Breaking News – Man vs Nature

Break, break and break.

Your culture is broken. Your routine is broken. Your whole day is broken. Your evenings are broken. Your life has become one helluva hiatus of incisive breaks.

Fortunately your office gives you only one break a day. But if you even think of enjoying your break you get mercilessly broken. If you prefer to stay at home your existence gets broken.

The news channels keep on breaking their news till nothing remains. They even break the news of a heart broken wife beaten by her booze broken husband. The entertainment channels break you tastelessly when you start finding it palatable. The movie channels break you so much that you give up going any further with it. The sports channels break even the live proceedings and allow so much break virus creep into the small screen that you almost need a Google search to find your favourite players.

This burden of breaks is definitely getting oppressive and dangerous for the living planet. How so? Well, we cannot afford to take a break here. We continue relentlessly so that you get the full point without it being broken.

It is said that nature retaliates when man commits follies on earth. Nature tries to convey messages or warnings first. When these are not heeded nature starts breaking out in full fury. Enough breaks are enough follies. Nature has already demonstrated that in a myriad pattern all over the globe.

In summer coldness creeps in due to incessant rains. If you see the pattern in different parts of the globe including India you will find that 10% to 50% of total seasonal rainfall get delivered in just few hours or in a single day. After that follows a long gap and then again the deluge for one or two days. Floods, earthquakes, fires have acquired added force due to the concentrated efforts. So you sweat in winter, shiver in summer, swim in rainwater and despair of nature’s unseasonal behavior. Deadly surprises lurk in every corner of your planet.

Yes, nature too has started breaking news and taking breaks. It breaks out furiously to break for a long period of rest.

Dare take a break?

Building a Software Company From Scratch

At APconnections, our flagship product, NetEqualizer, is a traffic management and WAN optimization tool. Rather than using compression and caching techniques, NetEqualizer analyzes connections and then doles out bandwidth to them based on preset rules. We look at every connection on the network and compare it to the overall trunk size to determine how to eliminate congestion on the links. NetEqualizer also prevents peer-to-peer traffic from slowing down higher-priority application traffic without shutting down those connections.

When we started the company, we had lots of time, very little cash, some software development skills, and a technology idea. This article covers a couple of bootstrapping pearls that we learned to implement by doing.

Don’t be Afraid to Use Open Source

Using open source technology to develop and commercialize new application software can be an invaluable bootstrapping tool for startup entrepreneurs. It has allowed us to validate new technology with a willing set of early adopters who, in turn, provided us with references and debugging.

We used this huge number of early adopters, who love to try open source applications, to legitimize our application. Further, this large set of commercial “installs” helped us ring out many of the bugs by users who have no grounds to demand perfection.

In addition, we jump-started our products without incurring large development expense. We used open source by starting with technology already in place and extending it, rather than building (or licensing) every piece from scratch.

Using open source code makes at least a portion of our technology publicly available. We use bundling, documentation, and proprietary extensions to make it difficult for larger players to steal our thunder. These will account for over half of development work but can be protected by copyright.

Afraid of copycats? In many cases, nothing could be better than to have a large player copy you. Big players value time to market. If one player clones your work, another may acquire your company to catch up in the market.

The transition from open source users to paying customers is a big jump, requiring traditional sales and marketing. Don’t expect your loyal base of open source beta users to start paying for your product. We use testimonials from this critical mass of users to market to paying customers who are reluctant to be early adopters (see below).

Channels? Use Direct Selling and the Web

Our innovation is a bit of a stretch from existing products and, like most innovations, requires some education of the user. Much of the early advice we received related to picking a sales channel. Just signup reps, resellers, and distributors and revenues will grow.

We found the exact opposite to be true. Priming channels is expensive. And, after we pointed the sales channel at customers, closing the sale and supporting the customer fell back on us anyway. Direct selling is not the path to rapid growth. But as a bootstrapping tool direct selling has rewarded us with loyal customers, better margins, and many fewer returns.

We use the Internet to generate hot leads, but we don’t worry about our Google ranking. They key for us is to get every satisfied customer to post somethig about our product. It probably hasn’t improved our Google ratings but customer comments have surely improved our credibility.

Honest postings to blogs and user groups have significant influence on potential customers. We explain to each customer how important their posting is to our company. We often provide them with a link to a user group or appropriate blog. And, as you know, these blogs stay around forever. Then, when we encounter new potential customers, we suggest that they Google our “brand name” and blog, which always generates a slew of believable testimonials. (Check out our Web site to see some of the ways they use testimonials.)

Using open source code and direct sales are surely out-of-step with popular ideas for growing technology companies, especially those funded by equity investors. But they worked very well for us as we grew our company with limited resources to positive cash flow and beyond.

Steps To Follow When Setting Up A Secure Marketing Business Online

Because of the recession the country is experiencing nowadays, many people are also strapped for cash and find ways and means to lift them from their financial burden. As such, they turn their minds on home marketing business, an online business which they find the easiest to do judging from the situation they are in. But they will find out later after trying to put up an online business of their own, that they are left hanging as they are unsure of their next step after the commencement. It is because, many programs on the Net that promises good things are only aggressive to entertain customers at the beginning but are not helpful in following them up at all. Here are some reminders to be wary of such programs and learn the proper steps in putting up your own Internet business online.

  1. Research and find out whether or not the businesses offered online are reputable. These are easily tracked because of the positive reviews they are receiving from customers posted in their pages. If you are unsure of the reviews, get feedback from past customers who are more reliable sources than the reviews read online.
  2. Evaluate whether or not the payment systems that they are using are also reliable. Sometimes, sending money through sites like PayPal lets you think they are already safe and secure. Bear in mind that PayPal only acts as a middleman who can investigate protests but it does not mean the payment method the Internet business company uses is legitimate.
  3. Assess if the company is also offering money-back guarantee and discloses it through the Net when you are unsure of the program you are using. This way, you will get a full refund of your money should you discover that the program is not meant for you. This compensation and privacy policies should be properly posted for tracking otherwise they are not to be relied upon.

These are healthy reminders to follow when trying to find a legitimate business online that can help you put up your own secure marketing business in no time.

Making Money Online – Several Biz Ideas To Focus On

There are many ways to make money online, but the following three are some of the best. You need to find something you like in order to be successful.

Online money making is an area where a lot of secrets are hidden. If you want to make money quickly you should learn some of the secrets others already know. Get ready to find payment for your work by taking the information below and turning it into an advantage for you.

Benefits of online money making are that you can do it from home, at your convenience, and you do not have to invest in an idea. You can work with contracts in order to gain money for the work you turn in. The work can be part time too!

The following 3 key points will help you find online money making positions:

Information or Knowledge Sales:

Selling products online can be profitable, but what if you would rather not spend money buying the products you hope to sell? You can sell information and knowledge about other products that are online by contracting with that company to create their content. You can also work with affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is the most sought after job where products are sold and you use information to do so. You will need to have marketing skills for affiliate marketing in order to get a commission from the sales of products and information.

Blogging:

People like to share information on any number of topics. The key is to get paid for it. You might wonder how a blogger can actually earn money. If you do then you are in the right place. Through affiliate marketing or Google AdSense you can post ads on your blog site and start reaping the rewards. You get paid for ads on your site when a visitor clicks through to the link that ad offers. The more visitors you have the better ads you usually get.

Freelance Writing:

Writing might be a passion for you. If it is now is the time to start making money from this hobby. Content writing is required for numerous online websites. People that work as freelance writers may create over 30,000 words in one month. All you have to do is have the skills, time management, and work within the deadlines given.

Market the skills you have in order to earn money. It is far better to use what you already know to earn money online or at least what you can easily pick up.