Every Wednesday morning, I attend a local event called 1 Million Cups that showcases a local entrepreneur’s business. I typically end up staying well after the event is over to chat with other entrepreneurs about their businesses. A few weeks back, someone I was chatting with made a comment along the lines of “Well, I …
American Consumer News, LLC has changed a lot since December of 2006 when I started a now-defunct personal finance blog called Getting Green (which was later renamed to American Consumer News). In 2008, the company evolved from being a personal finance blog to a network of personal finance blogs. In 2009, the company started a …
Many start-ups believe that fast growth and attracting investment (angel and V.C. money) are the two keys to their future success. They identify a high-risk, high-growth business idea, form a team and try to raise venture capital funds to build a product or service that addresses said need. They try to show growth as quickly …
There’s an increasing number of people that have created profitable online businesses by building a personal brand. If you can become someone that people know, like and trust to talk about a particular subject, there’s a ton of opportunity to create an income stream surrounding your personality and the content that you product. There are …
Every Wednesday morning, I spend an hour with 20-30 other entrepreneurs at event called 1 Million Cups at the Sioux Falls Design Center. I enjoy hearing speakers every week and pelting them with questions during the Q&A time. Before the event begins and after the event ends, there’s typically 15 to 20 minutes of time …
Every January, I help coordinate a Financial Peace University class at my church. The class shows people how to create a budget, get out of debt, setup proper insurance, plan for retirement and make other important financial decisions. All of the teaching in the class is about how to better spend money you already have, …
One of my company’s largest revenue streams is running contextual ads from Google AdSense. Our network of financial news websites garners approximately 3 million page views per month and we’ve found that AdSense is an extremely effective way to monetize our audience. Recently, I was searching for a good article about AdSense optimization tips and …
Over the course of the last 3 years, I’ve put a lot of effort into perfecting the opt-in mechanisms on my website. At any given time, I’m usually running 2-5 tests on my sales funnel to see if there’s a better way to get more customers from one step to the next. I know that …
I’ve made it a point to get better connected to the entrepreneurial community in the city I live in within the last year (Sioux Falls, SD). I’ve been going to a lot more events, have sponsored a few different things and have made some great connections by buying people lunch. As a natural consequence, my …
One of the foundational principles that I use in my business is that you should always be testing. You should continually try out different ways of doing things to see if you get better results. Consider every step of the process that your potential customers need to take before they actually become customers. If you …