Will Donaldson is putting together a really interesting project with the Tulane Entrepreneur’s Association.  He’s interviewing different business people and soliciting their knowledge for a book that TEA is compiling.  I (finally) got mine back to him today.  Here it is:

1. I’ve got a good idea for a new startup. How can I go about determining the market for it?

Start with the market.  The best ideas for startups come from people who are intimately familiar with a market through personal work experience.  They see a problem, and they know what it would take to solve it.  Some of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made came when I thought of a great idea that I could build, but I didn’t think about whether anyone wanted it.  Ask yourself: Is your product a vitamin or a painkiller?  Vitamins aren’t nearly as successful as painkillers.

2. What are some cost effective ways to start spreading awareness of a new product?

Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad, says “Marketing is a tax you pay for being unremarkable.” While I don’t fully agree, it sure helps to make a great product and solve a real problem. The most cost effective way of spreading the word about your product is to develop an audience through social media and blogging.  I’ve had success being transparent about product development online and talking about what I’m doing.  Don’t think of it as marketing, think of it as a conversation about what you are building.  People want to root for you, so share your story.  But they don’t want to be pitched to, so be yourself, be genuine, share the ups and downs.  Specific outlets I use to get the word out cost effectively are: my blog, video posts on YouTube, Twitter, & Facebook.

3. For a beginner, how can I use the internet to make this job easier?

The internet can make you 10x more productive than you are now.  Read Getting Real by 37 Signals, the bible for the productive web worker.   Collaborate virtually with your team through tools like Basecamp and Skype (see all the tools that we use), don’t meet in person unless you need to.  I am amazed when I see people who open their email once a week and don’t use the internet to do anything but shop.  Get efficient and comfortable working online and you will eat their lunch in business. You’ll be amazed how much work you can get done.

4. What about allocation? Say I can only dedicate between $5,000 and $10,000 to the marketing for a new project, what are the must-haves? Is there a way to methodically choose what’s best?

For allocating a marketing budget, you need to figure out who you are trying to reach, where they are, and your goal.  Christopher Skinner taught me about the five phases of the customer journey: awareness, consideration, inquiry, purchase, re-purchase. A marketing strategy should consider each step and move the customer through it.  If you are marketing a product that people are searching for (consideration), then run a Google Adwords PPC campaign.  If you have a product that they have never heard of and you need to build awareness, maybe a Facebook campaign targeted at your demographic makes sense.  The most important thing about any online campaign is to track everything. You can truly calculate ROI online in a way that isn’t possible offline.  If you aren’t doing it, you’re not using all the tools available to you.

5. What about setting up a website? What should I look for?

Setting up a website is a great first step for your business.  To get started for free, build a blog using WordPress or a site using Synthasite or SnapPages. I know a small business in New Orleans that has had a web developer working on a website for them for 2.5 years, who knows what they’ll pay for it when its completed.  They could build one for themselves in one hour using these services for FREE.  The biggest thing to keep in mind when building a website is content creation and setting a goal.  What do you want a user visiting your website to do?  What action?  Sign up for a newsletter? Buy something? Call you?  Design an experience that makes it clear for the user what to do.  I see so many websites that are content heavy with boring blah blah blah content about the company.  Who cares.  Talk to your customer, not about yourself.

6. Does CPC marketing make sense?

Cost per click (CPC) marketing is extremely effective and powerful.  It can take a while to learn, but it is immediate.  Unlike SEO, you can get traffic to your website right now, if you are willing to pay for it.  I helped Tom Fischmann of Dash Dudes launch a CPC today.  He sells a product for $19.95.  Let’s say his cost per click for keywords is 10 cents.  Then let’s say one of every 30 visitors to his site buys his product.  His cost-per-conversion is $3 and he’s selling a $20 product.  He’s laughing all the way to the bank.  CPC is something that you can really dial in and generate quality traffic if you take the time to optimize a campaign.

7. How do I start a PR strategy?

I believe you should be your own PR agent.  Every dime I’ve personally spent on PR has been a waste.  Now, some would beg to differ, but I think you are your own best advocate.  People want to hear from you, the CEO, not a PR firm.  The best PR strategy I can give you doesn’t cost a dime.  Blog. Twitter. Get yourself out there, have a voice.  Be interesting.  Be opinionated.

8. Are there any rules of thumb that you think people don’t readily know about email marketing?

Email marketing is one of the most overlooked methods of marketing.  As hard as you work on your website and as much great content as you write on your blog, there is nothing more powerful than showing up in 1000 inboxes.  Think about it, how much time do you spend on email.  And if email newsletters are from people you care about or are interested in, you’ll read them.  My beliefs are: text only – don’t use images, short and concise, clear call to action, always have an easy unsubscribe method.  Don’t spam people, if someone opts-off your list, don’t put them back on.

9. Where should I look for more guidance?

The web is a treasure trove of information for anything you want to learn.  Spend 30 min reading the top three articles you find for “SEO 101” and you’ll be as armed to optimize your own site as 50% of the SEO firms out there.  There is so much in business that people are happy to charge you thousands of dollars for, but you seriously can do it yourself.

10. What am I missing?

Go for it!  Launch a business.  There is nothing more satisfying than seeing your name on a business card with CEO under it.  There has never been a better time to launch a business efficiently and effectively.  You will have ups and downs, you will fail more than you succeed.  Keep at it.  Starting a business while I was in school getting my MBA was the best decision I ever made.  I financed my first company on Stafford Student Loans.  You can too.

Is this helpful to you?  Something I missed or something you disagree with?  Hit me up in the comments.

We opened the contest today to design the logo for Launch Pad over at Crowdspring.  If you’re interested, we’d love to see what you’ve got. Design the winning logo and win $250.

Check out the details for the project and requirements.   We can’t wait to see what you’ve got.

Paul Graham is famous for being ahead of the curve.  After the first dot.com crash, he founded Y Combinator, an internet incubator, based on the fact that the startups he was seeing needed little more than than Ramen soup money to get off the ground.

Now he’s wondering if this economic downturn is going to deal a deathblow to the traditional VC model, something I’ve wondered. I think it is entirely possible.  Entrepreneurs need to consider:

• how much revenue gets you to profitability?
• how much gets you to sustainability?
• what if you spend your time and energy getting to customer #1 and beyond instead of raising capital?

With the shuttered VC and credit markets, a lot more startups might be working on building their business rather than raising capital, and it might have unintended consequences. Graham writes:

The reason startups no longer depend so much on VCs is one that everyone in the startup business knows by now: it has gotten much cheaper to start a startup. There are four main reasons: Moore’s law has made hardware cheap; open source has made software free; the web has made marketing and distribution free; and more powerful programming languages mean development teams can be smaller. These changes have pushed the cost of starting a startup down into the noise. In a lot of startups—probaby most startups funded by Y Combinator—the biggest expense is simply the founders’ living expenses. We’ve had startups that were profitable on revenues of $3000 a month.

$3000 is insignificant as revenues go. Why should anyone care about a startup making $3000 a month? Because, although insignificant as revenue, this amount of money can change a startup’s funding situation completely.

There are some businesses that can’t be built without funding.  There are many more that you can bootstrap if you’re willing too.  Now’s the time to try.  If you can get to sustainability without investment, you’re in the driver’s seat.

We got our submission in today for 504ward.  We’re excited to be a part of the competition and ready to rock on moving the Launch Pad forward.  We’ve been somewhat under the radar with this project until now.  Starting today, we’re looking for local New Orleans entrepreneurs who want to get out of their bedroom and into a stimulating, collaborative and fun environment without the burden of traditional commercial leases.

Launch Pad – 504ward Business Competion Submission from Chris Schultz on Vimeo.

Startup businesses are born in a spare bedroom or college dorm. Once off the ground, entrepreneurs need an office for legitimacy and support, but find traditional commercial office leases daunting and expensive. The Launch Pad is a flexible office space for startup companies. We provide short-term leases, furnished offices, a support staff and multiple networking and educational events to get a new business off the ground.

Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. The core value Launch Pad provides is the interaction, networking, and mentoring among entrepreneurs in a modern workspace. Our office space includes access to the services that all startups need so entrepreneurs can focus on their core competencies and build viable businesses.

Launch Pad is the brainchild of entrepreneurs who are intimately aware of the startup culture in places like New York, San Francisco and Austin. Launch Pad will be New Orleans hub for events like Startup School, BarCamp, Co-working, Net2NO. Launch Pad will thrust New Orleans into consideration for entrepreneurs nationwide deciding where to start businesses.

Want in on Launch Pad? Got feedback on what would make it work for you? We want to hear from you.  Contact us today for more details.

It is coming down to the wire.  I’m working hard on the final edits on our exec summary, how about you?

I saw Jessica White from 504ward last night, and she is begging cajoling arm-twisting strongly encouraging all Startup School attendees to get their plans submitted.

We all worked hard over the last few weeks to get our brilliant business ideas conceptualized, fortified, and most importantly written down.  Now its time to take that final step and make sure you’re formatted correctly, you have your 54 sec YouTube pitch, and send it off to 504ward.

I really hope that everyone who participated in Startup School and anyone who is on the fence about giving their business plan the final push to get it in to 504ward will get it done in the next 36 hrs.  Damien Lamanna is convinced that the winner is going to be from Net2NO.  I hope the winner is from New Orleans and maybe even attended Startup School.

While I’m trying to polish up my own plan with Will & Barre, I am available for quick phone calls if anyone needs any moral support to get over the hump.

It’s final push time gang.  Let’s get it done.

Looking for something to do tomorrow night?  Love New Orleans, but live in the Bay area? Well today is your lucky day.

The Idea Village will be doing a presentation at the Googleplex titled “New Orleans Uncovered: Revitalization, Reinvention and You.”

Tim Williamson, Lauren Baum from Idea Village, and Robbie Vitrano from Trumpet, have traveled out to California to spread some NOLA love and tell our story.  Lucky dukkys.

In case you weren’t aware, the 504ward business competition has been supported by Google and the video portion of the submission is a YouTube video.  Just two more days to get your app in.

Details after the jump.

Also:

If you’re not able to jet out to San Fran to catch this presentation, why not catch a great presentation by our very search engine guru, Christopher Skinner from MakeBuzz. He’ll be presenting at Net2NO meeting tonight, so be sure to be there if you can’t jet off to SF. RSVP now.

Please join members of Google.org and The Black Googlers Network,  for an interactive discussion about the untold story of New Orleans as Google proudly welcomes The Idea Village to the Googleplex in Mountain View at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, December 3rd for a talk entitled “New Orleans Uncovered: Revitalization, Reinvention and You.” A hosted reception will immediately follow.

The Idea Village is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a mission to sow the seeds of change through innovation and entrepreneurship in the New Orleans region by advocating for a culture of innovation and providing strategy, talent and resources to high impact ventures. They are spearheading innovative change in the trenches of New Orleans, a great American city recently named by BusinessWeek as one of the best places to ride out the recession. Challenges in New Orleans are not unique but if they can be solved there, they will pay dividends to our global community for generations to come.

Dozens of Googlers, including members of Google.org and BGN, were fortunate enough to assist with the development and launch of their 504ward $200,00 Business Plan Competition launched on September 25, 2008. This competition offers $100,000 cash and $100,000 in professional resources to the entrepreneur who can best retain the 3,000+ young people who have flocked to New Orleans with dual aspirations of sparking social change and advancing their careers in the living laboratory of post-Katrina New Orleans.

While on the West Coast, The Idea Village is inspiring a network of innovative talent to contribute to the reinvention of a great American city and providing tangible, immediate opportunities to directly engage in this historical moment.

LOCATION:
Google Headquarters
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, California 94043

MAP:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=1600+Amphitheatre+Pkwy,+Mountain+View,+California+94043&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=60.54737,111.445312&ie=UTF8&z=17&g=1600+Amphitheatre+Pkwy,+Mountain+View,+California+94043&iwloc=addr

CHECK-IN:
Please check-in at the Lobby of Building 41 starting at 5:30 p.m. A Registration Table will be set up to check-in guests.

RSVP:
Please RSVP Tara Canobbio, tcanobbio@google.com by Tuesday, December 2nd

This event is open to invitees and their guests interested in the recovery and development of the Greater New Orleans area since Hurricane Katrina. We hope you are able to join us for this important discussion and find out how YOU can change the world – starting in New Orleans.

You: Make women swoon and grown men cry with your website designs (or maybe vice versa).  More importantly you “get” web usability and clean, creative design.  Your designs are bleeding edge, pushing the envelope from Web 2.0 to the future.

• xhtml/css experience not necessary, but must have a solid understanding for designing for the web.
• ability to design web sites where content is the primary focus and graphics engage users to experience the content.
• post-Web 2.0
• clean, crisp and detailed down to icons, bullets, character spacing and line heights

Voodoo Ventures: Looking for a web designer for a specific project.  This is a contract gig, but we hope to establish a long-term relationship, as we have a lot of work that comes through Voodoo.

• Requirements: Produce layered PSD’s for a website based on wireframes & concepts we provide.
• Location: Anywhere. Preference = New Orleans > Louisiana > Anywhere
• Compensation: We’ll provide requirements and will need a project cost from you.

If you’re interested, send us the following:

• Portfolio
• Hourly rate

Get involved with this cool project we are working on.  We’re doing some cool things and want you to be a part of it. Don’t be shy, apply.  We want to see what you’ve got. Contact Mary Ann at maryann@voodooventures.com or apply on Hirefly today.  Be sure to include the above to be considered.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the first night of Startup School last Thursday. It was a great event and I think everyone is pretty jazzed about the 504ward competition and the enthusiasm of the participants who are all going to be entering great biz plans in it.

We had a great lineup of speakers: Me, John Laurie from UNO, Richard Montgomery from VCE Capital, Chris Reade from Carrollton Technology Partners, and the inimitable local film auteur Ben Reece from Deltree.

Some highlights:

• My presentation is embedded below, but I focused on finding and communicating the reason your business needs to be in New Orleans.
• John emphasized the need not to work backwards.  You really should have your whole plan done before you write your exec summary.  Bios, not resumes.  Financial highlights, but not full pro-forma for the exec summary.
• Richard spoke to the difference between what he views as a fundable company, and the goals of 504ward.  He is looking for high-growth companies that can do $50 mil in sales in 10 years.  While those companies are a fit for 504ward, so are sustainable “lifestyle” companies, that generally aren’t able to attract VC capital.
• Chris got everyone fired up with turning their plan into reality.  He spoke of the pitfalls of expensive office space and friends as partners.  He also recommended an LLC for most companies and talked about filing online through the Secretary of State’s website.  He recommended having a good lawyer to make sure you have a good operating agreement if you have partners.
• Ben got people thinking about their video submission.  It was agreed that everyone should do one because its an opportunity to forge an emotional connection with the panel of judges.

We’ve prepared an extensive collection of business plan resources and added them to our wiki.

On Friday, Jessica White of the Idea Village invited me to join her and Leslie Jacobs who is behind 504ward on the Garland Robinette show to talk about the entreprenuerial community here in New Orleans.  You can listen to the podcast of the interview online on the WWL site.

Idea Village asked me to emphasize the following points with regards to what they are looking for in 504ward submissions.  I wanted to post them here for anyone who wasn’t able to be there:

• You must be a sustainable business
• You must prove how you retain the 23 – 34 year old demographic
• The competition is not about attracting new people but about the retain the people currently in New Orleans

So, thanks to everyone for making it such a great event.  The second part of the workshop series is this Saturday, Nov 22 9am-noon.  We’ll be doing “speed dating” work-shopping of business plans.  More details on the wiki.  If you’re not registered yet, sign up and attend.

There are a couple great events coming up for the entrepreneurship community in NOLA that you should take advantage of.  I’m excited about going.  Voodoo Ventures’ own Will Donaldson has been instrumental in organizing these in his role as president of the Tulane Entrepreneurship Association.

Tulane Entrepreneurs’ Fall Workshop

Tulane’s Uptown campus on Friday November 21st from 9am-12:30pm.

The event will focus on social enterprises and feature:

• Andrea Chen of Social Entrepreneurs of New Orleans
• Stephen Shelton of the Louisiana CleanTech Network
• Jackie Richard of Louisiana Cultural Economy Foundation
• Nadiyah Morris of the Office of Lt. Gov. for Social Entrepreneurship
• Carol Bebelle of the Ashe Cultural Arts Center

Followed by an interactive business planning workshop on Sambazon, a social enterprise, featuring John Elstrott, Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship, Executive Director of the Levy-Rosenblum Institute for Entrepreneurship and Lead Director of Whole Foods Market.

RSVP at http://tea.tulane.edu. Coffee and bagels will be served at 9am and the program will begin at 9:30am. The program is limited to 60 participants.

Panel Discussion: “The New New Orleans for Entrepreneurs: Opportunities for Entrepreneurship”

Tulane’s Uptown campus on Monday, November 24th from 5:00 – 7:30pm.

• Stephen Moret – Secretary of Louisiana Economic Development
• John E Koerner III - Koerner Capital
• Pres Kabacoff – CEO & Chairman, HRI Properties
• Ashton Ryan, Jr. - CEO & Chairman, First NBC Bank
• Crichton Brown – Managing Director, Advantage Capital

To see more detail please go to the Speaker Series page.

I definitely plan to attend these events and highly recommend them to the NOLA startup community.

UPDATED: Due to high demand, we extended Startup School from eight to sixteen people.  4 tickets are available right now.

There is a lot of excitement around the upcoming 504ward and Tulane Entrepreneur Association business plan competitions. I have had many people contact me excited to enter and looking for direction with biz plans.  I think it would be really helpful for all of us in the New Orleans entrepreneurship community to have a workshop to review and strengthen the biz plans we all plan to enter in these competitions. So, let’s do it!

Part 1: Business Plans 101

• Thursday, November 13th – 5:30 – 7:30 pm
• Voodoo Ventures Offices
• Learn how to write a winning business plan. Chris Schultz and other coaches will lead a group discussion and share resources about the fundamentals of a sound business plans. Learn about the sections you should cover, how to prepare financial pro-forma’s, and pitfalls to avoid.
• Resources: We’ll provide a list of valuable resources online to help you craft that perfect plan.
• Prepare: Come ready to give your “elevator pitch” to everyone in the room.  It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just be ready to pitch.
• Bonus: Filmmaker Benjamin Reece will give a session on making a compelling video submission for 504ward.

Part 2: Workshop Your Business Plan

• Saturday, November 22nd – 9am – 12pm
• Voodoo Ventures Offices
• Workshop your plan with experts.  We will have a “speed dating” sessions with biz plan coaches who are local entrepreneurs and VC’s.  You will have a session with each of them to workshop your plan, review strengths/weaknesses and get feedback on your idea.  If you have a video submission storyboarded ready, you will get the opportunity to review that with filmmaker, Ben Reece.
• Prepare: Come ready with a draft of your executive summary or the whole plan if you’ve got it.  Entering a video? Bring any ideas or storyboarding.

Limited Space

Startup school is free and will be limited to eight ( 8 ) twelve (12) sixteen (16) people.  Sign up below, first come first served.  We are doing this in order to ensure that the enviroment is small enough that everyone who takes part really gets a lot of value out of the training.

Ready to get schooled?  Get more details and sign up for Startup School.