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A recession is the best time to invest in startups, but not the best time to raise funds

Invest in early stage startups in a recession

A recession is the perfect time to invest in startups because

1) You get MUCH better deals with valuation
2) Each dollar gets you more stuff
3) A much bigger talent pool (not just labor pool) that are unemployed and ready to move to a startup
4) Competition Haven: large companies are not expanding but shrinking; new companies are scared to start

One of the few problems with startups in a recession, is that they have no cash to take advantage of the benefits. But if you are an investor, you solve that problem! Before your cash was just necessary to not fall behind. Now your cash becomes a competitive advantage!

Startups should not waste time raising money. Focus on being lean and sustainable

Raising money is time consuming and dysfuctional for growth (like digging for water in a dessert). Instead of begging for money from people who don’t want to give you, focus on making your business more valuable.

Be as lean as possible. Your goal is not to run fast like a cheetah and burn out. Your goal is to be a cockroach and survive lava. As time goes by and the economy recovers, you will be the last man standing. Battles are won not by how many enemiese each side has killed, but who has the last men standing.

Viralogy launches two more projects to empower the Blogging Community

Our goal with Viralogy is to provide the platform that helps promote all of the great bloggers in our community. With the Viralogy Blog, we reached out and did video interviews with some amazing bloggers. My co-founder Jun did an extraordinary job at it!

Today we’re launching two more projects to power up the Blogger’s Community: Viralogy Experts and Viralogy Themes:

Viralogy Experts

Viralogy Experts
Continue reading Viralogy launches two more projects to empower the Blogging Community

The Art of Being Bad but Good Enough

The first launch is usually crappy

Whenever we first launch a product or make a business plan, we would be so proud of it and send it to everyone. A month later, we think it’s so crappy that we are embarrassed to send it to anyone. Then we make a super improvement and think it’s the best thing in the world again. After a month of sending it to everyone, we realize it’s so hideous that we don’t want to send it to anyone again. We did that for half a dozen times.

Sometimes we tell ourselves, “If it’s good enough to be sent to everyone during the first revision, it should be good enough when it’s version 4. We don’t need to wait 2 weeks for version 5 to come out.”

Improve your product with your users/customers

If it takes a year to create a good product, taking a year and improving it at home will not be anywhere close to launching it early and using the rest of the time to improve from customer feedback. As long as you are responding to them and improving fast, they will be patient with you.

Even if you disappointed the first 100 people who used the site, you make sure that the Millions of others use a good product later on. Plus, the first 100 will hear it if you do a good job a year later and come back to it.

Take rare criticism seriously

Most of the time, you will hear people saying how good your stuff is. However, pay extra attention when someone says you need to improve, especially when it’s someone with more experience.

People don’t like to tell you negative things, so when you happen to hear one, it might be a rare opportunity for you to realize what are the biggest things you need to work on.

Stress of a Startup CEO

Running a Startup is stressful

Think of running a startup like preparing for a test, in which if you failed, you will get kicked out of school and end up wasting the last 3-4 years of schooling.

Now think of it as a test where if you failed it, a dozen of your friends in the same school will get kicked out and will have wasted 3-4 years of their lives too.

Finally, don’t think about it as a test you are preparing. Think about it as daily pop-quizzes that you don’t know what will be covered, and if don’t do well, you and all those friends will get kicked out of school.

That’s the stress of a Startup CEO.

When you are living for others, it’s hard to care about yourself and friends

I don’t necessarily do a super great job, but I try very hard to pass all the pop-quizzes and solve all the new problems that arise daily.

That’s why if you are my friend, I beg you to be understanding when can’t hang out very often and just have fun with you.

I’m not just doing this for myself. I am doing this for everyone who gave up high paying jobs, a more comfortable life, and better relationships for the vision that I brought them on to. I brought them onto the journey, and I have to try my best to make sure that if we one day do fail, it is not because I only put in 99% of my energy.

The ROI of Social Media

The ROI of Social Media

A lot people are diving into social media marketing but they don’t know what is the ROI. Are sales increasing?

Social Media is about being Social. It’s about Networking

When you go to an event, you are there to network and build relationships. You aren’t making any sales, but you know that if people like you and they know what you do, one day they will find you when they need you. They will also tell their friends when someone asks about similar services.

If you are at an event just trying to close sales, no one will like you. You might get 1-2 more sales, but you piss off everyone and no one wants to associate with you afterwards.

In Social Media, you are there to build brand and relationships, not to convert immediate sales.

At the end of the day, Social Media is like brand building and networking: no immediate ROI, but indispensable for business.

What’s the ROI of a Bill Board?

Companies can’t measure how much ROI their Bill Boards are generating, but they still do it anyway. You’re not supposed to put up a billboard and take it down after 2 weeks if your extra sales has not been able to cover the billboard costs.

Social Media is about building trust and relationships. And that requires patience.

Market to Win, not to Not Lose

Doing a little bit marketing is useless

If you put out 1 radio ad, 1 tv commercial, 1 tweet, 1 blog post, 1 news paper ad, your campaign will be useless and you would just be wasting money. Repeating the same message over and over again on the same platform is how you truly build your brand and market.

Social Media is about ENGAGEMENT

No money to market heavily? Use Social Media. Don’t just create accounts and leave it there. ENGAGE.

Like any social situation, there are guys who are popular, sociable and cool, and there are guys who are antisocial and awkward. Creating a Twitter Account and a blog is just to SHOW UP. Showing up doesn’t mean you are popular. Showing up and behaving like a loser is even worse than not showing up.

Join Social Media, but be prepared to brand yourself correctly, engage, care about your audiance, and create value for everyone.

Market and brand to win. Don’t market just because you want to keep up. Keeping up means you are never ahead.