It may seem like every single great domain in the world is taken (I mean, how do you describe some of these new startups with ridiculously misspelled or completely made up words as their brand name?), but that is a big misconception. There are plenty of great domains left, just waiting for you to register them. Here is how you find them…

Choosing Words

The first part of your domain searching journey should include plain brainstorming. Think of words that describe your product and write these down. These words should be specific enough so people know what your product is about, but also general enough so as your business expands (or if you do a slight pivot) and you start offering new, but related products, your domain name will still work.

‘FeeFighters’ is a great example of a brand name that is both specific and general at the same time. When you come to FeeFighters, you know it is specifically about saving money, but the name is flexible enough where FeeFighters can offer multiple products to help you save money (which they do).
Domize

If you have some domain names already in mind, check out domize. Domize is a really quick way to search for available .com, .org, .net, .biz, and .us domains. It has a very clean user interface, and is a lot more fun to work with than most of the domain registrars out there.

LeanDomainSearch

If you’ve come up with a few words that work well with your product, but need a little bit more help combining words to come up with a good domain, make sure to check out LeanDomainSearch.com. LeanDomainSearch is a new tool that finds available .com domains with specific key words. It is actually pretty addicting if you’re as obsessed with looking for domains as I am. You’ll be surprised by how many cool .com domains are still available.

.CO Domains

If you can’t find the right .com domain for your product, make sure to check out .co domains, which have recently become widely available for purchase. Big Brands such as Twitter (t.co), Overstock.com (o.co), Google (g.co), 500 Startups (500.co), Angel List (angel.co), and many more are already using .co domains.

Web 2.0 Domains

If all else fails, there are always plenty of Web 2.0 domains. Check out Web 2.0 domain generator tools like Dot-o-mator. The only issue with these type of domains is that they’re hard for your users to spell and remember.

You can also check out availability for non .com domains, with endings such as .ly (Lybian) or .am (this is what Instragr.am uses) – you can get pretty creative with these. However, the non .com endings might cost you a lot more and are subjects to the rules and regulations of a different country.

Feel free to share any other domain searching tools that you like and use in the comments!

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1) Daily Deals- You knew this was coming. Once hailed the next Big Thing, more daily deal sites are folding recently than unused Groupons in your deal wallet. In fact, almost 800 daily deals closed down in the last 6 months of 2011 in the US. Ouch. If you’re in Asia, it’s even worse. More than 1,400 daily deal sites vanished in the same time period. The truth is, people just don’t care anymore…they are suffering from “deal fatigue” after buying hordes of daily deals which they creatively try to spend over time. If the big guys like Amazon and Google can’t make people care…you likely won’t be able to either.

2) Virtual Currency- BitCoin caused quite a stir in 2011. So much of a stir that soon the equivalent rate for 1 BitCoin became equivalent to almost $30 (bubble anyone?). The problem was that there was no certainty that governments wouldn’t outlaw bitcoins, nor do they avoid the simple laws of economics that govern supply and demand. To learn more about the rise (and fall) of bitcoin, click here. Let’s just say it’s safe to assume that starting a P2P currency is not a good move for 2012.

3) Mobile, Social Local Photo Sharing App- Need I say more? In 2011, there was an explosion of photo sharing apps, none so infamous as Color and well, we know how that turned out. With so many widely used alternatives…Instagram, Path, Hipstamatic, to name a few…Color did not give users a reason to switch.  Not even with $45 million in their pockets. Mobile, social local photo sharing apps have been done! There I said it…don’t go there.

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Imagine making a number of important purchasing decisions on your small business’s credit card with your current interest rate in mind, only to receive a notice from your credit card company shortly thereafter, informing you that your rate had been doubled for no reason. Seems like a money-wasting nightmare, but it’s actually the case for why small business owners must garner debt stability in the new business credit card environment.

Somewhere around 80% of small businesses use credit cards for funding purposes, according to a National Small Business Association survey, and while debt stability has been historically unattainable, a credit card law put into effect in February 2010 (the CARD Act) made it possible for those using personal credit cards. The law prohibits credit card companies from changing a cardholder’s interest rate for existing debt unless he is 60 or more days delinquent on payment.

Ok, but why should small business owners care if personal credit card users are the only ones who benefit from the legislation? For one simple reason: According to a Card Hub Business Credit Card Study all of the major credit card issuers consider small business owners to be personally liable for business
credit card use and send information about this use to their personal credit reports, which means it affects their personal credit scores. In other words, there’s no reason not to use a personal credit card for company spending.

However, there are indeed reasons to continue using business credit cards: enhanced expense tracking capabilities, the ability to set custom credit limits for employee cards, centralized company rewards earning, and more. So where does that leave you? Using a rewards business credit card for everyday expenses that are paid for in full within a single billing period and a personal 0% credit card for expenses that result in a revolving monthly balance.

Aside from garnering debt stability as well as a business credit card’s unique features, there are a number of reasons why a credit card strategy like the one laid out above is beneficial. First of all, it gets you the best possible overall credit card terms. There’s no one credit card that provides both the best rewards and the lowest rates, but those things are certainly attainable if you use two different cards. Secondly, it prevents you from losing money on interest as a result of not having a grace period for new purchases. While interest isn’t normally assessed on a credit card until after your payment is due, when
you’re revolving a balance, new purchases begin accruing interest immediately.

Ultimately, small business owners have to realize that things have changed since the CARD Act and that old myths, such as the belief that personal credit cards increase personal liability, must be overcome. There are simply too many up-and-coming companies out there today and times are too tough to let
yourself be held back by the lobbying efforts of credit card companies, which have thus far resulted in Congress only protecting consumers and not small business owners.

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If you’re working in a startup, chances are the only project managements tool you have around is your whiteboard. The whiteboard is great for brainstorming ideas, but as your company continues to grow and you bring on more and more people, you might want to upgrade to a more formal web-based project managment tool.

At first, project management tools may sound intimidating, especially if you’ve ever worked in a corporation that has official project managers who are trained to use the insanely feature-rich Microsoft Projects, but luckily, there are more than a few tools out there that are much cheaper and easier to use.

Here is a list of 5 project management tools that will help you organize your team and substantially increase your team’s productivity.
1) Asana

Asana was started by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz whose vision is to fix how people collaborate on projects and work in teams. Asana is incredibly simple and intuitive to use and has a really nice three-window interface, so you can see your projects, tasks, and individual task details all on the same page. The best part about Asana is that it’s free for a group of up to 30 people, so you won’t have to break the bank to use this high-quality product.

2) Basecamp

Basecamp was started by the 37signals, a group of developers and designers who build their own simple feature-free project management tool after not being satisfied with the available options out there for their agency. They’ve decided to release Basecamp to the public, and it was an instant success (37signals is no longer an agency as they make more than enough money from their tools to support themselves). The key-word in there is “feature free” project management tool. If you’re looking for something that has a lot of specific features, Basecamp is not for you. 37signals is notorious for not listening to their customers when it comes to adding features. They like keeping their product as minimalist as possible and easy to use. Basecamp pricing ranges from free to $149/month based on the number of projects, and storage your team needs.

3) Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects has all the features you’ll ever need, including bug tracking, wikis, chat, document collaboration, time tracking, and a lot more. However, one of the things I personally like about Zoho Projects is that they make it really easy to hide these features if you don’t need them. For example, if you have a marketing project, you can get rid of the bug-tracking and wiki tab. So if your company is just starting out, but you plan to grow a lot in the future, Zoho Projects is a great tool to use, since you can hide the features you don’t need at first, and grow into them in the future versus Basecamp, which is great to use in the beginning, but you’re likely to outgrow it in the future. Zoho Projects pricing ranges from $20/month to much higher depending on which features and add-ons your team needs.

4) Pivotal Tracker

Pivotal Tracker is a project management tool created by development agency Pivotal Labs, who needed a custom tool for their agile software development technique. If you have more than a few developers at your startup and already practice agile software development, Pivotal Tracker might make your life a lot easier. Pivotal Tracker pricing starts at $7/month and goes up to $50/month based on the number of users, projects, and storage your team needs.

5) Unfuddle

Unfuddle combines the simple project management features of Basecamp with the very technical Git and Subversion hosting. If you have several developers working on the same project, git helps you keep track of the changes each developer makes and merge these changes into the main project while having a backup of the last version of code. Unfuddle pricing ranges from free to $99/month depending on how many users, projects, and storage your team needs.

As you can see, we are lucky enough to be living in an age where there are project management tools available for your team’s specific needs for both features and pricing. Only a few years ago, the only available option out there was Microsoft Projects. The above five are tools that I have used or heard good things about from other startups, but there are countless others, so let me know if you need help deciding on the right tool for your team.

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When we do this, we are guilty of the fundamental attribution error, a psychological theory that, when controlled, can greatly improve relationships both at work and at home. It might seem like a random post for a blog catering to startups, but I’ve personally found that awareness of this tendency has lowered my stress levels and made me a better entrepreneur. When you get really good, you notice when other people become guilty of making the error, and you see how embarrassing of a blooper it can be.

The idea is that when bad things happen to us, we are more likely to blame external factors. However, when bad things happen to others, we’re more likely to blame internal factors, such as their personality or dispositional tendencies. This leads us to view others in a negative light, while simultaneously expecting them to view us in a favorable light when something bad happens to us. Human nature…I know.

Here’s another way of putting it:

In other words, people have an unjustified tendency to assume that a person’s actions depend on what ‘kind’ of person that person is rather than on the social and environmental forces influencing the person.

The good thing about the fundamental attribution error is that when we learn to recognize it in practice, we can learn to control it. The biggest thing to do: cut people slack. In fact, Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project advises that recognition of the fundamental attribution error and the subsequent cutting of slack to people can be a strategy for achieving happiness. “ …Always cut people slack; always assume that their irritability, or unfriendliness, or absent-mindedness, neither reflects their true nature nor has anything to do with me. In brief, don’t take things personally.”

So if your next meeting is running late, catch up on some news and greet the person with a smile on your face and an open mind…you won’t regret it.

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1) Make a list of specific dealbreakers for the team- Almost midway through the search, we realized different members of the team had different expectations about location, size, and other basics. We decided to sit down and make a short list that would serve as a filter for potential spaces. Here’s what it looked like:

a) Must be dog friendly. Tuesday, our ninja dog, had to report to work everyday.

b) Set geographical borders of where the office must be.

c) Must have short term lease. We would not sign a lease longer than 1 year…we are a startup of course.

d) Must have two conference rooms and meet our budget for rent.

After we set these filters, we were much better able to qualify which spaces we should see.

2) Don’t rely on a single broker-Startups seem to be an enticing niche for some brokers who hope to get in with companies when they are small, form relationships, and be there as they grow. At first, I worked with a single broker who came highly recommended for placing startup companies. He was really nice and was intent on forming a “relationship” with me. I was more intent on finding my startup the perfect office as quickly and cheaply as possible. Though I felt bad calling up other brokers, I could soon see that the results they were getting all differed. Two heads are better than one…and three heads…well, you get the idea.

Sheel and Marc in our own freight elevator at FF HQ.

3) Do your own research-After getting results from brokers, I walked around the neighborhood we had chosen and just randomly called up buildings that had numbers “For Lease” on them. I ended up seeing properties that had not shown up in MLS searches or personal online searches. I pressed the multiple brokers I talked to for details on the neighborhood and asked them the same questions (often with different answers). This didn’t even take that much time…just about an hour to walk around and maybe another hour of following up to see properties I found. One property I found was significantly cheaper than our budget (not to mention about 40% cheaper than surrounding similar real estate) and was the ideal location…it wasn’t listed anywhere, just a phone number on a wall.

4) Don’t believe what brokers tell you- As I mentioned, different brokers told me different things. Some said I would not be able to find a place that fit our budget. Some said there were few dog friendly buildings in the neighborhood. Most said that our neighborhood required a long term lease and no one would give us such short tenure. From each person with whom I spoke, I got a piece to solve the puzzle of finding our office. At the end of the day, I found three different properties that fulfilled all of our criteria.

5) Don’t involve everyone in the search- Sheel and I primarily did all of our searching within two weeks. Personally, I saw more than 20 properties in 4 days. We only involved the team initially when we made the guidelines for the search, and then at the end when we were choosing between the two winning properties. Since the office search was not a priority, and our developers were working hard on getting Samurai out of beta, it was much better for the company for just one or two people to take the lead and take care of things. With limited resources on deck, we didn’t really discuss the details of our search since it was a distraction from real work that needed to be done.

At the end of the day, we found the perfect office, in the perfect location, at the perfect price. FeeFighters HQ has awesome energy, lots of pizza boxes, and is the perfect starting ground for a 2012 filled with possibility. Stop on by when you have a chance…

Recently, I’ve developed a three question approach to narrowing down ideas into potential business opportunities. Obviously, some might argue that there are other questions to be asked, but these three are my go-to when the “Eureka!” moment happens:

1) Does it solve a real problem?

There are two questions in this short but paramout question. Number one is, will the idea actually solve a problem. Most businesses that are founded on “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” do not end up surviving (of course there are many exceptions).  Number two is whether it solves a REAL problem…that is to say, what are the alternative solutions to the problem you are trying to solve? Is the problem a real pain point for a certain audience? If the answer to both of these questions is yes, you may have something on your hands. If not, your idea may just end up being a glorified hobby.

2) How does it make money?

People would criticize me for bringing up this point, but it is absolutely crucial for a business to …make money. Otherwise, by definition, it’s not a business. Too many entrepreneurs (especially younger/less experienced ones) bank on making something cool and hope to figure out the revenue model later without considering what kind of revenue model their business will have. To me, this is totally paradoxical. I’ve judged pitching competitions where revenue models are left out and talked to entrepreneurs who don’t have basic monetization strategies. The bottom line is this: if your idea won’t generate cash, it’s likely not worth it (unless you’re ok eating ramen forever).

3) Will you be passionate about it 5 years from now?

A couple of weeks ago, I was parking my car in my parking garage and accidentally scratched it by moving too close to these divider poles that are all over urban parking garages. When I went to get an estimate, the autoshop guy told me to not freak out…he sees these kind of scratches All. The. Time. Bingo! Business idea: develop foam pads that would go over urban parking garage dividers to prevent cars from getting scratched. Is it solving a real problem? Absolutely. Will it make money? Of course! But do I really care to solve this issue? ….not really. Herein lies the rub: when you start a company, you live/breathe/repeat the value proposition countless times for years on end. You don’t necessarily have to be passionate about the product, but you do have to be passionate about the problem you’re solving, or the business itself. Otherwise, you will run out of steam before your first foam pad leaves the factory. In my case, I find it instructive to imagine myself running the business I’m imagining five years from now: Am I happy? Am I achieving my goals? Am I leading a fulfilling life? In the case of foam car pads…probably not.

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Turns out, it’s a lot. About $340 million that could be avoided easily.

Over Black Friday weekend, a record 226 million shoppers came out and spent an average of $398.62 per person over four days. This spike in sales represents about 12% of what retailers will make over the holiday season. What percentage of these sales actually went to small businesses vs big box retailers?  The US Business Census reports that about 26% of sales go to small businesses (defined as annual revenue under $10 million).

Small businesses are hurting from the effects of prolonged recession, and they need to keep every penny they can…especially over the holiday season. With more than a quarter of holiday shoppers paying by credit cards, small businesses feel the hit of credit card processing fees during the holiday season more than ever. Unfortunately, small business owners pay an average of 2.65% to process credit cards…ouch! This should be much closer to 2% for card present transactions. However, owners get mired in fine print, hidden fees, and sleazy salespeople when they’re choosing a merchant account.

$340 million is  LOT of money. Just how much?

-$333 million=Expected total US foreign aid to Mexico in 2012

-$340 million=Total in Swiss bank account of deposed Egyptian dictator’s sons

-$400 million= Total SBA loans to small businesses in June 2010 (down from $1.5 billion!)

Luckily, on FeeFighters, business owners can comparison shop competitive merchant accounts on their own time. The marketplace place yields about 40% in savings for small businesses. Taking online payments is also easier than ever with Samurai.

It’s reassuring to know that easy savings that go straight to the bottom line are only a click away. Ho, ho, ho!

10) Summary: Trends in SaaS Web-Based Software for SMB

Name: TJ McCue Small Business Trends

Category: Business and Finance

Media Outlet: Small Business Trends

Query:
Looking ahead to 2012. How online software is affecting small
businesses (such as pricing trends, any new categories of
software, which categories are hot/which not (such as Dropbox
taking the small biz world by storm.)

SEE REQUIREMENTS info below. SUPER important.

Include whatever thoughts you have in the email itself, in quote

form, with your name, title, company. I will not have time to
go to links, open PDFs, or get on a briefing call. Keeping it
short makes it more likely I’ll respond or ask for more info.
Rambling on and on gets you deleted.

Please don’t send a release with how great your company is or
some new version you’ve released. Those are automatically
deleted…

Sorry to be particular, and not intending to be arrogant in any
way. I’m open to pitches, but you would be amazed at how
unfocused and off-target many direct messages are, even when I
make these detailed requirements known.

I’m on deadline. That phrase should mean something and explain
everything.

Here you can see exactly the types of responses TJ gets from other HARO queries and just why most of them are annoying/useless/a waste of time. Use this post as a cautionary tale and make sure to follow make your responses timely, short, and informational.

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