I’m so excited to say that the first official video of Babble Soft Applications went live today on DadLabs – Gear Daddy. I have wanted to do a video demonstration of our applications for a long time now but I was cycling through my entrepreneurial hats so fast, that I didn’t have the time or money to do a really nice one. So now thanks to all the cool dads at DadLabs we have our very first one and it cost me some beers was relatively free!
Go to their site and please Digg/Stumble the post if you like it. They are fellow entrepreneurs and the more hits/visits they get to their site the more loved they feel and more importantly the more cool advertisers they can attract. Sitter City is their sponsor this week. Plus they always make me laugh which is one of my 2008 goals! If you for some reason you need even more incentive to go to their site, I’ve embedded the video below:
I also just found out that it’s on YouTube also. So you can check it out there too:
One of the many hats an entrepreneur wears is the “getting great press mentions” hat. It’s typically a frustrating process since unless you happen to know each editor personally, chances are quite high they will hit ‘delete’ or not return your messages thereby not giving you a chance to tell your wonderful, glorious story. This seems even more true in the baby/new parent industry because there are a bunch of cool new products released every day in this industry and the editors are inundated with pitches.
I know it must be tough for editors because they get so many thousands of emails from everyone wanting them to write a story about what they believe is TNBT (i.e., The Next Big Thing). But it’s tough for us entrepreneurs to get noticed too! Since we are spending money on SEO, I decided to take on doing the traditional PR work myself until we raise funds. This means emails and follow up calls to editors at places like Parenting Magazine, Twins Magazine, Parents, Pregnancy, etc., etc. Only the most popular magazines for parents….
That’s why our SEO firm has also submitted it for distribution in free press release avenues on the Internet which should drive more traffic to our site or at least build up some of our back links.
The problem with wearing so many hats is that you don’t have the time to wear one long enough to spend the required, necessary time to really dig in deep and make a big impact. I wonder what color the press release hat is?
We’ve all heard that saying. Once you learn how to ride a bike, you never forget. I experienced the sensation ‘of riding a bike’ for the first time as a parent this weekend. Our 5 ½ year old son rode on his own. He and I were both exhilarated! I’m not sure who was more excited.
He hadn’t got on his bike since last year due to Holidays and weather and us being busy. Plus since we are city-folk for some reason we don’t seem to have a lot of time to practice bike riding.
On Saturday he saw his dad go for a bike ride and he wanted to go. I told him I would take him later that afternoon. We got him geared up and on his bike. I walked next to him and held the handle bars for the first runs. Then I slowly let go and held onto the back of his shirt. He kept telling me not to let go but then slowly I let go and he didn’t realize it. I told him “you are doing it on your own!” He started laughing, talking, and smiling until he rode up on someone’s driveway and stumbled off the bike. He did it several more times on Saturday and then again on Sunday, where he went even further.
He “got it!” Now his mind and his body know what the sensation is of riding on his own. There is no looking back. I felt so proud and the image of him riding away from my outstretched hand will forever be etched in my brain. Oh and fortunately in a digital picture and also in a video.
“It’s like riding a bike.” Right now I’m hoping starting another business, raising funds, and all the other fun stuff I’m about to do is like riding a bike. Some things are easier and you know what to focus on and what not to but there are so many moving parts that maybe if I just keep repeating in my head “It’s like riding a bike” I won’t fall down as much or I guess I’ll be able to pick myself up faster and get right back on!
As some of you know we signed up with a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firm, SpryDev, back in mid-December. It’s been a great process and I already wish that we had our site designed with SEO in mind to being with. We are making several design, layout, menu, text, etc. changes that are very time consuming. I wish they could all be done overnight but given all of our time constraints unfortunately they can’t!
I think my biggest learning experience (note to self) so far is to have an SEO expert involved during the design of the site. It apparently will save a lot of time later. Now we won’t be sure if any of these changes will actually result in increased conversions for some time but so far they make sense to me. Apparently seeing results overnight doesn’t happen just like we can’t make all the changes overnight. Sigh.
The good news is in the past month we have seen a slight increase in the number of visitors. We’ve also seen more people finding us based on organic search (i.e., search terms in Google) versus a direct landing. Most people still find the Babble Soft site by searching on terms like Babble Soft, Baby Insights, Aruni (my name), etc. which is what I’m calling a direct landing. Since I’m not Britney Spears or some other famous person, it doesn’t really do us much good for people to be searching on my name! Now a noticeable few are finding us with relevant keywords.
Here are some of things we have done or are still working on:
Changing our menu navigation and adding cool buttons. All in the name of increasing conversion. Brian Massey who blogs at Customer Chaos is their conversion specialist and he’s given us some great recommendations that will hopefully pay off big time. Interestingly, he just did a great post called Here’s the Truth About Building Your Website that is pretty accurate.
Setting up a phone number to display on our site (should have that up soon – I need to record a great greeting message)
Adding Page Titles and Descriptions to each page. I can’t believe we hadn’t done that. DOH!! I guess that’s why they get the big bucks and further reason why we should have involved an SEO expert during the design phase of the site.
Building links.
Submitting articles, press releases, and other stuff to all the various sites that love them as much as we do.
Rose, our project manager at SpryDev seems to be very patient since I email her night and day asking her what else we can do and how fast we can do it. When it’s your personal credit card that gets hit each month you want to do everything possible to start seeing sales come in to offset those expenses.
Did I know that we would have to make some changes to our site going in? Yes, of course. Did I realize the extent of the changes, the time it would take to make them, and that cash wouldn’t start rolling in the door 10 seconds after we made each change? Not so much.
If you are interested in learning more about “What They Don’t Tell You About SEO,” go ahead and subscribe to this blog. If you know more about SEO than I do (chances are you do), then leave a comment and share your wonderful wisdom with the rest of us!
Picture by Sandy Blanchard Choosing a corporate attorney is an interesting endeavor. I have avoided using attorney’s for Babble Soft in the past because a) they are very expensive, b) sometimes they make you feel like they need to review everything you do for fear of some horrible thing happening, and c) I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my life what my strategic business plan was. Since I have a new business strategy and have decided to raise funds, an attorney is a must have.
I’ve met with a couple and spoken to a few more. The first I spoke to was the attorney at my first company and although I would love to work with her we both agreed that the firm she is at now is catered more for more established businesses (i.e., very, very expensive). It is so much better to understand that up front because we have worked on many outside projects together, and I consider her a friend.
The second attorney I spoke to was referred by another entrepreneur in the area. I liked her and her partner but a few things gave me pause. One potential area of risk is the fact we might end up doing business with the other entrepreneur’s company which might result in a conflict of interest. They had good rates and good experience but did not have an in-house tax attorney. Since Babble Soft is currently an LLC and we’d like to continue as an LLC for at least our first round of financing, having someone who understands the tax implications could be important.
The third attorney I met had done some pro-bono work for me a year or so ago because I guess he knew I couldn’t afford his services at the time. What I liked about him is that he does have a tax attorney in his firm, has represented several small companies in the technology space, one of my business Advisor’s has worked with him in the past, he was on time for our meeting, said he could help with introductions to potential investors, and he sent a brief follow-up note after our meeting expressing his interest in working with me. However, his rate is $125/hour more than the attorneys at the second firm I spoke with!
Special thanks to @princess_belle who blogs at GloKay, @chelpixie who blogs at Chelpixie.com, and LPT who blogs at Direct2Dell who tweeted me things to think about and questions to ask the attorneys. I plan on making a decision in the next couple of weeks so if you have attorney stories or suggestions to share with me or the blogosphere, please leave a comment. Thank you!
I babble about business, babies, and parenthood on this blog, so those of you who come here to read my posts on entrepreneurship but do not have babies, please forward this post to your friends and family who do have babies. For those who have babies and dabble in business, these tips might be right up your alley. If you have babies and have no interest in business, then send it on to the folks you know who are knee-deep in business and encourage them to have a baby!
Today’s guest baby tip is written by one of my favorite dads, Daddy Clay. Clay is the founder and Chief Creative Officer of DadLabs. DadLabs creates all sorts of cool, informational, not-so-informational, and downright hilarious videos about being a father in this new era of “let’s share parenting responsibilities, shall we?” On Monday’s they have a new video in The Lab, on Tuesday’s they are in The Lounge, on Wednesday’s they have Daditude (Daddy Owen is pretending to be pregnant by wearing a pregnancy belly), and on Thursday’s they are all about Gear Daddy. Check them out!
Welcome any and all baby showers/keggers!
For lots of guys, as soon as the excitement of a positive pregnancy test wears off, the first concern is about money – well maybe the second concern – the first concern we’ll deal with in another post. But money is definitely a big worry. This concern hits an early peak on the first visit to the baby Mega-store – usually a scouting mission. There, a guy silently tallies up the expenses of all the items on the “necessities” list while trying to seem enthusiastic to the expecting mother. How are you gong to afford all the baby gear?
Women long ago figured this whole deal out. Need to outfit the nursery? They gather the gals for a baby shower to play cute little games and open gifts with nifty wrapping. They giggle and gossip. Sound like fun, fellas?
Get over it. Go along if you are invited, and tap into the power of community. Actively encourage your wife to land as many showers as possible.
And here’s a radical idea. Throw a dad shower. But we can’t call it a shower. Not gonna happen. Let’s adapt. How about having a Baby Kegger instead?!
You provide the beer. If you don’t like the idea of setting up a gift registry, host an auction. Ask your funniest buddy to MC and offer various goods and services up for sale to the highest bidder. Any bids on the last round of golf with the expecting dad before his life changes forever? Got to let the motorcycle or the season tickets go? All proceeds go to the stroller fund – - or the 529 plan.
Let your guy friends in on the action of supporting your new life as a parent.
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If you like this tip, you might be interested in our other recent guest baby tips:
Note to new readers: these tips are based on our experiences, as well as those of our friends and readers. Please always consult with your doctor before implementing any tip that might impact the health of your baby. If you have a tip you’d like to submit please send an email to blogger at babblesoft dot com for possible inclusion. Please check the ‘baby tips’ category to make sure your tip (in some form or fashion) hasn’t already been posted. If it has been, feel free to comment on that post and support the tip. We also welcome respectful challenges to the tips because as is noted in our inaugural baby tip ‘everything is relative!’ We will, of course, give anyone who submits a tip we publish credit and a link back to their site!
I’m making some progress on my personal 2008 goals. I signed up for yoga and have lost between .5 and 1 pound. Regarding my business goals, I’m still working on the executive summary, financial projections, visuals, and finding an attorney in order to raise funds. If all goes well documents will be substantially ready by end of next week, and I’ll be well on my way to finding the perfect lawyer…if that’s even possible.
Posting will be light over the next few weeks so in the meantime please check out the Work It, Mom! interview of me where they asked me the following questions:
What inspired you to become an entrepreneur?
You’ve written that you and the other founder of your first company were “washed out.” How did you recover from that? Was it hard to jump back into the entrepreneurial game after that experience?
Many women entrepreneurs have mentioned that they felt they were not taken as seriously as businesswomen once people knew their companies were geared toward mothers. Has this been your experience?
What lessons from your first company are you applying to your second?
What’s most challenging part of your working-mom juggle?
What advice would you give a working mom who is trying to start her own company? What pitfalls would you tell her to avoid?
You have a great general attitude — what motivates you besides, well, creating a super-successful company?
Then pop on over to Thom Singer’s Some Assembly Required blog and check out my guest post on Building your e-Network where I expand on the following tips:
Do what you say you will do when you say you will do it.
When someone reaches out to you for help, answer them.
I plan to raise seed financing from angel investors for Babble Soft, and here’s what I will have in my toolkit.
An Executive Summary. Thankfully people have moved away from the 35 to 40 page business plans that used to be required when I raised money for my first company. Now it’s easier to get your foot in the door with a 5 to 7 page summary. If they are interested, they will ask for additional information. In a typical Executive Summary you will see sections on:
The Company
The Problem
The Solution (i.e., Your Products)
The Market (including Competitors)
The People
The Numbers (i.e., the Financial Projections).
Financial Projections. In my opinion, creating Financial Projections for an Internet startup is often an exercise in futility that shows you have an idea of how you will make money. Most experienced technology investors know that predicting the future is a crazy process at best especially when you are starting from ground zero and success primarily depends on many viral factors. Financial projections for IBM are much different than financial projections for an Internet start-up. The assumptions you make are the most important part of the model as they give the investor an idea of the homework you have done on the market.
Since Babble Soft is not Twitter, I’m not already a gazillionaire, and I have a million things to do, I have a sharp MBA student, Anand Balasubramanian, helping me create an Advertising and Subscription based model. I love energetic, rock star, cheap, student help! He has done a great job so far building a simple, easy to understand financial model for me.
Visuals. Since I’ll be raising funds for products that do not exist yet, I have engaged a great local design, user experience, and information architecture firm, Projekt202, to create a few mock-up pages illustrating both the web and mobile components of our new applications. They seem as excited about the vision as I am and are taking on some of the financial risk with me. It makes me so happy when I find people who get what I’m trying to do! I’ll also have a demo account of Baby Insights and Baby Say Cheese ready to log in to demonstrate our existing applications.
An Investor Leads List. However you choose to keep track of your calls, meetings, and referrals it’s important to do so. I have met entrepreneurs who want to raise funds who aren’t organized about the process and end up looking a bit flighty. Unfortunately the investors are allowed to be flighty but they usually don’t tolerate too much flightiness in entrepreneurs. Remember: “She who has the gold makes the rules.” After a while it’s easy to forget what you promised to get to whom and who referred you to whom. It’s important to remember at what stage of the investing dance you are in with each potential investor. On this spreadsheet I plan to keep track of:
Name
Contact Information
Professional Background
Who Referred Them to Me
Investment History
Typical Investment Size
What Items They Need From Me, and
Personal Assessment on the likelihood they will invest.
Passion Tempered With Wits. I think that often the big thing that can swing an investor, especially an angel investor who has been in your shoes before when building his/her company is your passion. Why are you doing this when there are much easier ways to make a buck? What will keep you going? What excites you about the business? I am passionate about helping new parents and caregivers connect and find answers. I am passionate about building a business. I am passionate about finding great people to work with. If that passion is tempered with some logical thinking, that’s a big huge ‘ole plus! All of us entrepreneurs are a bit crazy at times so I just hope I don’t lose my wits in the middle of an investor pitch!
Since I am still working on everything above except for my passion which has recently been reignited, I’ve got a lot to do before the meetings I already have set up with potential investors in the next couple of months. If you have suggestions on other things I should have in my fundraising toolkit, let me know by leaving a comment below. It’s been a while since I have raised money and I’m always open to learning new things.
Join me for the journey. Subscribe to the blog and hold on to your stomachs, it’s bound to be a scary roller coaster ride at times!
UPDATE Jan 12, 2007: Found|Read republished this very post on their blog and called it My Funding Toolkit. Check out that post for some great comments! They have many more readers than my blog currently does so I’m delighted that they chose to share it with their readers!
In case you missed it, here is the hilarious video about Bill Gates’ last day at Microsoft that was shown at his final keynote address at the Computer Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas yesterday. I think it’s so great to see his fun side! As an entrepreneur, I am in awe at what he has accomplished in his lifetime and even did a post about a prior appearance of his with Steve Jobs a while back.
The video stars Brian Williams, Steve Ballmer, Matthew McConaughey, Robbie Bach, Jay-Z, Bono, Steven Spielberg, George Clooney, Jon Stewart, Kevin Turner, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Gore, and others. Thanks to Long Zheng for posting his own video and helping me find a link. Here’s the link to the YouTube video that will hopefully show properly below (its been off & on again).
If you are a regular reader of my blog you have no doubt caught on to the fact that I have begun the fundraising effort for Babble Soft. If you are new you might want to check out The Entrepreneurial 7 Year Itch to get some background.
I’m currently working on creating a business plan comprehensive executive summary (who has time to write read a 30-50 page business plan?!?), the financial assumptions and projections (with assistance from an MBA student), creating screen mock-ups of our new applications (with Projekt202, a fabulous local design company), and setting up meetings with potential angel investors. This process is an ongoing, reiterative process that can sometimes make you want to pull your hair out. As soon as you type the last character on your plan, it is outdated because something has changed somewhere that you may or may not know about. Strange but true.
While doing all that, I also need to finish software testing of our new Baby Insights mobile application, learn more social media, make SEO changes, make sales, establish partnerships, and make progress toward meeting my 2008 New Year’s Goals! Hmmm something might have to give here…
Stay tuned for more about my journey to persuade people to part with their money in exchange for hopefully a lot more money at some time in the future…
I don’t really like making New Year’s resolutions. However, I’m making an exception this year because I figure I’ll try something new. Maybe I’ll even make quarterly resolutions! This is the first year I’ve had a blog which means I can now write them down and let my readers hold me accountable. So here it goes.
Business Goals
Raise funds for Babble Soft. I will finish the business plan, refine the pitch, and set up meetings with angel investors.
Establish additional nanny partnerships and other corporate partnerships that lead to increased revenue and revenue opportunities. I have to make hundreds of calls, send hundreds of emails, set up meetings, and close deals.
Identify and become a member of at least 2 organizations that will help build my network to reach our customers. If you have any suggestions on what organizations to join I would love to hear them!
Convince some great companies to advertise with us. If I can demonstrate a significant increase in users (SEO please work!) of our applications, I believe those advertisers who want to reach new parents and caregivers that are breastfeeding, bottle feeding, changing diapers, taking medicine, pumping, and trying to get some priceless, precious sleep would be *extremely* interested. Plus with our planned new applications that audience widens and deepens.
Find great people to help make it happen! Must find great people. Must find great people! Key team additions needed are 1) Experienced Senior Product Manager with strong technical skills to manage products from design to implementation to market and 2) Experienced Internet Partnership, Social Media & Ad Sales Manager (does such a person even exist?). Must find great people!
Personal Goals
Lose 5 pounds. I will eat less and exercise more.
Take Yoga classes. I will locate, sign up, and attend classes. Anyone have any recommendations for instructors in the Austin, Texas area?
Laugh more. I will find more funny and fun people to hang out with.
Be less concerned with what other people think. This will probably be the hardest one for me to accomplish and the hardest to measure. Worrying about what people think of me, my decisions, my company, my appearance, my parenting, my words, etc. sometimes unduly stresses me out and takes up way too much energy that should be devoted elsewhere. I’m not alone in this issue. I’ve seen many bloggers write about it but more women than men which may be a result of our society or more likely Oprah. I will work to drastically reduce the negative self talk in my head. I think Yoga will help me with this goal.
My Personal Goals are mostly in my control. I decide what to eat. I decide when/how to exercise, etc. I decide when to pick up the phone and sign up for a Yoga class.
Achieving the Business Goals, on the other hand, are less in my control. I can do everything right but if the angel investors don’t understand or care for the market or market need I’m addressing then funding sources might not be available. If the stock market crashes and everyone quits investing then, c’est la vie. If the funding doesn’t come through then I won’t be able to hire great people, etc., etc. I believe I have the most control over establishing additional partnerships and joining organizations but that’s what I believe right now on January 1, 2008. As the Internet has proven, things change at the speed of each new thought!
What are your goals? Feel free to leave a comment here and/or leave a link back to your blog to where you posted your 2008 thoughts.
If you’d like to see if I meet my goals (or even heckle me – I don’t mind as long as its funny and helps me with my Laugh More goal ) subscribe to this blog’s feed and share your wonderful thoughts with me.
We’ve all heard that saying. Once you learn how to ride a bike, you never forget. I experienced the sensation ‘of riding a bike’ for the first time as a parent this weekend. Our 5 ½ year old son rode on his own. He and I were both exhilarated! I’m not sure who was more excited.
