Here I am almost a year after my first post, trying to write my second post. The lesson here is that writing a blog is tougher than I thought it would be. Minutes after writing the first post I lowered the priority of this blog. Things like securing contracts, pleasing clients, managing staff and keeping the lights on always seem to be pressing, urgent, and unrelenting. Yet I want to keep this blog active, as an outlet for me and hopefully a resource for others. First an update on Barefoot Solutions. Like most other American companies, Q4 was tough - absolutely brutal. Nearly every client I had, including the very reliable long term clients, reduced or eliminated our contracts. Long term projects are a bit of a double edged sword like that. If a site has already launched, or an application is already in use, the development partners are no longer mission critical. When purse strings are tightened, temporarily cutting back or shutting down development is an option that many take. When a business owner is worried about making payroll or laying off staff members, all the "nice to have" features fall right off the list, and rightly so. But with this downturn came many positives. It gave me time to look at fine tuning many of the business processes that needed work. It forced me to, for the first time really, think about marketing our services. Gone are the days where we can rely solely on referrals for new business. While I see that method still being the primary means of making contacts and securing contracts, there are certainly other avenues that need to be pursued and I have been doing my business a disservice by ignoring them. Onto the good news. Q1 is looking great! New projects that were put on hold are starting to move again. Venture capital and investment in IT projects seems to be starting to loosen up.  I seem to fall right in line with a growing trend. This post from the man who inspired me to start this blog, Joel Spolsky, says it all in Is the tech recession over? Seems that this company has experienced something very similar to other software companies. This is reassuring. With that I will close this post. I plan on posting at least once a week from here out, so please stay tuned. More to come.

We live in an interesting time in business. Large enterprise companies and corporations certainly help make the world go round, but startups are becoming more popular and common. Startups are no longer a small sect of business, but rather a formidable player in the overall business game.  As such, people with big ideas today live in one of the best eras for seeing those ideas become a reality and a profitable business venture. The big problem is - how? It can be a challenge to figure out where to start with your big idea, which is why it’s important to seek out experts who have been there and taken ideas from a dream to a success. Our friends at The Startup Garage, a San Diego based consulting company for entrepreneurs and budding startups around the world, have a few tips to get you started: Firmly See - And Be Able To Say - Your Vision You have an idea - but do you have a vision? The adage, “If you can see it, you can achieve it,” couldn’t be more applicable than in a business sense. In 5 years, where do you want to see this idea go? Perhaps you have an idea for a large business that will employ many people. Or maybe you have a tech idea that you’d like to see in the hands of users around your city, or country, or perhaps even the world. Be able to articulately define your vision. This will help get more people on board with what you have been dreaming, and enable you get the right people involved to make it a reality.  Lay Out The Milestones You are well aware there are many steps to take in order to get your idea off the ground - and frankly it can be overwhelming. This is why you need to put together a plan and take a deep breath, knowing that you don’t have to accomplish everything all at the same time. Once you have figured out your vision and are able to clearly communicate it to others, you can start to lay down the footing for the steps required to get there. Who will you want to have on your team? This will come in the team building step. How will you develop your business plan and what is required to achieve it? How much funding do you need right now to get started and how much will you need once it’s going? Sure, these are all steps that can sound daunting on the surface. However once you take the time to write out a road map for your business strategy, you will be writing out a roadmap pointed in the direction of your idea’s success.  Is Your Idea Tech Related? Get a CTO There are many times technology related ideas come to people with little to no tech background. Is this you? That is, you know what you want as an end product, but may not have a clue how to develop it. As Michael Acheatel, President and Project Manager of The Startup Garage puts it, “The biggest mistake that a non-tech entrepreneur can make when launching a tech business is to neglect bringing on a tech savvy co-founder very early on. Otherwise, it is like launching a bakery or restaurant without a chef.” Get the right cooks in the kitchen to create the right product to bring your idea to life. Nail Your Pitch Deck   Now that you have your vision well articulated, your plan in place and are working with the right people, you are ready to start production. Often times production cannot be executed without funding - after all, it takes money to make money. Some tips for how to crush it in your presentations to financial investors include: Clear definition of your business and goals. Avoid too many words - Write your main points but tell them them the details. Relevant illustrations - You aren’t there to entertain, you are there to capture attention and get results. Rough dollar amounts of what you need - Don’t leave them guessing.  Get Experts Involved There are certainly steps you can take on your own in launching your idea from a dream to a reality. But not enough can be said for working with people who have been there and executed on launching successful campaigns to earn and please VC’s and get your product developed, marketed, and out into the public. Assemble a few people you trust who can provide you with the aid you need in getting started - then start shopping for experts who can advise you on the realistic steps you need to take. As previously mentioned, one such group we recommend is The Startup Garage. This is a group of people who have come together to help people with big ideas launch successful startups. They have each either launched their own startups or helped other entrepreneurs find success in their ideas. Do you have an idea you want to make a reality? Check out The Startup Garage here, or ping us at Barefoot Solutions here and we can help you get started.

by: Robert Wang | Pagerank is analagous to the Twitter of the SEO world. Everyone wants a piece of the action, but very few get how to leverage it. In the following post, we discuss what it is, how to use it, and what tactics to avoid. Pagerank Defined: For all its mystery and sinister reputation, it can be explained in one line: how likely is someone to end up on your webpage? Back in the day, Google wanted a way to show how likely it was for a "random surfer" to end up on your webpage. Later on, they realized that no one browses the internet by clicking links randomly, its all driven by intent, and fixed their model. Modern pagerank is the result of that. The more BIG websites linking to your brainchild, the better your pagerank and the better you tend to fare--and I say this with the utmost emphasis on 'tend'.There are plenty of webpages out there with garbage Pagerank that still place within the top 3 search results in their respective fields. Most of the time, however, a link from a popular page will drive significant traffic to your door, thereby increasing the likelihood that your page is visited, and thus increasing Pagerank. Synopsis: You care because Pagerank affects how well your search rank fares and the amount of traffic you receive by proxy.(Granted this is an extremely rough cut explanation: if you want technical details check out this excellent article from hubpages.) The Care and Feeding of Your Pagerank: Building Pagerank is just as much about social networking as it is about avoiding pitfalls. Like all things worth having, Pagerank is something you must accumulate gradually over the course of years through your persistent, attentive pruning. Here are the top 3 ways to grow your page rank: 1. Be social. It's a popularity contest. All the content in the world won't help you if you've got zero web presence. Comment on other sites, send out emails, talk to people for the sake of talking. The links will follow. 2. Name dropping. Whenever you're given the opportunity to refer your readership to a valuable resource or alternative perspective, or even a reference, USE IT. Most web savvy individuals check their analytics compulsively. They'll know when you link to them. The nice ones will link back. 3. Link to yourself. Pagerank flows from page to page, as it does from site to site. You can distribute and grow your Pagerank, tailoring it to the pages you want to get the most exposure by tweaking your internal linking (You can test out any potential effects of link Pagerank sculpting here). Additionally, the more pages that Google indexes from your site, the higher your maximum Pagerank. The fastest way to ensure your entire site gets index is by sending your xml sitemap to Google. Synopsis: Communicate to your web community: if your site sells leather goods, its time to start posting in biker forums. Go to town on the linking process: link to as many outside sources as you can---preferably your newfound biker friends. Submit your sitemap to all the major search engines so they can index your ENTIRE site. Finally, channel your pagerank to the desired pages through creative linking. This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Here are a few obstacles that you'll want to avoid when growing your Pagerank. 1. Buying links. Not gonna lie. It's possible to buy links from big sites to increase your PR. Google usually catches on pretty quickly, however and removes any potential benefits. You're better off saving your money. 2. Linking to shady sites. A good indicator is the lack of pagerank despite being online for awhile. These pages will drag you down with them. Do your homework before you accept those link exchange requests. If the site seems less than legit, just move on. 3. Traffic farming. Creating viral content is one of the fastest ways to generate fresh traffic. However if you rely on it soley, Google will take notice and penalize your efforts. Keep running those campaigns, but do so in moderation. ...And that about wraps up today's lesson. Till next time: stay classy.