Comments on David Alison's Blog: Startup 101: Getting through the tough times

@Mark: I use Blogger. It's free and can handle any...

2008-05-15T09:32:01.043-04:00

@Mark: I use Blogger. It's free and can handle any amount of traffic thrown at it. I experimented with WordPress for a while and that didn't go well at all. If you want to get up a blog with an absolute minimum of fuss Blogger is awesome.

Hi David,Hey, thanks very much for the feedback an...

2008-05-15T09:26:04.706-04:00

Hi David,

Hey, thanks very much for the feedback and the promptness too.
I would love to kill the "music". I think it is not just distracting, but unprofessional. The programmer who built the site is no longer around and I know nothing about flash, but I'll have a look at it and see if I can work out how to remove the sound myself.

As for you comments about focus, I also agree. As it happens I am nearing the end of a large project so hopefully I can make a move to divide the products up into separate domains. I do like that idea. So simple.

One other question.
What application are you using for your blog? I like the clean, simple layout and the snappy response.

Cheers,
Mark Chimes

@Mark: I glanced through your site quickly and can...

2008-05-14T10:14:29.508-04:00

@Mark: I glanced through your site quickly and can tell you that it looks like you are not sure what you want to do so you're hedging your bets and selling products and IT services at the same time, right? Services pays the bills so it needs the same billing as the products if I had to guess.

If you opt to sell products - which I have found to be far superior to selling services - then you need to make your web site more reflective of that. I wouldn't have a single web site property that covers everything you do. Break out your products into a different domain and web site.

With a product focused web site, understand what the goal for the site is. Focus not on the features of the product but on the benefits the product provides to the end user. You can bury the more detailed technical information a bit - don't hit your prospective customers over the head with it.

You also need to focus marketing activities on driving traffic. Your products are pretty vertical, which is a good thing. Make sure you understand the size of the market and how you will be drive that audience to your site.

Looks like you have 5 products there. Can you pick out the one that has the best chance for success and focus your energy on that one? That would help tremendously.

Focus and simple messaging appear to be your challenges. This is from all of 5 minutes of looking through your site so the quality of my feedback is limited but hopefully you'll get some value out of this.

PS - I would kill the music you have playing. Very distracting.

Hi David,Interesting title :-)I have been working ...

2008-05-14T09:30:08.222-04:00

Hi David,
Interesting title :-)

I have been working for myself and running small IT-related businesses for 20 years and I am still wondering when the tough times will end!
If you get a chance (and have the inclination) I would appreciate it if you would stop by www.veracitysystems.com and then pass on any comments you might have in relation to glaring mistakes. We have some excllent products, but just can't find a sustainable way to promote/sell them.

I am enjoying all the topics on your blog. I came originally to check out your experience with .Net development on the Mac and now check your blog regularly.

Cheers from Down Under
Mark Chimes

Excellent post. Thanks for sharing.

2008-04-06T04:51:10.945-04:00

Excellent post. Thanks for sharing.

I like that. Thanks for sharing your entrepreneuri...

2008-03-27T16:22:27.092-04:00

I like that. Thanks for sharing your entrepreneurial experience. I am one of those too... Maybe we could talk about partnering on the next cool web venture...
TheMacThinker
MostOfMyMac.com

@Ammy: I'm not going to delete your comment becaus...

2008-03-25T08:24:50.741-04:00

@Ammy: I'm not going to delete your comment because I'd like to use it as an example. This is an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) post only. How can I tell? Because a quick search of "Thanks for the informative post. I came across (website)" in Google reveals that a number of posts have been planted in other blogs with the exact same paragraph.

The person that did this did a number of things right: it's very relevant to the original post so it's less likely the blog author (that would be me) is going to delete it. That relevance is also going to help with SEO. You've got your core keywords (building confidence) with a link to your site, another great SEO builder.

I don't have a problem at all with others promoting their web site in comments if it's germane to the original post and not blog SPAM. This comment is clearly not that.

As for the site that's actually being referenced? What a piece of interweb crap that is. Seriously. It's all about pimping an audio CD from what I can tell.

Hey David, Vivek Bhaskaran (QuestionPro) here -- G...

2008-03-24T04:51:28.151-04:00

Hey David,
Vivek Bhaskaran (QuestionPro) here -- Good read -- thanks for sharing the "under the hood" story.

I think we also had a lot of fun competing with you guys! I know for one, Bruce and I became pretty good friends after settling an initial pissing contest ;) He then handed me over to Rich (Nadler) after the merger and then I;ve been in touch with Dean since then.

My direct email is vivek[dot]bhaskaran[at]surveyanalytics[dot]com

Would love to chat with you sometime and shoot the breeze. I bet we have some good stories to tell each other!

-v