Advice Network Founders Blog

I got a great email from my friend Dr. Clue (Dave Blum)

Hello All,

Dr. Clue is putting together a virtual/online treasure hunt and we are  wondering if you’d be interested in having your website featured as  one of the clue sites.  Basically, what this means is that one of the clues in the virtual treasure hunt would solve to your site’s address and teams would have to find a piece of information on your site.  You don’t need to do anything or change anything — it’ll be something that’s already part of your site.  All we’d ask is for you to let us know if you ever change that piece of information, so we can adjust the clue.  If sending Dr. Clue’s clients to your site sounds good to you, please let me know so we can count you in!  Free, motivated traffic to your site!

As soon as we have enough clue locations, we’ll write the game and let you know what piece of information we’re using from your site.  If you know anyone else with a business that might be interested in having their site featured as a Dr. Clue treasure hunt clue location, please feel free to forward this email along to them.

–
Dave Blum
President, Dr. Clue Treasure Hunts

www.drclue.com

| … — .-.. …- .. -. –. | - …. . | .–. ..- –.. –.. .-.. . … | — ..-. | - . .- — .– — .-. -.- |
(Solving the Puzzles of Teamwork)

Just a few comments.

1. He just reiterated that he wants other sites ASAP, so don’t be shy, jump right in and ask for a link

2. If you know what the morse code (I think it’s morse code) at the end of his email means, please post in comments!

-Alex

Hey everyone, I just wanted you to know, I’m leaving for a week. I’ll be back around the 21st.

Have a good week!

Alex

Those of you who read this blog often, or know me know I am not a web developer, not a programmer, and not especially technical. I’m an entrepreneur, and a photographer. I rely on paid developers to translate my vision into the code that is a functioning website.

Here is a dirty little secret. Finding competent developers is the hardest part! Oh the stories I could tell. I started mistrustful of outsourcing, and went with a developer near me. He ripped me off for $60,000. He didn’t pay his employees, didn’t produce anything, and declared chapter 11. I’d tell you his name, but he’s lawyered up, and I am sure he would like nothing better than to sue me for looking his way cross-eyed. If we ever meet at a party, I’ll tell you all about it.

So, 1/2 my money gone, I was forced to go the outsourced rout. I found these guys in India who spent two months just getting my shopping cart to interface with Authorize.net. They were shocked when I was unimpressed and did not trust the development of the rest of the site to them.

I found these coders in the Ukraine who seemed like they knew what they were doing, and even agreed to a fee schedule that included bonuses for getting the job done early, and penalties for getting it done late. One week before they were supposed to be done, they diapered. Poof, gone. At least by now I had learned to not pay upfront!

Then, I found some developers in India, these guys were the best yet, but they still built a site that had so many bugs that I could find 20 a day for months, with no end in site. They just quit because I would not submit a “final” bug list. How could I if I keep finding new bugs? Am I wrong to think that if they build a site with bugs in it, and I find a bug, they should fix it? Maybe I am. I was even ready to pay them for new features and improvements on the site, provided they kept fixing the bugs in the work they had already done.

So, now once again I strike out in search of a new developer.
I am comforted to know that every entrepreneur I meet has the same problems. I even met one who also got ripped off for $60,000 by someone else besides my criminal. Amazing!

Now that Advice Network is launched, marketing has taken a front seat in my attention. I spend almost all of my time wondering how to get the word out there about Advice Network without spending every penny I have AND without compromising my values.

I’m investigating telemarketing this week, but not without serious trepidation.

The numbers look good promising, from a pure return on investment. It costs about $1,000 to have 30 to 50 hours of calling. The way I look at those numbers, if I offer a 50% discount on the $50 setup fee. (Please don’t be jealous; To my loyal readers, I offer you a 99.98% discount on the setup fee, right here and right now. If you are reading this and want to register as a deluxe vendor on Advice Network, use the coupon blogreader to get $49.99 off your $50 setup fee. Please note, coupon expires  on my birthday, August 31 2008) Where was I? Oh yes, if I offer a 50% discount on the setup fee, and they get 22 people to sign up as deluxe vendors, then I break even on the campaign, and in month 2, I can start investing in PPC to get leads to those vendors.

Everyone wins! The vendors get a great placement on the directory, they get leads, they get business. Users of Advice Network get matched with vendors, their lives are easier, and Advice Network will (gasp) make money. Win win win.

The downside? I hate receiving telemarketing calls. Tom Mabe is one of my heroes.

Sigh.

I’d love to hear your feedback on this one. Please email me or comment and let me know what you think.

Thanks all fans and readers for your understanding during my hiatus. I also appreciate all of your support. no I am ok, I just could not get into the blog, and fixing the problem took a backseat to other issues.

For some reason never ascertained, I was locked out of the blog. My password did not work, and when I went to reset the password, I was sent an invalid link.

Just yesterday, I decided to tackle the issue in earnest. I posted the problem on wordpress.org, and was directed to a page explaining how to edit the database via PHP myadmin. For the technically unsophisticated, that was a nightmare.

But I was able to finally solve the problem with this simple hack:

Using the Emergency Password Reset Script

If the other solutions listed above won’t work, then try the Emergency Password Reset Script. It is not a Plugin. It is a PHP script.

Warnings

1. Requires you know the administrator username.
2. It updates the administrator password and sends an email to the administrator’s email address.
3. If you don’t receive the email, the password is still changed.
4. You do not need to be logged in to use it. If you could login, you wouldn’t need the script.
5. Place this in the root of your WordPress installation. Do not upload this to your WordPress Plugins directory.
6. Delete the script when you are done for security reasons.

Directions for use

1. Download the script from Village Idiot WordPress Emergency Password Script.
2. Unpack the downloaded zip file.
3. Upload the file emergency.php to the root of your WordPress installation (the same directory that contains wp-config.php).
4. In your browser, open http://example.com/emergency.php.
5. As instructed, enter the administrator username (usually admin) and the new password, then click Update Options. A message is displayed noting the changed password. An email is sent to the blog administrator with the changed password information.
6. Delete emergency.php from your server when you are done. Do not leave it on your server as someone else could use it to change your password.

Thanks again everyone!

I was listening to an old This American Life (TAL) episode last week, episode #84, originally broadcast over 10 years ago.

Breaking form for TAL, instead of picking a topic and playing a variety of stories on that theme, they have an hour long episode about Chicago’s first black mayor, Harold Washington.

It’s an interesting episode, it uses this one story to dig a little bit into American politics and race, and it makes a lot of good points that might make one really hopeful. They even make the connection between Chicago 20 years ago, and the candidacy of the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Senator Obama.

But the one gem that I love most of all is a quote from Mayor Washington about fairness. It seems that in Chicago, (and everywhere else in the world) to the victor belongs the spoils. The group that puts a mayor into office gets a bigger slice of the pie. But that was not how Harold rolled. He insisted on being fair. Every program and initiative he pushed through benefited whites and blacks equally, much to the chagrin of some of his supporters. They expert a speech from the mayor, he says:

“No one, but no one in this city, no matter where they live, or how they live is free from the fairness of our administration. We’ll find you and be fair to you wherever you are. “

(Listen to the clip here) I recommend having a listen, he is a great orator, and the clip is only 1 minute 30 seconds.

That quote tickles me to pieces, but it occurs to me that the internet and Advice Network embody this idea as well. For the first time ever, we are all free to get our name, or ideas, and our advice into the world.

As of May, 2008, Advice Network does not have any employees (besides myself). But maybe you have some employees at your company.

I just read an amazing article by Bill Taylor. It turns out that Zappos offers employees $1,000 at the end of their first week to quit. I highly recommend clicking over and taking a look at what Bill has to say.

I have to say, I got it right away. Having someone who doesn’t like their job, but they are sticking around because they need the money, how could that do anything but drain the company and team spirit.

I hadn’t heard of Zappos before, but apparently they are obsessive about customer service. That is the kind of company I want Advice Network to be.

My philosophy, if you are not making your customers happy, what is the point?

Many of you know besides being the founder and CEO of Advice Network I am a professional photographer.

I started doing professional photography in 2000, and at the time I lived in the Bay Area. For the entire course of my business, online marketing has been one of my biggest drivers of business. I’ve had a website since day one. I’ve bought qualified leads online since my first year. Every year more an more of my business comes from client referrals, but still most of my business comes from people finding me online.

Well, for the past few years, I’ve been putting those things together by inviting my clients to write reviews for me online. All those nice things they say about me, they can write it once, post it a few places, and people can read the reviews for years to come.

If you run a business and you are not already doing this, I recommend it strongly. There is a growing number of people who really trust and look to online reviews.

So where does this “tinyURL” come in? I wanted to email a link to review me on Google Local, but the link looked like this:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=l&hl=en&geocode=&q=schoenfeldt+photography&near=94117&jsv=111&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=37.735377,69.257812&ie=UTF8&latlng=37775034,-122430085,13992495282375185261&ei=UOcpSLuqNYq6jgPc1qyWCQ&sig2=slt5vvWo5UNHlL6zTz5I7w&cd=1

Yikes! And you know what the email program would do. It would break the URL into multiple lines, so they would end up clicking:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=l&hl=en&geocode=&q=scho

and the rest would be below in a separate line (or 3) like this:

enfeldt+photography&near=94117&jsv=111&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&

sspn=37.735377,69.257812&ie=UTF8&latlng=37775034,-122430085,

13992495282375185261&ei=UOcpSLuqNYq6jgPc1qyWCQ&sig2=slt5vvWo5UNHlL6zTz5I7w&cd=1

And when they clicked, they would get a “file not found.” and the review would not get written, and I’d have missed a great opportunity.

But at “TinyURL” you enter in the big long monster link, and it gives you: http://tinyurl.com/5zle86. Simple, safe, and email friendly.

And best of all, TinyURL is free (they do have a “donate” button.)

So go ahead and ask the clients who love you to write a review.

Alex

“To be truly radical is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing.”

- Raymond Williams

I’ve been listening to podcasts of Amory Lovins this week, and I must say, he is my new hero. Find them here. (I’m not sure if all of the talks are listed, but you can also look here.)

Lovins is the Cofounder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. RMI is a think tank that focuses on energy efficiency and policy.

Their mission statement:

I was listening to a great podcast yesterday. A talk by Rasmus Lerdorf. If you are like me, you just said “who?” Well, Mr. Lerdorf is the person who invented PHP. Now, your saying “What?”

Don’t worry. I wouldn’t know what PHP was if I wasn’t running an internet startup, and truth be told, I really don’t know much about it. PHP is an open source language for building web pages.

So this guy, Mr. Lerdorf, was doing web programming, and he needed better tools, so he wrote a language called PHP. And instead of trying to make money off of it, he just gave it to the world, and let other people have it, use it change it, and improve it. Now, PHP runs some of the biggest sites on the internet, sites you use all the time like YouTube. Yet, it is still free.

It’s tools like PHP, and MySQL that allow sites like Advice Network to exist. Ten years ago, it would have cost 2 million to build Advice Network. Now, $100,000.

Mr. Lerdorf was talking about what it took to start a big open source project that people want to get involved in, and I felt really inspired.

You cannot run a decent open source project if you make it about you. It has to be about the people who contribute… You have to think about how do people feel about themselves when they are involved… We’re all in it together.

That is really how I feel about Advice Network, especially now that people are starting to write. It isn’t about me, it is about you, the writers and readers. And I truly hope that you get a lot out of being here. If you are writing, I hope you feel satisfied knowing that you made someones life easier while they tried to do something really hard. (buy a house, run a business, plan a wedding) AND I hope that it brings you more business.

If you are reading the advice, I hope we made your life easier, AND I hope you have a good experience with one of our vendors