

But after a few years of running my own business my views have changed.

One of the biggest changes in my mindset that’s helped me be more successful in every area of my life was getting rid of the victim mentality that I held onto for so long.  I always had an excuse outside of myself for why things in my life were the way they were.  And when you let yourself think like this, you’re capable of rationalizing pretty much anything to make yourself feel better.

But here’s the blunt truth that I’ve learned over the past few years…

The first thing you need to realize if you want to be successful is that no one in this world owes you shit. You don’t deserve anything. 

You were born into this world like 6 billion other people and what you make of your life is 100% dependent upon YOU.   Until you get this through your head, and you fully understand it, you’ll never reach your full potential.

What most people don’t understand is that just [continue]…

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10 fibs you don’t want to tell investors about your business

Posted January 26, 2012 at 7:44 pm

by Erik Sherman

Serial entrepreneur and VC Guy Kawasaki recently wrote a post listing the 10 lies entrepreneurs tell investors. These are classic lines that he hears in virtually every company pitch he sits through.

I’ve added my own analysis below as to how they translate to investors’ ears:

1. “Our projections are conservative.” If you were really conservative with projections, you’d see that conditions could be bad enough to cause your venture could fail. When you pretend that failure is not an option, investors know that you haven’t done your homework.

2. “Jupiter says our market will be $50 billion in 10 years.” It doesn’t matter what any analyst says. Their projections are often wrong. (How many times have they predicted the paperless office?) Even if they aren’t, that doesn’t mean you’ll get any slice of the eventual market size. A handful of giants might split it and leave you with nothing.

3. “Several Fortune 500 companies are set to do business with us.” Either companies have signed a contract or they haven’t. If they haven’t, then they are at best a prospect. Hyping sales efforts is a bad habit to get into.

4. “No one else can do what we’re doing.” No one and nothing is [continue]…

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4 inspiring ideas and the entrepreneurs behind them

Posted January 23, 2012 at 2:08 am

by Aziz Ali

In my last article I wrote a few of my realizations and how I plan to adapt myself in 2012.

In this sequel article I will share some of my personal inspirations, which have shaped me to become who I am, and how I think. I will also share with you one of my latest projects and my reasoning behind the project.

Inspiration #1: Hard Work

Andrew Warner is the founder of Mixergy.com (our EJ review by Leslie of mixergy premium is here), where he interviews successful entrepreneurs on how they built their business(es).

Before Andrew started Mixergy, he ran another company, Bradford & Reed that he sold. Bradford & Reed was generating around $30 Million in revenue. Andrew mentioned that while building that business he would sometimes sleep in the office and tie an alarm clock to his leg to wake him up in the middle of the night.

A year ago when I was running heavy affiliate promotions via email, I would do the same thing. My system had a limitation on the [continue]…

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Starting a business isn’t all unicorns and rainbows

Posted January 10, 2012 at 3:11 am

by Corbett Barr

A reader emailed me this week with a suggestion.

She left her job over a year ago to travel the world and start a business with her partner. After struggling to get her business off the ground for the better part of a year, anxiety got to her.

Despite having significant savings, she became so distracted by money-related fears that she could no longer focus on building the business.

She started look for a job.

She found a great job. Excellent pay, fantastic benefits, flexibility on travel. The ability to live a great lifestyle without being self-employed.

So what’s the problem?

As I was reading this story, I couldn’t help but think about how familiar it sounded to my own story.

I too left a comfortable job to start a business. I too started feeling anxious about living off my modest and hard-earned savings.

My anxiety got so bad I sought medical attention. Stress can be debilitating for entrepreneurs. For some reason I slogged on, despite having no income, no [continue]…

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The secret of Jack Daniel’s whiskey

Posted January 10, 2012 at 1:57 am

by Jim Stengel

In the 140-year life of the Jack Daniel’s, the world’s best-selling whiskey, the liquor’s keepers have managed their old-fashioned brand with a blend of savvy salesmanship and pithy advertising

The character of Jack Daniel’s, the whiskey with the iconic black-and-white label on the equally iconic square bottle, is inextricably bound up in the distinctive character of Jack Daniel, the brand’s founder and first master distiller.

A physically diminutive man only five feet two inches tall, Jack Daniel devoted his outsized personality to the ideal of making a whiskey that, thanks to charcoal filtering and other factors, he could be proud to sell at a premium price.

In the 1870s, Daniel had lots of competitors around Lynchburg, Tenn., in distilling whiskey filtered through charcoal. He wanted his whiskey to represent something special.

So he used only the iron-free cave spring water on his property and the finest grains, mellowed his whiskey by filtering it through ten feet of sugar maple charcoal, and changed the charcoal out more often to produce a more consistent and better whiskey.

Until the 1950s, sales of Jack Daniel’s grew almost entirely through word of mouth, boosted by occasional media attention.

In 1951 Fortune published an article on Jack Daniel’s that chronicled its growth and appeal to such disparate figures as the 1950 Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner, British prime minister Winston Churchill, and Hollywood director John Huston.

A similar 1954 article in True, one of the most popular magazines of its day, put even greater emphasis on its being the favorite drink of entertainment celebrities, such as Frank Sinatra, Jackie Gleason, and Ava Gardner.

Sinatra called Jack Daniel’s “nectar of the gods,” and he sometimes wore a [continue]…

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Meet Ramit Sethi, gen Y’s new personal finance guru

Posted December 19, 2011 at 12:07 am

He is Generation Y’s favorite personal finance adviser. His message: Motivation isn’t enough. Develop a system, and get over yourself.

by Mina Kimes

On a recent afternoon I met with Ramit Sethi, a popular personal finance guru, at a Southeast Asian restaurant in downtown Manhattan. The interview wasn’t going well. Sethi, who is 29 years old and Indian American, is inscrutable.

He doesn’t smile often. His eyebrows, thick and slanted down toward the bridge of his nose, give him a stern look. Over vegetable curry I asked him about his childhood, and he told me that he didn’t remember much.

He shrugged off my questions about his hobbies and his aspirations. It wasn’t until the end of our lunch, when I reached for my debit card, that his eyes lit up.

“Show me!” he barked, pointing at my wallet. When he spotted the Bank of America (BAC) logo peeking out of the billfold, he threw up his hands, appalled. “Oh, my God,” he said.

I cringed. The debit card offers meager rewards. It is linked to a checking account that requires a minimum balance, locking up my money for a paltry interest rate.

The bank was threatening at the time to slap me with a $5 monthly fee. As I yanked my wallet back, Sethi laughed with delight.

I should have seen it coming. Ramit Sethi (pronounced Ruh-MEET Say-tee) is the enfant terrible of the personal finance world. Since starting his website, iwillteachyoutoberich.com, in 2004 as a Stanford undergrad, he has built a cult following.

Nearly 200,000 people subscribe to his newsfeed. His book, also called I Will Teach You to Be Rich, rocketed to No. 1 on Amazon the day it came out. He sells online courses that cost upward of $1,000 and pulls in more than $1 million a year.

Sethi’s advice isn’t terribly unusual: He wants young people to [continue]…

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