TechLifeMashup | Entrepreneurs, Social Media, and Technology

Kevin Rose of Digg recently did an interview with the WSJ about the upcoming launch of the new digg.com.  Kevin Rose and his startup have become the poster child for successful internet entrepreneurship post 2004.  While Digg continues to see success, the popular user driven news service has seen a decline over the past 2 years of new improvements and user traffic to the site.  In an effort to get Digg moving forward again, Kevin and team have been working hard behind the scenes to launch a new Digg that promises to incorporate some major changes for the better.  The interview gives some good insight into Kevin’s thought process as an entrepreneur and his plans for the new Digg.com.  Check it out here:

Maisha Walker is a successful blogger and internet entrepreneur who took some time last week to due a live Q&A session with the readers of inc.com.  During the session, Maisha answered a variety of excellent questions related to starting your own business and running a successful blog regardless of your niche.  So if you’re still trying to put some of the pieces together to some of your unanswered questions about entrepreneurship or you just want to build your entrepreneur (or blogging) knowledge up further, I would encourage you to check out the video post below.

Jason Fried of 37Signals (his most recent book Rework) has quickly become known for his agile simple approach to the everyday work environment.  Jason recently gave a video interview with BigThink where he discusses the common mistakes that startups make when going to start a new business.  This is a must watch for anyone looking to start a new business.  Whether you’ve done it before or this is the first time, Jason offers some excellent nuggets of information for you to ponder over:

Gary Vaynerchuk was in New York the other night where he sat down for talk not just about how he became a successful entrepreneur, but also how everyone else out there looking to make their next startup a success can do so.  It’s a great interview with a strong Q&A from the crowd in the second half of the video.  If you’re curious to where internet business is going or looking for advice on your next business, then take a little time to check out the video below:

Small businesses play an important role in the business world today generating more than 60% of all new jobs in the past 15 years!  There’s no doubt that many new entrepreneurs just starting out are going to have a good number of questions regarding small businesses such as the rate of failure, rate of success, average growth rates, and the list goes on.  For these reasons and more I decided to post this very informative infographic on the facts of starting a small business, which I think will answer many of those questions for entrepreneurs just starting out: (click image to enlarge)

Source: Grasshoper

Entrepreneurship is the backbone to societies across the globe.  It’s through all these small business startups (both online and offline) that billions of dollars in revenue are generated and millions of jobs are created.  It might come as a surprise to many that there currently isn’t any type of official day set aside to recognize the bold hard work of this work population.  Grasshopper is a web software company who designs software with small business in mind, and they are the ones behind a growing effort to make November 19, 2010 National Entrepreneurs’ Day across the country.  Whether you’re an entrepreneur yourself or just someone who appreciates all the hard work and positive impact these folks make,  I would strongly encourage you to take a look at entrepreneursday.org and participate in signing the virtual petition get this day made official.

Aaron Patzer of Mint.com created a free online personal finance management system for the everyday person who wants a simple way to manage their finances.  Mint has since seen massive mainstream success, was bought recently by Quicken, and now continues to grow doubling nearly every several months with no sign of slowing down.  Aaron quit his job when he was 25 to venture into entrepreneurship full time.  The journey was long and hard, but he came out of the other end of the tunnel as a successful entrepreneur.  This past Thursday, Aaron Patzer did a Q&A session with online participants answering everything and anything with regards to how he started his business, how he promoted it, and many other great questions any budding entrepreneur could greatly benefit from hearing.  So pull up a chair and take the next hour to get the REAL answers  to all those questions you’ve had about starting your own business.  Check it out here:

Watch live video from Inc. Magazine on Justin.tv

Sometimes we forget that every successful entrepreneur starts at ground zero when launching a new business.  I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember a time when the likes of entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs or Bill Gates weren’t the mega successes they are today.  Knowing that almost all entrepreneurs you read about today came from a place outside the world of entrepreneurship can really help to humanize your own journey to starting your own business and help ground your thoughts in reality instead of making them seem like a distant dream that is too far out of reach.    That’s why I wanted to share a very interesting (and amusing) infographic, which highlights the first jobs of some of today’s most successful entrepreneurs so that you can see how they did in fact come from a very similar place to where you may be right now:

Source: Grasshopper

I’m sure you’ve heard location is everything.  That couldn’t be more true when trying to start your own small business.  Foot traffic for any offline business can make or break your long-term success.  That being the case, selecting an optimal location for your new business to assure you get the high volume of targeted traffic you’re looking for is mission critical to say the least.  So wouldn’t be nice to know what the current list of top cities are for someone looking to start a small business?  Well, entrepreneurs you’re in luck!  Here now are the 2010 top cities for entrepreneurs looking to start a new business based on a variety of different factors:







Source: Grasshopper

Quality SEO development and keyword research is vital to the success of any internet entrepreneur or blogger.  While there are a variety of other factors that come into play when creating a successful business, I think we all can agree that no traffic means no one knows about you exist.  This sole fact makes the importance of SEO keyword research immensely important.  Pat Flynn of the Smart Passive Income blog recently did a live walkthrough demonstration on how to develop and build out both on site and off site SEO for your website from start to finish.  It’s highly detailed and covers all the basics.  So if you’re looking to learn more about SEO, be sure to check out the tutorial video below (embedding disabled – click video to watch):

I should note that the SEO training video above uses a tool called Market Samari, which I recently bought and have come to rely on heavily.  It is a fantastic tool that makes SEO and keyword research much easier.  Enjoy!