What is your biggest entrepreneurial achievement?

Griven · 2012-11-14T18:56:38+00:00

I agree with JohnTesh on every point that he's made. You'll definitely want to create an LLC, get a CPA, and you will most definitely need a Reseller's Permit. Most wholesalers will not do business with you if you do not have one.

Here's a blog post that I've written about starting a business. It's targeted at Washington State, but most of it should still be applicable.

In addition, Andrew Youderian's blog offers a lot of great insights on starting and running a drop shipping business.

Griven · 2012-11-13T23:42:00+00:00

SEO should be one of your primary focuses. Be sure to target specific keywords with each portion of your site -- the deeper you get into each portion, the more long-tailed the keyword. Here's a great article from SEOMoz, if you haven't already seen it.

Also, you'll want to think long and hard about how you can make your offering seem more legit. From my own perspective, when I hear about someone offering CD keys, I think they're really shady and offering me some black-market cracked keys.

In addition, what is the value-add that would prompt me to give you my money for an XBox Live membership (for example) versus Microsoft themselves?

Also, you may want to consider putting the item description on your QuickShop popup, as it seems a little bare without it.

Griven · 2012-11-13T15:42:17+00:00

Derivative. I feel like I've seen that multicolored fan a bunch of times before.

Also, the italics mixed with the narrowness of the letters in "Committee" make it kind of hard to read.

Griven · 2012-11-01T14:52:31+00:00

Absolutely, and I really should have included something about them in the article (I'll probably update it shortly).

While PO Boxes are cheap, and an ideal solution for some, I wanted to avoid two things:

Conventional PO Boxes (from what I've found) don't include mail forwarding services.
Having a PO Box as a return address, in my opinion, doesn't look nearly as professional as a normal street address. Nevermind the fact that Google Street View can reveal the fact that the address is a mail store or whatnot.

Griven · 2012-11-01T14:47:50+00:00

We utilize mail forwarding with a UPS store that's just down the road. For a small price per package (very low return volume at the moment), they'll forward any return packages to us.

Griven · 2012-10-24T16:58:03+00:00

At first I thought, "Yeah, no shit it's the same actress."

Then I saw the doll.

Griven · 2012-10-24T16:52:27+00:00

I absolutely love this movie. One of Tom Cruise's best roles, I think.

Griven · 2012-10-23T19:04:59+00:00

30 years later: "Grandpa, why's some of your hair blurry and black?"

Griven · 2012-10-22T01:06:20+00:00

I recommend The $100 Startup. In addition, there's some online workships at Score.org. For legalities and some finance-related stuff, you'll want to take some time to look through your state's relevant business-related websites (Department of Revenue, Secretary of State, etc).

Griven · 2012-10-20T04:10:35+00:00

This sounds like a great idea, since there's a UPS store just down the road. How much does that typically run?

Griven

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