Six-Figure Businesses Built for Less Than $100: 17 Lessons Learned Photo: 401K. The following article is a guest post by Chris Guillibeau, who’s traveled to 150+ countries and studied more micro-businesses than anyone I know. I hope you love this piece as much as I did. Enjoy! Enter Chris Over the past several years, I’ve been on a quest to study micro-businesses—small operations (typically one person) that make $50,000 a year or more (often a lot more). I wanted to hear from all kinds of businesses–both offline and online–to decipher what made them so successful. After much effort, a small team and I narrowed down the case studies to a subset of 70 that I focused on for final analysis. Here is a highly-condensed list of 17 lessons learned… The 17 Lessons of $100 Start-ups Note: Links show the businesses in action. A gap in the marketplace reveals a business opportunity.Gary Leff used his Frequent Flyer Miles to travel all over the world in First Class, and his friends kept asking for advice. Latch on to a popular service, then simplify it for others.
How to Make Money on iPhone Apps How many times has a friend showed you his or her favorite new iPhone app, and you lamented: Why didn't I think of that? With total application downloads from Apple's iTunes app store topping three billion, and monthly sales of upwards of $200 million, the marketplace for apps is booming. If you're a designer or programmer, how can you afford not to be creating apps? Well, it's not quite that simple. Apple says it receives between 8,500 and 10,000 application submissions every week. Greg Trefry, a veteran game designer who teaches at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, recently founded Gigantic Mechanic with Mattia Romeo. "There are so many apps out there, it's an extremely crowded market so that the barrier to entry is so low and the barrier to success is so high," he says. Of course, there's more to making a profitable app than just having a good idea. Dig Deeper: More News on Apple's iPhone Making Money on iPhone Apps: Getting Approved
Beyond X PRIZE: The 10 Best Crowdsourcing Tools and Technologies Peter Diamandis explaining X PRIZE economics. (Photo: Hubert Burda) Dr. He’s no underachiever. I’ve known Peter for several years, both as a friend and as advising faculty at Singularity University. The following guest post offers an optimistic look at the tools and technologies he believes will change this world for the better, which you can harness. In it, Diamandis and co-author Kotler challenge us all to solve humanity’s grand challenges. I hope this excites you as much as it excites me. Enter Peter In 1861 William Russell, one of the biggest investors in the Pony Express, decided to use the previous year’s presidential election for promotional purposes. His goal was to deliver Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address from the eastern end of the telegraph line, located in Fort Kearny, Nebraska, to the western end of the telegraph line, in Fort Churchill, Nevada, as fast as possible. ICT’s impact doesn’t end with novel ways to spread information or share material resources. Gold in Dem Hills
60 Useful iPhone Applications Apr 13 2011 Owning an iPhone is a dream for most people nowadays. And why not… it’s equipped with smart apps and softwares that leaves mouths wide open in astonishment. To continue this legacy of the iPhone, we’ve searched for even more applications to make your iPhone your best friend, navigator and adviser. Gilt for iPad You can shop for fashion and luxury brands at get up to 70% discounts. Its a member only community. WordPress Now you can edit, Manage and moderate your WordPress blog and/or website from your iPhone through this wonderful application. Simultravel GPS With Simultravel you can locate hotels around your location while you travel. Adobe Ideas Its your digital sketch book which lets you capture ideas anywhere you go. Hey Where Are You : Location Service (HeyWAY) (HeyWAY) is a location service with which you can keep track of your family, friends or employees and you will get constant updates on their location and they can also request the details from you. Yahoo! Yowza!!
Automation (Photo: Stuck in Customs) For the last two years, one name has come up again and again when talking with A-class start-up investors: Pivotal Labs. See, Pivotal Labs quietly helps dozens of the fastest-growing tech companies in the world, including freight trains like Groupon and Twitter. I first met the Founder of Pivotal Labs, Rob Mee, when one of the start-ups I advise, TaskRabbit, began working with them. One thing is immediately clear: Rob is obsessed with how to get obscenely high output. The Wilburns have created a multinational from their home. “So, do you have any ideas?” “Well, if we’re going to do something, it should be big. The conversation continued in front of the Thai restaurant, me pacing on my cell phone in San Francisco — foregoing food in excitement — and Tobi in his offices in Ottawa, Canada. We decided in the subsequent 10 minutes to offer $100,000 cash as a bribe to you all. The details make it even better… Read More Too many choices. Who made more progress?
How Much Does It Cost To Develop an App | iPhone App Development Costs Table of Contents Types of AppsApp Development ProcessDevelopment CostsDesign CostsTotal CostsFree iPhone App Quote Overview In the past two years, the app market has exploded. And for good reason. The good news? Let’s talk about what goes into getting an app developed. Types of Apps You Can Develop There are many different kinds of apps you can develop. Basic table functionality – think about this as a hierarchy: opening screen has big topics and you click one and you now have a set of new lists to click on. The type of app you want to develop may change based on how much content you have and how much control you want to have over the entire process. App Development Process The app development process can be broken out into four major parts – idea, layout and planning, design, and going live. 1. This is the first genesis of where the app will be going and one step after “I want an app.” 2. 3. 4. iPhone App Development Costs iPhone App Design Costs Total App Costs There Is Another Way
The Truth About Abs: How To Make $1,000,000 Per Month with Digital Products (Plus: Noah Kagan results) Six-pack abs sell. (Photo: San Diego Shooter) Once or twice in the past, I have referred to “someone” who has earned $5,000,000-$10,000,000 per year with e-books and cross promotion. For that, I should apologize, as it’s not accurate: his numbers are now closer to $1,000,000 per month, and “e-book” doesn’t begin to explain what he does. That someone is named Mike Geary. He prefers to keep a low profile, skiing powder and refining his “muse,” or automated business, to a precise science. For the first time, this post will explain how he built his business, some of the key lessons learned, and common mistakes with digital products. As you read, keep in mind two things: - He is, without a doubt, considered one of the smartest online marketers and traffic buyers (a key differentiator) in the world. - He started off knowing nothing and got there through intelligent testing. As Thomas J. Enjoy… Enter Mike Geary Can you describe your muse? What is the website for your muse? How did you get started?
Accessing iPhone Call History « Bushra Shahid's iOS stuff Although there is no API in the SDK to access iPhone’s Call History, there is a read-only SQLite database that gives access to the call history. In this tutorial, we shall learn what is the name of this database; where is it stored; what is its schema; and finally how can we access it? Call History Database – Path, and Schema The iPhone call history is stored in “call_history.db” which is located at the following path: /private/var/root/Library/CallHistory/call_history.db There are other important databases on the iPhone, some of which are accessible and some are not. I got the following results: var/db/launchd.dbvar/mobile/Library/AddressBook/AddressBook.sqlitedbvar/mobile/Library/AddressBook/AddressBookImages.sqlitedbvar/wireless/Library/CallHistory/call_history.db Feel free to share yours :) So now we have the database path and we can easily read the values stored in it, but to know what value is what we need to know the schema. You will get something like this: Accessing the Call History
8 Steps to Getting What You Want… Without Formal Credentials (Photo: ElMarto) Michael Ellsberg has been a good friend since 2000. In the last few years, he has made a study of self-study. How do the best in business do what they do? - Overcome a debilitating case of bipolar II (here’s how). - Landed one of the most powerful literary agents in the world. - Published not one but two books from major New York publishers, the second scoring a 6-figure advance. - Found the woman of his dreams and married her. - Built a well-followed blog on Forbes.com with zero prior blogging experience. Most recently, Michael has interviewed the likes of fashion magnate Russell Simmons, Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, Facebook founding president Sean Parker, WordPress lead developer Matt Mullenweg, and Pink Floyd songwriter and lead guitarist David Gilmour. Why? In this post, Michael will discuss how uber-successful people leapfrog their peers without any formal credentials. In the words of Alfonso Bedoya in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: “Badges? Connections.
How to Create a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend (Examples: AppSumo, Mint, Chihuahuas) Noah Kagan built two multi-million dollar online businesses before turning 28. He also looks great in orange. (Photo: Laughing Squid) I first met Noah Kagan over rain and strong espressos at Red Rock Coffee in Mountain View, CA. It would be the first of many. The matchmaker then introducing us was the prophetic and profane Dave McClure, General Partner of 500 Start-ups, which is now headquartered just down the street from Red Rock. Mr. He was employee #30 at Facebook, #4 at Mint, had previously worked for Intel (where he frequently took naps under his desk), and had turned down a six-figure offer from Yahoo. The purpose of this post is simple: to teach you how to get a $1,000,000 business idea off the ground in one weekend, full of specific tools and tricks that Noah has used himself. He will be your guide… Enter Noah For some reason, people love to make excuses about why they haven’t created their dream business or even gotten started. We made the original product for Gambit in a weekend.