Since starting this business with Amelia and Christina, I’ve come to realize something very humbling. I’m so behind this 21st century technology frenzy that it’s scaring me. StumbleUpon? Twitter? WordPress? Three weeks ago, I had heard of Twitter, but didn’t know much beyond that. I’ve really just begun to scratch the surface, but I’m trying to not get massively overwhelmed by it all. When I was in college, Marketing was about designing flyers and list selections! Now it’s all social media, and maximum search engine optimization, and other types of gobblygook.
I need to just take the plunge, and be comfortable with the fact that I will make mistakes!
What have you learned about yourself since starting your own business? What personal challenges did you have to overcome?
I wanted to write just a smidge on what Christina commented on (business website). When we started with establishing our business website, we had the opportunity to use a software called “Website Tonight”. It was free with the hosting package that we got. It did provide a lot of easy to use templates, but the main downside to the software is that your site is riddled with advertisements. It looks great, but the website really looks like it is there to advertise Godaddy.com.
We did look at a few free web editing software programs… KompoZer is really easy to use, but it does not come with any templates that I could find. You have flexibility, but you have to build it all yourself…so it can look a little “immature” unless you really know what you are doing; in which case you are probably able to use Dream Weaver or something similar.
I think using WordPress to design our website will be ideal for us at this point. We are all using the software already for this blog. Plus the nature of our business does not really require a super-highly designed/spacey website. It is a business that provides specialized business services. I’ve realized that while it might be nice to have a super artistic/creative website for our business… it isn’t really necessary (for us). So, keep that in mind when you are developing your website. Does your business really require a fancy-shmancy website that you have to pay someone else to build OR are there other programs out there that you could tackle yourself?
For those of you who have gone through this process…how many of you hired someone to build you a site and how many of you did it yourself?
Last week I was wondering if our new website should include a blog. I sort of favored a yes and so did the other girls, so we’ll go with it! It’ll be one more thing to keep up with, but I also think it will be fun and good for the business. We have been thinking about which software to use for building our website for a while now. WordPress kept coming up as an option, but we also didn’t want it to be too blog-y. So we started looking into Kompozer and another software that came with our hosting account on godaddy.com. It all seemed pretty complicated and now that we decided that our website will include a blog, we’ll just go ahead and give WordPress a try for our business website also. One less software to learn!
So, which theme to go with? Well, there are quite a few themes that make your website look more like a website than like a blog. Big plus. Many of them let you create a static page that can be the homepage which was important for us. So far, so good. I started looking into themes that would work and while there are many complicated ones out there that could fit, I kept coming back to “Coraline”. It’s very basic, yet customizable enough to make it work. I like that you can have a custom header which is where we’ll put the logo. And I like that it looks clean. I created a shell to show the others in our next meeting… If they like it we “just” have to determine the content 
While reading up on how to create websites I ran into this very interesting article: 6 SEO Fundamentals that Every Business with a Website Should Know. While we hope that we can get our first clients mainly through established relationships and word-of-mouth, we hope that in the long-run we can get some clients just through our website. We have a good domain name that reflects what we do. I know a little bit about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) from my private blog. But the six suggestions from this article are a great intro and should be easy to follow as we keep developing our website. Maybe it can help you too.
I read that Wordtracker is a good & free keyword tool, but I have yet to look into it…
Any advice for us as we start building our very own business website?
Starting a business is a very exciting process. In addition to understand what services or products you wan to provide, you will also begin thinking about your business’ image…your logo, how your website will look, what your publications will look like, business card, etc. It is both exciting and a bit daunting; particularly if you are not necessarily “artistically” inclined.
There are a number of business out there that offer design services, but what if you simply don’t have the capital to invest?
A simple way to do this is for your business’ logo, is to play with font. For example, find an interesting and unique font and type out your business’ name. Start thinking about the colors that you want to be associated with your business. Colors like red, black, and blue are all over the place…so you might want to think about alternative colors that represent your business so you stand out a bit more.
For a great website that will walk you through building a website for your business, check out this website: http://www.thesitewizard.com/gettingstarted/startwebsite.shtml
Once you have your logo, this will drive your business’ online identity.
Another way to develop your logo is to reach out to local universities. There may be graduate students in visual design interested in building up their experience by designing a logo for you. You can search the university’s art department website, find a professor in charge of digital media, and email him/her. The professor may know of a graduate student who has the ability to assist you at little to know cost.
Do any of you know of sources where you can get a logo designed for little to no cost at all?
I’ve been thinking about the online presence of our business lately. We already bought the domain name and have the hosting set up. I’m happy that the domain name is actually the company name. That should make it easy for people to find. A friend is developing an amazing logo for us and I can’t wait to see it on the website itself. It’s fun thinking about the different pages we want and what kind of information should be on them.
One thing I am not so sure about is adding a blog…. on one hand it will force us to keep adding information to the website which will keep it up to date and might drive traffic from search engines. It also would be nice for our potential clients to see our takes on some of the services we offer, pros and cons of each, etc. It might also help us to network in our field. On the other hand, it would be a big chunk of work that needs to be done every week – on top of everything else (my regular full-time job, starting this business). There’s no point in starting a blog and then not maintaining it. That would probably be worse than having none. Despite the added work I think I am leaning towards adding a blog because of the potential benefits.
Any pros and cons? Suggestions? Does your business have a blog? Why? Or why not?
Since a few weeks Amelia, Audrey and I started talking on Skype on a specific day at a specific time once a week. I think this is a first step in developing routines for our business. I think routines make things easier.
Meeting always at the same time for example has the advantage that I know I have to keep that evening free and can’t make any other plans. I know that I have to have my stuff done by that day. And most importantly, I don’t constantly have to remember a different day/time when to be available on Skype Too many things to remember as is…
I think there are still many other routines we have to develop like sending stuff to each other maybe once or twice a week in order not to overwhelm each other with too much information. I think sending things as they come has the potential of creating more work than is necessary. The exception of course is when something important happens. But where to draw the line? I also think we still have to define who is going to be responsible for what. However, as we are still in the set-up phase this is proving more difficult than one would think as we are all kind of doing everything. I think that might be normal though. Or at least i hope so!
I think there is a fine line of having so many routines that they don’t allow for any flexibility anymore and so few routines that things can get out of hand.
Any suggestions on routines that might help? Or hinder?
Christina and I have been pretty stealthy lately. We’re trying to dance around Our Boss without arousing suspicion. It’s a sneaky kind of salsa-meets-the-tango. We start with a traditional cha-cha-cha and then it turns into a chaotic I’m-leading-now-so-follow-my-footwork.
After checking The Boss’ dreadfully un-updated Outlook calendar, we meet in one of our offices during an opportune time. Do we shut the door or not? Do we lower our voices or speak at a regular volume? If The Boss walks in unexpectedly, we nervously change topics. The conversations changes from “The Business Plan” to “Christina….did you finish that analysis from XYZ project?”
Anybody have any advice out there in blogland about how to hide your new business venture from your boss? It’s a difficult dance to do, but we’re trying to be as discreet as possible while maximizing our creative time!
As you start your business, you will, inevitably, have to start a website and perhaps a blog. We’ve decided to do both and many will advise you to start both as well…particularly for a small business. The Blog can help increase the “status” of your website and HOPEFULLY the traffic to your business.
What we’ve learned so far with this process…. there are so many options and so many passwords to remember that it can be a little difficult to navigate. Currently, as you can see, we have our blog up and running. Our business website, however, is still in the process of getting online and isn’t coming around as fast as we’d like b/c of some minor hosting glitches.
In order to consolidate everything, we are using the same hosting agency for both the blog and the website. According to the hosting people, we can have both on one “site” but with different domains…i.e. one will be “www.threegirlsandadream.com” while the other one will have our business name “www.ourbusinessname.com”.
So… the kink, so to speak, that we are trying to sort out is how to have separate the domains while using the same hosting spot….it’s been tricky thus far, but I’m sure we will get it sorted out fairly soon.
We’ll keep you posted as we go!
Have any of you dealt with kind of situation?
As you may have figured out, we are living in different places. Audrey and Christina live in the same town, but I live about 500 miles away. So, we are learning how to work together at a distance. They also work full-time, while I do not currently have a full-time gig.
It is a little bit stranger than I thought it would be. There is so much that gets discussed on a regular basis when you are physically closer to people, so sometimes I feel like I’m not “in” on some of the brainstorming process as much as I would like to be. There was also an issue where we had assigned tasks and I ended up doing something that one of the other girls was suppose to do. In hindsight, I should have let her know that I was going to do it, but I just did it and told her afterword.
I was inadvertently creating a pressure on her where she felt that she wasn’t doing things as fast as I wanted them to be done. Which wasn’t the case. I was there and just did it. Luckily we talked to each other honestly and resolved the issues.
All that is to say, whether or not you know it or try to plan for it, working at a distance has its own unique set of challenges. Challenges that we are still learning about! The only advise we have so far… talk it out and maintain respect all the time. We are friends first and business partners second.
How have you dealt with workplace communication issues?
“She Turned Her Can’ts into Can’s”
The truth is, I never thought I’d want to own my own business. Never. But, the time has come, my friends. It’s time to venture out and give this a go. You never know until you try – at least that’s what I tell my kids. I guess I viewed business ownership as a “hassle” or a job that was 24/7. But having worked in higher ed since grad. school, I’m ready for us three girls to go out on our own. Let me make this clear; I’m not disgruntled here, just a little disenfranchised. Disenfranchised enough to get on the entrepreneurial bandwagon.
So let me tell you a little bit about this girl. I’m Audrey, and the oldest of the bunch and I’ve got three kiddos. I’m 37, happily married for almost 14 years, and a mom to one boy and two girls. I guess I’m an unlikely business owner, actually. And did I mention I’m also a part-time doctoral student? I’m writing this post at 5:00AM because those of you with kids know that very little creativity can happen once these little devils awake. The truth is, their immediate need for Frosted Flakes at 6:00AM immediately squashes any ounces of creativity I’ve got left. But, I’m going to turn these “can’ts into can’s.” Who said a nearly-40 mom couldn’t contribute to this new company’s success? Not me. Who said a frazzled-but-happy doc student couldn’t write her dissertation at the same time she’s launching a business? Not me.
As for me, I’m turning my “can’ts into can’s.” Watch it, baby. Three girls and a dream? Here we come, so ya better get ready.
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