Finally, A Site For Microbusiness Owners
Oh. Wait. Never mind. I write a site for home and micro business owners, too.
Anyway, every now and again, I like to introduce a new or small blogger to the big wide world of IttyBiz readers. (While I am not paid to do this, I do accept offers of free babysitting.) Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I give you… Crystal.
Crystal, even though she knew how I felt about free themes, had the balls to get in touch with me anyway. (Although her free theme is not ugly — it’s one of the nicer Brian Gardner ones.) Considering some of the absolutely asinine requests we get here at IttyBiz HQ, I figured that Crystal’s completely non-asinine site deserved a look.
“This site is for the 20 million American business owners running the smallest shops on the smallest budgets. Most of us don’t last three years, but we’re all doing our best to get something started and keep it profitable.
Many of you are like me, flying solo with only one pair of hands to do all the work. Others have two or ten people to help out, but we’re all working with the same limitation: we don’t have deep corporate pockets when it comes to starting up, branching out, or moving forward.
And really—though it would be mighty fine—we don’t need the big money. There are loads of free and affordable tools and services to keep us rolling with the agility that big businesses envy. There are books and websites aplenty on how to leverage our size to get what we want.
Loads. Aplenty. Mountains of stuff, really. More than you have time to read about…
Really.
So I’ve assigned myself the task of sifting through it all and bringing you the best bits. I’ll tell you what works for me, what works for others, and what simply doesn’t work.”
Big Bright Bulb is worth a look, especially for those just starting out on their IttyBiz path. Some starters:
No logo? Find one at the morgue
Dismissing The Doubts That Derail You - Bonus points for this paragraph: “Other times it’s other people’s doubts that knock me off course: “Do people actually read that?” “What’s your backup plan for when this blog thing doesn’t work out?” Lovely.”
Anyway, head on over to her site (especially her cool stuff about microconsulting) and check her out. (Well, don’t literally check her out. There’s no photo anyway, so you couldn’t even if you wanted to, you dirty dog, you.)
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Next Post: On Swearing, Home Business, And Blogging
Naomi - thanks for the link to a very cool site. Lots of good stuff there.
(Hey, who you callin’ dirty, I had a shower today..)
I have a free theme too. Plus I print business stuff on a terrible photocopier that leaves random bits of color on things. And I have silly business cards. I pretty much fail the Ittybiz test completely, but occasionally I curse in a comment so Naomi lets me stay.
Cool blog, I have poked around & I will poke some more. Thanks for pointing us to it.
Naomi,
Nice tip! She’s got some good posts there for the ittiest bizzes. I am not bothered by free themes for startups, there’s a lot to do including figuring out if you have enough to say to keep it up. Kids and businesses (and blogs)–if you wait until you have it all figured out to get started, you’ll never get started.
Regards,
Kelly
So I’m on the phone with a microbiz friend, assessing favorite blog designs for her blog-build next week. We’re jogging from site to site, and of course we visit IttyBiz and BAM! There I am!
She shrieks, I shriek, we babble senselessly for a few, then my hubby arrives home. I give him a welcoming shriek, his eyebrows fly up, and I pronounce we’re celebrating with a dinner out (which is big of me, since it’s his hard earned cash we’re spending these days).
All to say, I appreciate the spotlight in a vast way, and I would have told you sooner but I was out stuffing my face to keep from shrieking :D
Buckets of blessings,
Crystal
ps I am so busted on the photo thing…still haven’t found one with a closed mouth…I’m always caught laughing, eating or talking.
I have another “essential” for microbusiness owners. * Scare tactic ahead * Let’s just suppose that you go away for the weekend and while you’re gone your home is broken into and your computer (and external hard drive) are hauled off into the night by the local crack head. How would your microbusiness cope?
You know you haven’t back up your stuff in weeks. Wanna redo all that work? Could you even recreate that work? The “essential” I refer to is data backup.
I won’t get into all the dirty details but check out Mozy.com. $5 a month for unlimited online data backup. The first one is a loooonnnng one but after that, it automatically performs a daily back up your data in minutes. Trust me. You’ll sleep a lot better.
Because remember, it’s not if a hard drive will crash…it’s when?
Naomi,
Great post highlighting a great site. Crystal’s got some great insights and links to some really great resources.
@Chief Show Officer - Truer words have never been spoken… As a programmer/designer/guy who generally lives out of his computer, there’s no greater nightmare than having a hard drive fail. It only takes once to teach someone just how valuable regularly backing up your system can be.
Crystal,
I really like the site and told you so over there.
Re: Photos. You’ve just answered your own question. Do a collage of eating/laughing/talking. Could have a very welcoming effect. I think author photos are near-essential to get a connection going. As Darren Rowse discovered a few weeks ago, people want to know you, or be you, or fall in love with you (I’m totally paraphrasing his article). So let them.
(Unless you’re Naomi, cuz this is her blog and all.)
Until later,
Kelly
Chief show,
We just switched from eight million zips to flash drives. I gotta agree with you, in whatever way you choose to do it, do it. Last year I lost one laptop that hadn’t been backed up “in a while” and we spent over $500 to extract what we could from it, which was about two-thirds of what hadn’t been backed up, and then spent over a month recreating the 1/3 which was of course the most essential stuff. Now instead of one zip per project, and a half-hour or more to do it, and “I probably did that last time,” it’s three minutes. Flash in, flash out, everything on a little stick. Bonus: I can walk to another computer and see everything there too, if I need it.
Ah, peace of mind.
Regards,
Kelly
Chief, very smart point. I just use Backpack–my main thing is backing up my work, as there is nothing especially interesting about my setup, and I could reinstall the few desktop tools I use without much brain damage.
The flash drive thing is a good idea and would be quicker, one of these days I will pick one up. But for now, every time I update a piece of work, whether it’s for a client or for the product I’m working on, I just bang it onto Backpack when I’m done for the day.
One nice thing about a web-based backup is it will survive if your house burns down, floods, or some other catastrophe that physically wrecks your stuff. Always keep a remote backup–a second flash drive at your office would work too, but then you have to remember to switch them back and forth to keep the remote one current.
[...] where I fess up. Last week, Naomi at IttyBiz featured Big Bright Bulb in an encouraging blog review. At the end she gently busts me on blogging incognito. She did it with humor (as ever!), but it [...]