Here are my notes from Paul Allen’s second class “A Crash Course in Internet Marketing”. Not that I need a crash course. But Paul asked me to attend and I have found it very interesting. Today’ class was on Paul’s favorite entrepreneurial tools and sites.
1) Check out Paul Grams Combinator, which is a successful incubator.
2) Best books to read – art of the start, emyths, Net entrepreneurs only, striking it rich.com, the game of work. I have not read any of these books. They are now on my list.
3) Find mentors who are successful in your niche and follow them. Top 500 retailers book to see who is succeeding. What did they do smart? Read their blogs, interviews in the paper or magazines. Find someone who has done it recently and well. Find a morpheus (from the matrix).
4) Best periodicals – business 2.0 by far the best. Industry standard (now out of business). Wired magazine, Popular science (I get this magazine and love it!).
5) Don’t waste time. Make the most of every single hour.
6) Checkout the 167 interviews for free npost.com. Great content!
7) Stanford educators corner. edcorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html 
94% of franchises are in business 5 years later. Good way to start a business if you have the money.
9) Use a blackberry. Scarcest resource is time. Portable email is a lifesaver. Saves 2 hours a day.
10) Mp3 player – fill with best stuff and listen to it. Paul’s brother listened to 200 audio books last year while building log beds.
11) Use linkedin to connect with people. Use it everyday, add to your network everyday. Make connections to help your business. In the last 2 weeks I have grown my network from from 50 to 75.
12) Do research on your competitors. Use the alexa.com toolbar. quantcast.com and compete.com, waybackmachine.com. www.sec.gov (Management discussion of business, earnings calls on yahoo), findarticles.com (looksmart), highbeam.com worth subscription, wall street journal, googe alerts.
13) Use Google tools, spreadsheets and docs and desktop widgets.
14) freeconferencecall.com, skype for small groups to communicate with employees.
15) vistaprint.com to get business cards. logoworks.com to get a logo. istockphoto.com. I use bigstockphoto.com as well.
16) aweber.com email list manager. We have used this on WorldVitalRecords.com for some time and it has work well. Just $20/month for up to 10,000 subscribers. 1shoppingcart.com ecommerce site with a bunch of stuff built in like commerce, email manager, and affiliate system. wikia.com, www.ning.com create your own social network. surveymonkey.com to add surveys to your site.
17) prweb, prleap.com. (strategytree.com pauls wiki on internet marketing.) We have been using prweb.com for our paid press releases. I know the my friend Janet (visit her site to learn more about press release strategies)also uses prleap.com to do her free press releases. We have used this service as well with good results.
18) Don’t forget that direct mailing still works. Especially for B2B. referenceusa.com (available at public libraries), infousa.com, melissadata, jigsaw.com
19) dnd.com credit reports on millions of small businesses. Financial reports.
20) How to find help? Guru.com, elance.com, rentacoder.com
21) Need money? prosper.com, zopa.com (UK only) get capital for a startup.
22) alibaba.com directory of all manufacturers.
Great list Brad! But no link love? PRWeb just came out with some new reporting and tools. You can now reach more offline media. I have yet to check it out. If you want, I’ll go over it with you free sometime, just to have an account. I do work for clients and don’t have my own press releases to send out quite yet.
Let me know.
Janet
There is that better. Sorry just an oversite.