Sakib Mahmud Aka Visionary Geek

Lorna Li is the Marketing Manager of Salesforce.com, the leading Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool. Discussed on the show were several topics helpful for small businesses (SMB) getting started with a web site, including: selecting a domain name, keyword research / discovery, site structure, how to get the right site design, choose the right web host, find consultants and even selecting the best plugins to save you time.

In previous time, I’ve shared tons of resource for entrepreneurs and you know when you’re in business you need to grow venture capital for your organizations or  business firm, have to understand and know about legal issues and accounts management, web design and internet marketing, advertising and lots of issues.  However, one of my favorite writer Neil shared something cool resource for the web users. I wish you really enjoy it.

Neil Patel is the co-founder of 2 Internet companies: Crazy Egg, and KISSmetrics. Through these 2 companies he has helped large corporations such as AOL, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard and Viacom make more money from the web. By the age of 21 not only was Neil named a top 100 blogger by Technorati, but he was also one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal

As a first time entrepreneur you probably have tons of questions. And every time you do a Google search for an answer you are bombarded with too much information and in some cases that information contradicts other things you have heard. Due to this, I have created a list of 54 resources that should help you out.

Legal & Accounting

Legal and accounting issues may not seem important when you are starting your company, but they are. Legal and accounting mistakes that you make early on can haunt you for years and can be expensive to fix. So if you are going to start a company you should do things right from the get go.

• S Corp. vs. LLC: Which Structure is Right for Your Business – Determining the type of legal structure for a new business can be daunting for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Learn more about S Corporations and Limited Liability Companies (LLC), and decide if one of these business structures is right for you.
• Legal Zoom – a cheap way to get incorporated.
• Findlaw – a directory of all the lawyers throughout the US.
• Bookkeeping 101: Debits and Credits – Accounting ends with score keeping but begins with record keeping. The first task of accounting is to accurately record transactions. Transactions are events that change the composition of a firm’s assets, liabilities, and equity.
• Accounting Basics – This explanation of accounting basics will introduce you to some basic accounting principles, accounting concepts, and accounting terminology.
• Docstoc – A free place to get legal documents and templates which can drastically help reduce your legal fees and in some cases allow you to do some legal stuff yourself.
• You’ve Been Sued: What Do You Do? – Everything you wanted to know about being sued.
• Opening a Business Bank Account – Business bank accounts and your identity.
• Closing Down Your Business Permanently – If you’re shuttering your business for good, there’s more to it than drawing the blinds.
• Legal Issues to Consider When Starting Your Business – There are a multitude of legal issues to think about when it comes to starting your business. Everything from your business name to its structure to its operation has legal implications.

Web Design

Design is something we tend to take for granted. Not only is important for your website to look good, but you also want to make sure it is usable and converts.

• Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design – The ten most egregious offenses against users. Web design disasters and HTML horrors are legion, though many usability atrocities are less common than they used to be.
• Google Website Optimizer – A free tool that will help you maximize your conversions.
• Web Developers Handbook – Everything you need to know about web design and development.
• CSS Vault – Web design inspiration.
• A Roadmap to Web Standards – Before you start designing your website, make sure you are complying with web standards.
• Signal vs Noise – A design and usability blog by 37signals.
• Crazy Egg – A simple tool that shows you how website visitors interact with your website.
• How to choose a website design agency – Choosing the right web design shop can be a tricky thing.

Internet Marketing

You can have a great product or service, but if no one sees it you will never make any money. Now this doesn’t mean you have to hire a marketing firm to help you out, but you could learn some basic things about Internet marketing.

• Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization – The basics of search engine optimization.
• Social Media Marketing Beginner’s Guide – Interested in leveraging the social web? Here is what you need to know first.
• Top Ten Things You Can Do To Get Blogged On – Getting bloggers to blog on your company isn’t an easy thing. If you flow these rules and you should be successful at it.
• How to Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines – What you need to know if you want your corporate blog to get traffic.
• Web Analytics: An Hour A Day – Google’s analytics guru, Avinash Kaushik, breaks down web analytics and the tracking needs you may need for your website.
• Dullest – The blog of Google’s main search engineer, Matt Cutts. Before you get into search engine optimization, you probably want to read his blog.
• MailChimp – Sending high quantities of emails isn’t an easy thing to do. In most cases your emails won’t go through unless you use a service like MailChimp.
• Banner Basics: Create Ads That Work – Banner advertising isn’t dead… you just have to learn how to effectively use them.

Hiring Employees

When you don’t have much cash in the bank, you can’t afford to make hiring mistakes. Sooner or later you are going to have to hire a few employees, so you better know what to look for.

• When to hire your first employee – if you are considering hiring an employee, you should read this first.
• 5 tips for hiring your first employee – Microsoft breaks down some useful tips for new companies.
• 9 Steps Before You Hire – 9 good tips for first time business owners.
• ADP – Payroll can be a hassle. ADP provides good payroll solutions for a very affordable price.
• How to Fire an Employee – If you hire a bad employee you better learn to fire them.
• When to Fire an Employee – Analyzing when it is time to accept that a performance improvement will not happen.
• Fully-Baked: The real cost of adding a new employee – Employees cost more than just their salaries.
• 201 ways to turn any employee into a star performer – A book that you should read if you want to maximize your employees output.
• Tsheets – Employee time tracking software.
• RescueTime – Employee time tracking and time management software.

Raising Venture Capital

Raising money can be a pain in the ass, especially if you have never done it before. If you want to raise money, you need to know the basic terminology that venture capitalists use, how to create a pitching deck, and how to get in front of venture capitalists.

• Vfinance – A directory of venture capitalists, angel investors, and business plan templates.
• Forbes Midas List – A list of the top 100 venture capitalists for the year 2009.
• The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint – Before you make a powerpoint that showcases your company and how much money you are raising, you should read this.
• How to Raise Venture Capital – An detailed overview on how you can raise money.
• Venture Hacks – A blog for entrepreneurs that discusses everything about venture capital.
• The Funded – An online community of entrepreneurs to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide.
• How To Raise Venture Dollars – Ben Elowitz who has raised over 40 million dollars breaks down the tricks to raising money.
• Paul Graham – Awesome essays about venture capital and entrepreneurship.

General Business Advice

Other entrepreneurs have already solved many of the problems you are going to face. So when you run to into these generic problems, here are some websites you can turn to.

• Inspired Startup – Successful entreprenuer Andy Liu breaks down how to take your startup to the next level.
• The 50 best business blogs – There are thousands of business blogs, but here are the 50 best according to Times.
• The Top 10 Mistakes People Make When Starting A Business – You don’t want to make any of these mistakes.
• 10 Timeless Business Tips From 10 Millionaires – If you want to be a millionaire then you better learn from them.
• Solving Your Business Problems – Start solving your problems before they even take place.
• Struggling Entrepreneur – The Struggling Entrepreneur is a free podcast series that deals with the issues, challenges and problems of the individual who wants to be an entrepreneur, but who encounters a somewhat difficult path and appears to be struggling.
• Smarta – A support community for entrepreneurs.
• Litemind – Exploring ways to use your mind more efficiently.
• Mixergy – Successful CEOs share their experiences with the masses.

Living The Frugal Life

Although it may sound sexy to be an entrepreneur, most entrepreneurs don’t make a ton of money. You are going to have to learn to live a frugal life so that you can continue to do what you love and not worry about paying your mortgage.

• Little Steps: 100 Great Tips For Saving Money For Those Just Getting Started
• 75 Painless Money-Saving Tips – Saving money can be painful, but here are 75 ways that are painless.
• Strapped For Cash? Billshrink Can Save You Thousands!
• High Yield Savings Accounts at 20 Largest Banks – If you are going to keep your money with a bank, might as well be a bank that has high yield savings accounts.
• Scrooge Strategy – 1 premium tip every week that helps you save money.
• How to Reduce Rent – Rent is probably your biggest expense, here are a few ways to reduce it.

Conclusion

There are a ton of resources out there for first time entrepreneurs, but these are the main ones I use. Do you have any other recommendations?

Today, I’m looking for web strategy, how web startup’s strategy works,  the structure of strategy and different functions of strategy in Business. But, today I got What Makes A Great Startup?, and I found few interesting in Sean’s post. See the interesting Sideshow, you really enjoy it.

We can learn from our mistakes. If we don’t — that would be a big disaster in near future. I just came from problogger where guest writer, John Robinson posted about five mistakes which happening when we are on marketing and it makes us unsuccessful.

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A tribe is any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea. For millions of years, humans have been seeking out tribes, be they religious, ethnic, economic, political, or even musical (think of the Deadheads). It’s our nature.

Now the Internet has eliminated the barriers of geography, cost, and time. All those blogs and social networking sites are helping existing tribes get bigger. But more important, they’re enabling countless new tribes to be born—groups of ten or ten thousand or ten million who care about their iPhones, or a political campaign, or a new way to fight global warming.

And so the key question: Who is going to lead us?

The Web can do amazing things, but it can’t provide leadership. That still has to come from individuals— people just like you who have passion about something. The explosion in tribes means that anyone who wants to make a difference now has the tools at her fingertips.

If you think leadership is for other people, think again—leaders come in surprising packages. Consider Joel Spolsky and his international tribe of scary-smart software engineers. Or Gary Vaynerhuck, a wine expert with a devoted following of enthusiasts. Chris Sharma leads a tribe of rock climbers up impossible cliff faces, while Mich Mathews, a VP at Microsoft, runs her internal tribe of marketers from her cube in Seattle. All they have in common is the desire to change things, the ability to connect a tribe, and the willingness to lead.

If you ignore this opportunity, you risk turning into a “sheepwalker”—someone who fights to protect the status quo at all costs, never asking if obedience is doing you (or your organization) any good. Sheepwalkers don’t do very well these days.

Tribes will make you think (really think) about the opportunities in leading your fellow employees, customers, investors, believers, hobbyists, or readers. . . . It’s not easy, but it’s easier than you think.