What is RSS? How can I subscribe?
What is RSS?RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a way of delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, blogs and other online publishers offer their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.RSS is a great way to stay informed and creating your own news channel.
Are there benefits and/or reasons for using RSS?
What do I need to do to read an RSS Feed?A variety of RSS Readers are available including Amphetadesk, FeedReader, and NewsGator. There are also a number of web-based feed readers available. My Yahoo, Bloglines, and Google Reader are popular web-based feed readers.Once you have your Feed Reader, it is a matter of finding sites that syndicate content (usually blogs that you read) and adding their RSS feed to the list of feeds your Feed Reader checks. Many sites display a small icon with the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF to let you know a feed is available (mine is the coffee cup showing the transmission RSS symbol)
Simple, now subscribe to my feed to stay up-to-date!If you still aren’t sold, you can always subscribe via email.[Article referenced from http://www.whatisrss.com]
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Look Big & Trial Your Business - Student Startup Series
Creating a website will allow you to trial your product before spending money producing it.Create a website, direct customers to it, sell your product and track the number of orders. By creating a simple website, you will have a base of operations from which to establish a professional looking front. Quoting Sydney from That College Kid:
I have endured endless frustration with StudyPrint and, needing a business model that depended on fewer interested parties, was tempted into trialing a computer repair and maintenance service. It would be quite cheap and easy to post a few flyers round campus and advertise on gumtree, but with a few days work I can offer the professional look and feel of a premium service at the prices of a one-man band. A business cardThe guys on HackCollege ran a series not long ago about getting a job as a student, one of the most interesting posts for me was titled “Doing the Student Business Card“. I was so impressed with the idea, that I went ahead and created my own. A business phone numberYou will notice that I have an 0844 number, this cost £10 and is mine for life. It looks infinitely more professional than putting your mobile number on the card and I won’t be getting any dubious texts at 3am. You might not justify the extra (albeit small) expense associated with these two steps but the benefits are extensive and useful beyond your first business venture. A business websiteI used Bluehost to register a domain name and webspace. I installed Wordpress as a content-management-system (CMS) and created a few pages (if anyone requests more detail on how I did either, I will write a few posts on the process). Highlight what differentiates you from your competition, and explain your USP (unique selling point) in 1 sentence. Google Checkout, Paypal and Worldpay allow you to easily accept online transactions and all setup costs (less than 6 hours work and £40 for one year) should be easily reclaimed from your University. Take a look at my (latest) business
Testing the ideaDirect traffic to the site and use Google Analytics to track customers that purchase something, having arrived at your homepage. I suggest limiting yourself to 5 similar products; keeping things simple for yourself and your customers. Make sure all shipping costs are included before the customer clicks to buy in order that they believe they are about to pay the total price. Any traffic that makes it from home page to purchase can be considered a buyer. Rather than directing them to your payment site, direct them to a page stating that the product is on back-order or unavailable. This is PERFECTLY legal provided no payment information is captured. I suggest you DO capture their contact details beforehand if possible, as this will allow you to get in touch with them when/if you do begin producing your product. Things are easier with a service - if you start taking orders, fulfill them. Be sure to continually revise your business to focus on the customers producing the most profit; minimum work, maximum earning. If you don’t make any sales, rework your marketing or cut your losses and move on. Special thanks to:To Adspace Pioneers blog featuring me: To Kelly Sutton at HackCollege for: |
Get Yo’ Money! - Student Startup Series
I am in my third year of four and currently have around £14000 in debt, including overdrafts and loans.Fucking brilliant…ah well…I’ll be loaded by then! British Universities have stacks of money to throw around; money with your name on it. I wasn’t aware that my University supported student entrepreneurs until I approached my union, business proposal in hand.
British students now now graduate with an average of £12000.The ‘Enterprise Zone’ at the University of Sheffield offers weekly lectures informing and guiding those who want to start a business but more importantly, they can assist you with funding for your startup. I filled out a single application and received £250 (a tasty sum for any student). This paid for flights and a two nights in Amsterdam on a ‘market research’ trip to meet the StudyPrint founders in Utrecht. I paid for the other three days in Amsterdam with my girlfriend, but it certainly lessened the damage to my bank account! I would like to point out how great University staff are at passing you on and avoiding doing anything themselves. If you find anyone remotely helpful with any authority sacrifice a lamb to keep them happy! Get in touch with your union and find out where your money is. |
How To Gauge Your Pricing - Student Startup Series
What is the ‘best’ price for your product?Until recently I would have said the maximum price you can afford to charge. This is unadulterated shite. Charge more, attract fewer, but make much more per hour. As a student it you cannot operate a resource hungry business; there are better things to do! Do bear this in mind when your are a full-time entrepreneur! The goal is to liberate your time and your spending. It would be impractical to sell Aston Martins, but pricing your screen-print-hoodies in a premium bracket creates a sentiment that you ARE a premium product/service.
How much can you charge?Search for your product via google; google and ask.com both provide search term suggestion tools. Use the terms that a prospective buyer would use when searching for your product. Check out the top 5 sites that continue to appear in your search results.
Your produce should have a price that does not require interaction with the customer before purchase (c. £30-£200) but that also allows for large markups (8 to 10x). Use an ebay listing with a reserve of 50% list price to test the reception of your pricing (cancel the auction before it finishes to avoid any nasty reciprocations). Choose your wording wisely! Would you be able to find the product?Now that we have a price at which our product will sell, the next installment will look at further market research. |
Creating A Great Business Idea - Student Startup Series
As a student it is likely you face many problems in your day-to day life.
It is unlikely that you recognise these problems as anything more than an inconvenience that you must put up with.
Cultivate ideas to exploit so as to avoid the rat-race and boring
your arse off and wasting your summer sat behind a desk.
- I have no desire to work full-time for someone else; any work I do is to alleviate student debt and I treat every second as a paid training scheme.
- I have no desire to create a business that turns into a monster meaning I cannot be, do and have as I please.
- I have no desire to create excessive wealth, only the amount I need to be, do and have as I please.
In order to fulfil to create a (semi-)automated income, we need to develop a business (preferably selling a product as these services require too much customer contact).
As a student, you belong to a large demographic albeit a general one.
Ask yourself: what sub-groups do you belong to?
- Student entrepreneur
- Student engineer
- Student job-seeker
- Student bodybuilder
- Student martial artist
- Student blogger
- Student musician
- Student snowboarder
As a student engineer/job-seeker, I have been incredibly successful obtaining engineering placements over three vacations. I’d estimate that less than 20% of my course have accomplished this. I succeeded through trial-and-error, but am now significantly more experienced in finding work than 80% of my peers. Armed with this knowledge it should be easy to create an information product to sell to other students looking for work.
Become an astute observer of the problems you(r peers) face. Check out Springwise for inspiring new business concepts; don’t directly transplant foreign business models. Put a British twist on it and evaluate its potential.
Don’t get carried away with a great shite idea you and
your friends love,that nobody will pay for.
Your solution does not have to be complex, but there does have to be a market for it. In my next post I’ll explain how you can test your product easily and cheaply without getting your fingers burnt.