Startupsters.com

Through my involvement with Joomla!America I have been in contact with several different kinds of organisations. One of the websites we are hosting and doing some maintenance work on, is an online Jewelry shop. I often wondered what would possess someone to buy jewelry (such a personal item) online.

And therein lies the tale. People will buy online although they seem to want to understand that there is a physical presense somewhere. To give an example; although our Client is USA based, he was contacted, by e-mail, by a potential Client to whom he responded answering all the questions asked. Some 6 months later, he received another e-mail from the Client saying something to the effect: “hey you remember I wrote to you some months ago and sorry for the delay…but I will be in New York in a few weeks and I want to pop by and complete the deal….”

That deal was worth $5.000. Read more….. »

Rui Miguel and I recently had a meeting with a Client who has been developing an online catalogue where he proposes to sell (and the list is impressive): Books, Wine, Mobile Telephones, Accessories thereof, etc, etc, etc…

Now, what was interesting was the fact that the Client had been working on the site for the last 5 years…yes, that’s 5 years…at least the initial idea started then and he’s been in the process of continual development. Miguel and I immediately noted the obvious: he’s too much of a perfectionist (OK, so are we but the Internet is forgiving to some mistakes); he can’t complete the catalogue and never will, as the product range is too wide, so that by the time its completed, the products are out of date; he’s not paying attention to the competition; nor for that matter the technological development… Read more….. »

I had the pleasure of going to a wedding recently, where I got talking to one of my good friends about his business. Seems he’s been going through all sorts of turbulence in his business life as a result of his long time partner, which thankfully was coming to an end although not totally resolved.

John (it’s not his name) is a great builder and works like the proverbial horse. He has a property development company and a building company, which buys land, builds buildings and then sell them. He actually works from about 7am every day till 7pm every day…and that includes most weekends. He simply loves what he does. And apart from the stupidity of his ahole partner, things have gone well for him. And he really deserves it. So he has now embarked on his first development under his own name. Read more….. »