Our Final Roundup of Small Business Week Announcements

The list of small business announcements coming out of National Small Business Week just keeps on coming. We’ve covered many products, tips, services and other small business news items thus far in our special collection of small business posts. If you missed them, please check the first and second editions of our Small Business Week announcements.

Let’s kick off our final roundup of Small Business Week announcements with two contests of interest to the crowdfunding community:

NASE crowdfunding with Fundable. The National Association for the Self-Employed and the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council have teamed up with crowdfunding platform Fundable. The idea is to hold a contest the organizers claim will teach startups and existing small businesses more effective fundraising skills. Participants will use the Fundable platform to create their fundraising pages. Winners will be announced after Labor Day and will receive the money they’ve raised.

Crowdfunding community announces competition. Crowdfunding incubator ProHatch announces its first #GET_HATCHED crowdfunding competition. The incubator is now accepting project applications. Projects must be fully built and submitted for competition by July 29. A prize package includes $5,000 and mentoring. Learn more here.

Health care and immigration reform not big issues. At least, that’s according to RocketLawyer’s Small Business Index. It says only 10% considered health care reform a top priority issue, and only 50% were aware of insurance exchanges. Just 3% call immigration reform a top priority for the country. Such issues, however, tend to impact businesses differently, depending on their size. The survey covered small business users of RocketLawyer’s services, which may skew toward fairly small businesses.

Small businesses are seeing the value in Facebook. The social media giant took the opportunity during National Small Business Week to share some stats about small business use of its advertising. In a small business roundtable called “Bringing Main Street to Madison Avenue,” Facebook announced one million advertisers on its platform. Facebook says these numbers largely reflect small businesses using the platform to grow.

IT managers say network disruptions can take you out. Or your business, that is. In fact, 97 percent of IT managers say network disruptions had a detrimental effect on business last year. An eWeek Infographic looks at how virtualized systems have changed how business is done.

Document Sign Off Service Launched. ApproveForMe is a Web-based tool. Businesses use it to create, track and manage document sign-offs from internal team members and external clients. The service was officially launched this week.

Small Business Person of the Year. The Small Business Administration announced the Small Business Person of the Year in the United States for 2013. It’s John L. Stonecipher, CEO of Guidance Aviation, a high altitude flight school in Prescott, Arizona, established in 1998. Runners up include: Noah Leask, CEO of Ishpi Information Technologies, Inc. of Mount Pleasant, S.C., and Kari Block, Founder/CEO, Earth Kind, Inc. of Bismarck, N.D. Congratulations!

Mobile: How does Your Business Compare? According to a survey of global small businesses by Podio, a Citrix Systems company, 68% of employees in small businesses use their own personal devices for work â€" whether or not the company has a formal policy on it. And 76% of small business employees say they spend up to 10 hours a week in meetings. Let’s hope they’re productive!

Cash or check, please. According to a Small Business Week infographic by WePay, 72% of small businesses prefer to accept payment by cash or check.  Now that’s interesting â€" cash is easy to understand, but NSF checks can be a costly pain to deal with. Even more to the point, the majority of customers prefer to shop at places where multiple forms of payment, including credit cards, are accepted.

Image credit: Citrix infographic

Take Customer Service To The Next Level By Adding Live Chat To Your Website

Live chat support on your website gets you closer to your customers. Let’s say your customer wants to buy a product, but they have a question that isn’t answered on your website. The customer then has to find an email address on the site and email you, perhaps from an entirely separate site. Or they’ll have to actually pick up a phone and call you, again, taking them away from your site.

You don’t want that customer to leave. You want a self-contained experience. You want to keep your customer on your website. You don’t want an opportunity for them to forget about your site or to decide it’s not worth the effort to email you a question. Every question and every click between your customers and your product should be absolutely necessary. Anything that slows the process is a hindrance.

Thus, the major benefit of live chat support is that it allows your customers to have their questions answered fast. Where in the past, you might have lost customers because they either didn’t put in the effort to email, or you took a day or so to respond and the customer ended up going with a competing product, live chat allows you to keep those customers.

Other benefits include productivity and an expense decrease. When you have customers calling, you can only deal with one customer at a time. On live chat, you can pretty safely deal with three customers at a time.

Here are three options to consider if you are thinking about adding live chat to your website:

Offerchat. Offerchat is 100% free all the time. They charge only if you are outsourcing to their agents. If you’re using your own, you’re good to go. There are no downloads or software and you can manage chats coming in from multiple websites on one web platform. Offerchat also allows you to store common (long) answers to FAQs for quick access later instead of typing them every single time.

Zopim. Zopim, one of the best recommended live chat service providers, also offers a free service. It allows for one agent and one conversation at a time. It also provides smart offline modes for when you go offline and the ability to email chat transcripts. With Zopim, you also receive real-time visitor information as well as automatic translation, which translates chat into your native language.

Jitbit. One of the newer players in the category, Jitbit now offers a cloud-based chat program that can be easily integrated into your website. With features such as desktop notification and sound alert,  Jitbit offers a 21-day free trial on their live chat service here, so you can check out how their service works for your company.

If you are ready to take the leap and add live chat to your business, you’ll also want to check out our six tips for adding live chat to your website.

Do you use live chat? Tell us about your experience in the comments below!

Take Customer Service To The Next Level By Adding Live Chat To Your Website

Live chat support on your website gets you closer to your customers. Let’s say your customer wants to buy a product, but they have a question that isn’t answered on your website. The customer then has to find an email address on the site and email you, perhaps from an entirely separate site. Or they’ll have to actually pick up a phone and call you, again, taking them away from your site.

You don’t want that customer to leave. You want a self-contained experience. You want to keep your customer on your website. You don’t want an opportunity for them to forget about your site or to decide it’s not worth the effort to email you a question. Every question and every click between your customers and your product should be absolutely necessary. Anything that slows the process is a hindrance.

Thus, the major benefit of live chat support is that it allows your customers to have their questions answered fast. Where in the past, you might have lost customers because they either didn’t put in the effort to email, or you took a day or so to respond and the customer ended up going with a competing product, live chat allows you to keep those customers.

Other benefits include productivity and an expense decrease. When you have customers calling, you can only deal with one customer at a time. On live chat, you can pretty safely deal with three customers at a time.

Here are three options to consider if you are thinking about adding live chat to your website:

Offerchat. Offerchat is 100% free all the time. They charge only if you are outsourcing to their agents. If you’re using your own, you’re good to go. There are no downloads or software and you can manage chats coming in from multiple websites on one web platform. Offerchat also allows you to store common (long) answers to FAQs for quick access later instead of typing them every single time.

Zopim. Zopim, one of the best recommended live chat service providers, also offers a free service. It allows for one agent and one conversation at a time. It also provides smart offline modes for when you go offline and the ability to email chat transcripts. With Zopim, you also receive real-time visitor information as well as automatic translation, which translates chat into your native language.

Jitbit. One of the newer players in the category, Jitbit now offers a cloud-based chat program that can be easily integrated into your website. With features such as desktop notification and sound alert,  Jitbit offers a 21-day free trial on their live chat service here, so you can check out how their service works for your company.

If you are ready to take the leap and add live chat to your business, you’ll also want to check out our six tips for adding live chat to your website.

Do you use live chat? Tell us about your experience in the comments below!

Cory Booker’s (Newark Mayor) 4 Lessons On Social Media and Personal Branding

Cory Booker, Newark Mayor

I predict that Cory Booker will be the next Senator of NJ because of his personal brand and social media.

This is NOT a political endorsement in any way - but LESSONS learned for all small businesses in the POWER of a personal brand and social media that Mayor Booker is teaching us all.

Small business owners with strong personal brands  can do big things and social media  for small businesses (see my social media 101 article) is critical - here’s how Mayor Booker is doing it.

Cory Booker is a GREAT example of leveraging these two things quite well - as reported in the WSJ .

1. He has over a million Twitter followers (social media use - see my social media 101 article) (do you notice how he’s active on social media, responds to Tweets and more?)
2. He has built a powerful PERSONAL brand (beyond being “a mayor”).
3. He’s not just a “good weather” politician but has built a genuine care for his community AND he uses social media to let his tribe know about his activity in the community.
4. He has built a follower of INFLUENCERS (such as Oprah Winfrey) which will also help him.

Again, this is NOT a political endorsement in any way but lessons we can all learn from.

Today’s politican like today’s small business owners - MUST have strong personal brands to THRIVE and SUCCEED and leverage social media.

President Obama did much of what Cory Booker has done and this helped him win his first election. If Gov Romney had a strong online presence and other technology and analytical elements - maybe he would have been President today.

Cory Booker’s (Newark Mayor) 4 Lessons On Social Media and Personal Branding

Cory Booker, Newark Mayor

I predict that Cory Booker will be the next Senator of NJ because of his personal brand and social media.

This is NOT a political endorsement in any way - but LESSONS learned for all small businesses in the POWER of a personal brand and social media that Mayor Booker is teaching us all.

Small business owners with strong personal brands  can do big things and social media  for small businesses (see my social media 101 article) is critical - here’s how Mayor Booker is doing it.

Cory Booker is a GREAT example of leveraging these two things quite well - as reported in the WSJ .

1. He has over a million Twitter followers (social media use - see my social media 101 article) (do you notice how he’s active on social media, responds to Tweets and more?)
2. He has built a powerful PERSONAL brand (beyond being “a mayor”).
3. He’s not just a “good weather” politician but has built a genuine care for his community AND he uses social media to let his tribe know about his activity in the community.
4. He has built a follower of INFLUENCERS (such as Oprah Winfrey) which will also help him.

Again, this is NOT a political endorsement in any way but lessons we can all learn from.

Today’s politican like today’s small business owners - MUST have strong personal brands to THRIVE and SUCCEED and leverage social media.

President Obama did much of what Cory Booker has done and this helped him win his first election. If Gov Romney had a strong online presence and other technology and analytical elements - maybe he would have been President today.

Cory Booker’s (Newark Mayor) 4 Lessons On Social Media and Personal Branding

Cory Booker, Newark Mayor

I predict that Cory Booker will be the next Senator of NJ because of his personal brand and social media.

This is NOT a political endorsement in any way - but LESSONS learned for all small businesses in the POWER of a personal brand and social media that Mayor Booker is teaching us all.

Small business owners with strong personal brands  can do big things and social media  for small businesses (see my social media 101 article) is critical - here’s how Mayor Booker is doing it.

Cory Booker is a GREAT example of leveraging these two things quite well - as reported in the WSJ .

1. He has over a million Twitter followers (social media use - see my social media 101 article) (do you notice how he’s active on social media, responds to Tweets and more?)
2. He has built a powerful PERSONAL brand (beyond being “a mayor”).
3. He’s not just a “good weather” politician but has built a genuine care for his community AND he uses social media to let his tribe know about his activity in the community.
4. He has built a follower of INFLUENCERS (such as Oprah Winfrey) which will also help him.

Again, this is NOT a political endorsement in any way but lessons we can all learn from.

Today’s politican like today’s small business owners - MUST have strong personal brands to THRIVE and SUCCEED and leverage social media.

President Obama did much of what Cory Booker has done and this helped him win his first election. If Gov Romney had a strong online presence and other technology and analytical elements - maybe he would have been President today.

Take Customer Service To The Next Level By Adding Live Chat To Your Website

Live chat support on your website gets you closer to your customers. Let’s say your customer wants to buy a product, but they have a question that isn’t answered on your website. The customer then has to find an email address on the site and email you, perhaps from an entirely separate site. Or they’ll have to actually pick up a phone and call you, again, taking them away from your site.

You don’t want that customer to leave. You want a self-contained experience. You want to keep your customer on your website. You don’t want an opportunity for them to forget about your site or to decide it’s not worth the effort to email you a question. Every question and every click between your customers and your product should be absolutely necessary. Anything that slows the process is a hindrance.

Thus, the major benefit of live chat support is that it allows your customers to have their questions answered fast. Where in the past, you might have lost customers because they either didn’t put in the effort to email, or you took a day or so to respond and the customer ended up going with a competing product, live chat allows you to keep those customers.

Other benefits include productivity and an expense decrease. When you have customers calling, you can only deal with one customer at a time. On live chat, you can pretty safely deal with three customers at a time.

Here are three options to consider if you are thinking about adding live chat to your website:

Offerchat. Offerchat is 100% free all the time. They charge only if you are outsourcing to their agents. If you’re using your own, you’re good to go. There are no downloads or software and you can manage chats coming in from multiple websites on one web platform. Offerchat also allows you to store common (long) answers to FAQs for quick access later instead of typing them every single time.

Zopim. Zopim, one of the best recommended live chat service providers, also offers a free service. It allows for one agent and one conversation at a time. It also provides smart offline modes for when you go offline and the ability to email chat transcripts. With Zopim, you also receive real-time visitor information as well as automatic translation, which translates chat into your native language.

Jitbit. One of the newer players in the category, Jitbit now offers a cloud-based chat program that can be easily integrated into your website. With features such as desktop notification and sound alert,  Jitbit offers a 21-day free trial on their live chat service here, so you can check out how their service works for your company.

If you are ready to take the leap and add live chat to your business, you’ll also want to check out our six tips for adding live chat to your website.

Do you use live chat? Tell us about your experience in the comments below!

Tom Byun of Yahoo! Small Business: Making That Next Sale

We’re back with another 1-on-1 interview. This week’s guest is Tom Byun, Vice President of Yahoo! Small Business. He joined me in a live Hangout, and yes, we have video!

According to Tom, Yahoo! Small Business serves over 1 million small business customers, primarily from the U.S.  Yahoo! helps them with their online presence, Web hosting, and eCommerce solutions.  Yahoo! also assists small businesses in driving more sales, he told us.   Yahoo! serves small businesses of all sizes - from solo entrepreneurs to ones with many employees â€" from local businesses to online businesses.  Many of them fall in the 10-employee or under size range, however.

Below are a few highlights of that discussion, paraphrased in places.

Question 1: What have been some of the biggest changes you’ve seen [since last year] when it comes to small businesses?

We have a large group of merchants that [we serve] and year over year, we’re seeing double digit growth, but it is slowing down.

Another trend we’re observing is … we all know with the Internet that there’s been a fair amount of fragmentation in terms of services that small businesses use to get customers. Back in the old days, you just put up your listing on the Yellow Pages or the White Pages and that’s how people called you. But now with the proliferation of Internet services, you have everything from search and SEO and now with social and mobile, the acceleration of mobile, there just continues to be more and more outlets for small businesses to access customers.

Question 2: When you talk to small businesses … what are they asking you to help them with?

What’s top of mind is … they want to know [what it takes] to get that next sale.  It’s all about getting that next customer. They want to be able to cut through the clutter and just find one or two tools that can help them. And often the advice I start with is, focus on the fundamentals. You’ve got a business to run…And you only have so much time in the day. So just focus on some very basic things… to attract that next business that you need.

Question 3:  Are a lot of them focused on how they can leverage social media?

Social media is clearly important and it’s clearly playing a more critical role.  Putting links on social media … is becoming a vehicle for driving  traffic to their business.    One of the stats I’ve read is that more and more social with people putting likes or links on social sites, that is becoming a vehicle for driving traffic to their business.    That’s how a lot of small businesses are being found….

But when you think about social, think about which customers you are going after.   … I was meeting with a merchant … they’re in the … wholesale lighting business.  Facebook is not necessarily a place where they’re going to try to do online sales. …   So really understand your audience. …  Start out with which audience you’re going after, and which medium you’re going to use.

Small businesses are still struggling … with marketing … [having only so many dollars to spend].  Focus on the fundamentals.  Things like directories. You’d be amazed if you … look at stats … a lot of consumers are still finding  [businesses] through directories. A lot of these directories are being accessed not only through desktop, but … through mobile access points.

Resources mentioned in this video:  Yahoo! Small Business, Yahoo! Small Business Advisor (an information resource), and Yahoo! LocalWorks (a place to list your business accurately and manage how it appears on 40 directory sites across the Web).

To listen to Tom in his own words, and to hear the full interview, we’ve embedded the video below.

Get Instant Vendor and Product Reviews With ExpertCircle

Successful business owners will tell you that running a business takes more than just blood, sweat and tears. It takes the assistance of other vendors and business products to handle the peripheral tasks to ensure the success of a business. Business owners cannot succeed working in a silo, but by seeking the resources of competent outsourcing services. The key is in finding these reputable businesses that can help. Docstoc, an online resource that provides tools for starting and running a small business, believes it can help businesses find the best vendors and products for their companies with its recent launch of ExpertCircle.  ExpertCircle provides vendor and product reviews across a spectrum of industries to take te guesswork, and the recommendations of friends, out of the picture.

Here’s how ExpertCircle works. The business owner registers for free at ExpertCircle.com and creates a business profile including selection of business category and industry.  Then, the owner can select information about a particular product or vendor or simply state a need such as, “What is the best payroll outsourcing company to use?”  Docstock uses it’s already registered 35 million users to comment and provide pros and cons of a particular product or vendor as well as allows a link-up to your Facebook and LinkedIn accounts for even more peer reviews.

The system provides a two-way review where you too can review products and comment on vendor services and either endorse or critique them.  The platform is helpful for entrepreneurs and business owners because of its simplicity.  For example, under the category of Home Business, you will find reviews on accounting software, blogging tools, CRM, logo makers, time management tools, and website design.  For the small business, the benefits of ExpertCircle include:

• Reviews of products and services from peers in your industry
• Ability to submit products for review from ExpertCircle community
• Save time researching a particular product
• Learn what your competition is using
• Leverage your business community on both LinkedIn and Facebook
• Provides “you might also be interested in” reviews

While not a cure-all for finding the best products and services for your business, it is another tool you can add to your arsenal to save hours of research timeâ€" especially if you are on the fence about a particular product.

Get Instant Vendor and Product Reviews With ExpertCircle

Successful business owners will tell you that running a business takes more than just blood, sweat and tears. It takes the assistance of other vendors and business products to handle the peripheral tasks to ensure the success of a business. Business owners cannot succeed working in a silo, but by seeking the resources of competent outsourcing services. The key is in finding these reputable businesses that can help. Docstoc, an online resource that provides tools for starting and running a small business, believes it can help businesses find the best vendors and products for their companies with its recent launch of ExpertCircle.  ExpertCircle provides vendor and product reviews across a spectrum of industries to take te guesswork, and the recommendations of friends, out of the picture.

Here’s how ExpertCircle works. The business owner registers for free at ExpertCircle.com and creates a business profile including selection of business category and industry.  Then, the owner can select information about a particular product or vendor or simply state a need such as, “What is the best payroll outsourcing company to use?”  Docstock uses it’s already registered 35 million users to comment and provide pros and cons of a particular product or vendor as well as allows a link-up to your Facebook and LinkedIn accounts for even more peer reviews.

The system provides a two-way review where you too can review products and comment on vendor services and either endorse or critique them.  The platform is helpful for entrepreneurs and business owners because of its simplicity.  For example, under the category of Home Business, you will find reviews on accounting software, blogging tools, CRM, logo makers, time management tools, and website design.  For the small business, the benefits of ExpertCircle include:

• Reviews of products and services from peers in your industry
• Ability to submit products for review from ExpertCircle community
• Save time researching a particular product
• Learn what your competition is using
• Leverage your business community on both LinkedIn and Facebook
• Provides “you might also be interested in” reviews

While not a cure-all for finding the best products and services for your business, it is another tool you can add to your arsenal to save hours of research timeâ€" especially if you are on the fence about a particular product.

Founder of Barkbox Shares Three Ways Every Small Business Can Succeed

Ramon Ray, editor of Smallbiztechnology.com, recently attended an intimate roundtable discussion on the use of technology in small businesses at the Facebook headquarters in New York City. Here he met Matt Meeker, co-founder and CEO of Barkbox - a monthly way to spoil your dog with a box of doggie ‘goodies’.  Matt also happens to be the co-founder of another company many of us know of, Meetup.

Matt took a few minutes to discuss with Ramon the three ways every small business can succeed. He talks to the importance of creating and developing the right product for the market, finding the right customers for the product and how to get in front of those customers through effective marketing in order to continually acquire new business.

Matt also shares his thoughts on another small business issue we all face: hiring.

You can watch the full video interview with Matt and Ramon below, or click here.

Home Office to spearhead £4 million awareness campaign

The next stage of the government's Cyber Security Strategy will see £4 million ploughed into a public awareness campaign.

Coming from the £650 million fund that was agreed as part of the strategy, the campaign to raise awareness of how to stay safe online will be led by the Home Office and draw on expertise from the Cabinet Office, Department of Business, Innovation and Skills and partners from the business sector, including Get Safe Online.

Launching the initiative this week, security minister James Brokenshire said: “The digitisation of the UK economy has made our lives easier and has created huge opportunities, but it has also created individual security risks as well. If we are to meet these new challenges it's essential we step up our efforts to stay safe online.

“The threat of cyber crime is real and the criminals involved are organised and driven by profit. By making small changes British businesses can remain competitive in the global economy and consumers can have greater confidence using the internet.”

The Home Office is inviting bids from media, PR and creative agencies to work on the campaign with the aim of educating consumers and small businesses on how to avoid falling victim to sophisticated cyber criminals.

Mark James, technical director of Eset UK, said: “SMEs form the backbone of the UK economy and without the resources always available to larger enterprises basic cracks in security measures can appear. When breaches in security can cripple a company in terms of both financial and reputational damage, it's encouraging to see the government taking a lead in helping businesses build up resistance to threats by equipping them with the skills and confidence to adequately educate staff on the ways to spot malware and hacker threats.”

Ashish Patel, regional director UK & Ireland of Stonesoft, said: “£4 million isn't a paltry sum, and the British government needs to promote the fact it is doing everything possible to develop a safe trading and business environment to encourage investment.

“Security is a key factor in this, and the popularisation of basic knowledge regarding cyber crime and safety issues among the whole nation is imperative for this to ultimately succeed.”

Darren Anstee, solutions architect team lead at Arbor Networks, said: “Most SMEs probably think they're not at risk from cyber attack because they consider themselves to be under the radar of cyber criminals, but in truth any business operating online - which means just about any type and size of organisation - can become a target.”

Breached companies prove to be off-putting for partners

European companies would not want to work with another firm that had suffered a data breach.

According to research of 600 medium-sized businesses by Iron Mountain and PwC, 58 per cent of respondents said that they would refuse to do business with a company that had suffered a data breach, despite the fact that 41 per cent believe data loss is just an inevitable part of daily business.

Speaking to SC Magazine, Christian Toon, head of information risk for Europe at Iron Mountain, said that often businesses will see the headlines and the impact of a data breach.

Claire Reid, risk assurance partner at PwC, said: “The problem for medium-sized businesses is that a £500,000 fine can be a lot and it may take them out of business. Something will happen very soon and it could cost organisations too much to take any action.”

The report also found that while 68 per cent of companies recognise that a responsible attitude to information is critical to business success, 47 per cent say their board does not see data protection as a big issue.

Toon said that a good job is done generally in stressing the importance of data protection, and the culture of the organisation is buying into that, but often there is complacency at the top and an overall cultural change is needed.

“The use of coasters, mugs and posters will change and employees need to know what happens and management need to know what to do to change behaviours and put things in place,” Reid said. 

In addition, while 44 per cent expect the risk of a data breach to increase, 60 per cent believe that cutting costs is more important than reducing exposure to information risk. Also, fewer than half (45 per cent) have an information risk strategy in place and measure its effectiveness, and 38 per cent have a plan but do not know whether it works or not.

Toon said that the point of the research was to look into areas that he felt were not researched enough, as information risk management is often not considered as a broader security trend as people do not know what it actually means or how it impacts them.

“It is about having a strategy and going beyond the four walls of the network so a company can monitor the effects and protect their crown jewels,” he said.

“Know what you have and protect it.”

Founder of Barkbox Shares Three Ways Every Small Business Can Succeed

Ramon Ray, editor of Smallbiztechnology.com, recently attended an intimate roundtable discussion on the use of technology in small businesses at the Facebook headquarters in New York City. Here he met Matt Meeker, co-founder and CEO of Barkbox - a monthly way to spoil your dog with a box of doggie ‘goodies’.  Matt also happens to be the co-founder of another company many of us know of, Meetup.

Matt took a few minutes to discuss with Ramon the three ways every small business can succeed. He talks to the importance of creating and developing the right product for the market, finding the right customers for the product and how to get in front of those customers through effective marketing in order to continually acquire new business.

Matt also shares his thoughts on another small business issue we all face: hiring.

You can watch the full video interview with Matt and Ramon below, or click here.

Success Story of an Indian College Drop Out

In India, college drop outs are not looked upon favorably. You can try telling the stories of super heroes like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates all you want, parents will go, “Um hmm, Um hmm, now go study for your IIT exams.” If you say you want to be an entrepreneur instead, you will get a whack, a spank, an outburst and any number of other unappetizing reactions.

Senthil Nayagam, co-founder of RailsFactory, a premier Ruby on Rails application development company, is the epitome of the new 21st century Indian entrepreneur - a college drop out.  In 1999, having started his first business, an Internet center, to mediocre success, Senthil taught himself an assortment of other skills such as troubleshooting, Linux and eventually Perl, php, python and mysql, to help supplement his income and support his family.

Not disheartened by his first relatively failed business attempt, Senthil moved to Bangalore in 2004 to try his hand at a software career.  It was then that he discovered the potential of Ruby and Ruby on Rails to explode onto the software scene.  It was also here that Senthil met Dinesh Kumar, who shared Senthil’s passion for business.  Two years later and with the help of his newfound friend and co-founder, Dinesh, RailsFactory was born.

Think of RailsFactory as your extended team, or in the spirit of NBA playoff season, your 6th man on the court, designated to accelerate your current development by hiring additional developers to meet your company’s tight deadlines.

RailsFactory focuses on consulting and delivering cutting edge Ruby flavored solutions to its global customers.  In the last seven years they have gained over 150 employees, completed over 200 projects and over the past five years they have maintained an enviable 100% year-over-year growth.

And RailsFactory can deliver these solutions without putting a hole in your pocket, too.  While big tech companies in the Silicon Valley are “acqhiring” most large US Ruby consulting firms (i.e. Groupon acqhiring Obtiva), which keeps rates high for their services, RailsFactory remains a volume player with the freedom to work with both small startups and enterprise businesses.

RailsFactory does this by utilizing two different billing options; fixed price and the elastic staffing model, both designed to provide the most bang for your buck.  The fixed price option is geared toward start ups and small companies that need additional short term help developing a specific product, whereas elastic staffing gives businesses the opportunity to hire their own team of Ruby developers to work side by side with their staff for as long as they are needed.

Whether a company needs iPhone or Android apps, complete eCommerce solutions, or even long term partnership for IT projects, RailsFactory can deliver quality, cost-efficient services with minimal turnaround time.  Their expertise in Ruby on Rails and adoption of strictly agile development principles makes RailsFactory one of the premier end-to-end RoR (Ruby on Rails) solutions development companies.

Although RoR was practically unknown in 2006, now all major companies in India, such as TCS, Infy and HCL, as well as companies around the world like Amazon, Cisco, NASA, BBC have dedicated teams to work on their RoR.  With the RoR demand dramatically increasing and the availability of RoR resources much slimmer than the resources for, say, Java, or .net, RailsFactory has an unparalleled advantage in the market.

In fact, the Ruby programming language is now being used in more ways than ever before. Whereas Ruby is gaining in popularity with companies such as global code sharing fulcrum, github, which is built on it, a language like Java is now only more useful as the JVM than the language itself.  Plus, there is Jruby, a Ruby implementation in Java, which allows for the combination of Java’s good parts with the greatness of Ruby.  Software synthesis at its finest.

So how did RailsFactory, originating in the humble region of Chennai, India, grow to become a global player in RoR solutions?  With determination, creative problem solving and the desire for solidarity amongst fellow Chennai based software techies.

Chennai is a close knit region that has received major visibility and funding over the last two years, but back in 2006, when RailsFactory began, there were no role models or mentors to turn to for guidance. So Senthil took it upon himself to create his own network within Chennai’s software ecosystem so that he could ask crucial questions regarding RailsFactory’s growth spurts.

With the help of a few other Chennai tech enthusiasts, Senthil eventually formed Chennai Open Coffee Club, a networking group that holds monthly meetings in person and online.  This group has inspired many other tech networking groups and events such as Chennai Geeks and Nerd Dinner.

Transforming from a self proclaimed “lone wolf” to an inspiring leader in software services was no easy feat for Senthil, but with power comes great responsibility and he hasn’t shied away from moving his company forward with authority.

Senthil’s keen eye for identifying and capitalizing on growing industry trends has helped RailsFactory stay afloat during this age of ever evolving technological capabilities, one trend of which is particularly important; polyglot programming.

Polyglot programming allows for developers to combine the most advantageous aspects of any programming language so that they can use the best tool for the technology being produced.  For example, end users on a mobile phone or browser don’t give a hoot what technologies are used in the server; they just want a fast, responsive service, am I right?

And although RailsFactory prefers Ruby, what is best for the customer comes first.  RailsFactory uses other languages and components built on these other languages all the time, ensuring customer satisfaction regardless of programming language prejudices.

Gee, if only every company had our best interests in mind instead of forcibly trying to sell a label to us lowly consumers.

But the reality is this; with more companies turning to polyglot programming, as well as the addition of yearly UI paradigm changes causing many startups to desire mobile play along with their web app rewrites, and on top of THAT start ups are exploring new ways to monetize using big data, a software service and consulting specialist like Senthil must keep pace in order to continue enjoying success and growth.

And this is where Senthil’s inherent curiosity, passion for all things software and desire to transcend conventional industry limitations separates him from the pack.

Senthil and Dinesh have made RailsFactory a prototype for what they call “Centers of Excellence.”  They have started developing new business units in the form of independent COE’s for various technologies and they operate under the umbrella firm, Sedin Technologies, Pvt. Ltd.

As of now, Sedin Technologies has RailsFactory, MobileTechFactory and PHPFactory, each dedicated exclusively to help clients manage the global convergence of software, mobile applications, Web applications, big data and cloud services.

So what’s next for RailsFactory?

Naturally, they want to be the world’s largest RoR development company in the world.

With over 150 developers growing and counting, an office in Chennai and the Silicon Valley, RailsFactory is determined to set up operations in every global region that brings in more than ten percent revenue.  That leaves Senthil contemplating a physical presence in Australia, the UK, as well as other additional locations in India for starters.

Not too shabby for a guy who dropped out of college, flopped on his first start up venture and got fired from his job in Bangalore in 2004.

Moral of the story: India needs to start thinking outside of the box and let its youth take more chances, fail more often and chart their own courses.

Success Photo via Shutterstock

Three Apps That Help You Tame Your Expenses and Receipts Into A Paperless Wonder

Papers are everywhere. My desk is full of them, and you probably also have your share of papers sprawled all over the place on a busy day. There’s just so much to do that sometimes you don’t find the time to file them neatly into categorized indexes. Tracking expenses and receipts is probably the most vital function of your business as far as accounting is concerned and, is often the one that requires the most paper.

The paper sheet is an invention that goes back thousands of years. Traditionally, we’ve been writing on papers to keep track of things (and immortalize our words). We’ve been stuck with what we can now call a “wonderful burden” for quite a long time! Now, it’s time to move on from that into the paperless 21st century.

Inventing digital electronics has led us into an era where we can now read the written word on a screen and change those words as we wish. Yet, we still somehow have the inability to transfer some of this technology into the accounting departments of most businesses. It’s disappointing that, while we can replace even the most minute written data with digital equivalents, we seem to choke when it comes to doing it with receipts. Of course, there are technologies that can help you get around this:

• Expensify - Who needs a portable scanner when your phone can do everything? Expensify is a mobile app that lets you scan mobile receipts. It has all the features you need to do all of your accounting without flipping a single sheet, including scanning receipts from a picture you take on your smartphone. The text will be automatically extrapolated. This app is free to use, so give it a try!
• Concur - If you’re a frequent flyer, you could certainly use a mobile app that does everything Expensify does, but also lets you book flights. Concur lets you manage travel expenses, book travel, and manage your day-to-day business accounting. At $8 per user per month for the small business package, and a free trial to boot, it’s worth a try!
• NeatCloud - What could possibly be wrong with putting your expenses and other documents on the cloud? This is what NeatCloud does, and more. According to the creators, NeatCloud is a “digital filing system,” which means that you can also gather contacts and documents. This digital filing system also recognizes the text in receipts from a picture you take in your smartphone. In other words, you can throw away a receipt right after you scanned it and stored it in the cloud. Their popular “Home & Office” offer costs $14.99 a month and includes all the features mentioned above for two users. You can also get a business plan for $24.99 a month that includes five users.

If you’re tired of using pieces of dead bark to keep your business running, it’s time you threw away the tree pile and dived into silicon!

Three Apps That Help You Tame Your Expenses and Receipts Into A Paperless Wonder

Papers are everywhere. My desk is full of them, and you probably also have your share of papers sprawled all over the place on a busy day. There’s just so much to do that sometimes you don’t find the time to file them neatly into categorized indexes. Tracking expenses and receipts is probably the most vital function of your business as far as accounting is concerned and, is often the one that requires the most paper.

The paper sheet is an invention that goes back thousands of years. Traditionally, we’ve been writing on papers to keep track of things (and immortalize our words). We’ve been stuck with what we can now call a “wonderful burden” for quite a long time! Now, it’s time to move on from that into the paperless 21st century.

Inventing digital electronics has led us into an era where we can now read the written word on a screen and change those words as we wish. Yet, we still somehow have the inability to transfer some of this technology into the accounting departments of most businesses. It’s disappointing that, while we can replace even the most minute written data with digital equivalents, we seem to choke when it comes to doing it with receipts. Of course, there are technologies that can help you get around this:

• Expensify - Who needs a portable scanner when your phone can do everything? Expensify is a mobile app that lets you scan mobile receipts. It has all the features you need to do all of your accounting without flipping a single sheet, including scanning receipts from a picture you take on your smartphone. The text will be automatically extrapolated. This app is free to use, so give it a try!
• Concur - If you’re a frequent flyer, you could certainly use a mobile app that does everything Expensify does, but also lets you book flights. Concur lets you manage travel expenses, book travel, and manage your day-to-day business accounting. At $8 per user per month for the small business package, and a free trial to boot, it’s worth a try!
• NeatCloud - What could possibly be wrong with putting your expenses and other documents on the cloud? This is what NeatCloud does, and more. According to the creators, NeatCloud is a “digital filing system,” which means that you can also gather contacts and documents. This digital filing system also recognizes the text in receipts from a picture you take in your smartphone. In other words, you can throw away a receipt right after you scanned it and stored it in the cloud. Their popular “Home & Office” offer costs $14.99 a month and includes all the features mentioned above for two users. You can also get a business plan for $24.99 a month that includes five users.

If you’re tired of using pieces of dead bark to keep your business running, it’s time you threw away the tree pile and dived into silicon!

Three Apps That Help You Tame Your Expenses and Receipts Into A Paperless Wonder

Papers are everywhere. My desk is full of them, and you probably also have your share of papers sprawled all over the place on a busy day. There’s just so much to do that sometimes you don’t find the time to file them neatly into categorized indexes. Tracking expenses and receipts is probably the most vital function of your business as far as accounting is concerned and, is often the one that requires the most paper.

The paper sheet is an invention that goes back thousands of years. Traditionally, we’ve been writing on papers to keep track of things (and immortalize our words). We’ve been stuck with what we can now call a “wonderful burden” for quite a long time! Now, it’s time to move on from that into the paperless 21st century.

Inventing digital electronics has led us into an era where we can now read the written word on a screen and change those words as we wish. Yet, we still somehow have the inability to transfer some of this technology into the accounting departments of most businesses. It’s disappointing that, while we can replace even the most minute written data with digital equivalents, we seem to choke when it comes to doing it with receipts. Of course, there are technologies that can help you get around this:

• Expensify - Who needs a portable scanner when your phone can do everything? Expensify is a mobile app that lets you scan mobile receipts. It has all the features you need to do all of your accounting without flipping a single sheet, including scanning receipts from a picture you take on your smartphone. The text will be automatically extrapolated. This app is free to use, so give it a try!
• Concur - If you’re a frequent flyer, you could certainly use a mobile app that does everything Expensify does, but also lets you book flights. Concur lets you manage travel expenses, book travel, and manage your day-to-day business accounting. At $8 per user per month for the small business package, and a free trial to boot, it’s worth a try!
• NeatCloud - What could possibly be wrong with putting your expenses and other documents on the cloud? This is what NeatCloud does, and more. According to the creators, NeatCloud is a “digital filing system,” which means that you can also gather contacts and documents. This digital filing system also recognizes the text in receipts from a picture you take in your smartphone. In other words, you can throw away a receipt right after you scanned it and stored it in the cloud. Their popular “Home & Office” offer costs $14.99 a month and includes all the features mentioned above for two users. You can also get a business plan for $24.99 a month that includes five users.

If you’re tired of using pieces of dead bark to keep your business running, it’s time you threw away the tree pile and dived into silicon!

I like You Tompkins; Waddle With Me

This cartoon took a while. For some reason I had, “I like you, Tompkins, walk with me” in my head. I could not figure out quite how to do it though and I tried all sorts of variations:

• “I like you, Tompkins. Speed walk with me.”
• “I like you, Tompkins. Piggy back ride!”
• “I like you, Tompkins. But not enough to walk with me while I talk. Maybe that will come in time, but I’m not there yet.”

Once I changed the executive into a penguin - everything just fell into place.

I like You Tompkins; Waddle With Me

This cartoon took a while. For some reason I had, “I like you, Tompkins, walk with me” in my head. I could not figure out quite how to do it though and I tried all sorts of variations:

• “I like you, Tompkins. Speed walk with me.”
• “I like you, Tompkins. Piggy back ride!”
• “I like you, Tompkins. But not enough to walk with me while I talk. Maybe that will come in time, but I’m not there yet.”

Once I changed the executive into a penguin - everything just fell into place.

ICO talks up data management and handling as key trend for 2013

The ICO claims that 2013 will be the year that the importance of good data handling will finally be realised.

Speaking yesterday at the launch of its annual report, information commissioner Christopher Graham said that 2013 will be the year that organisations realise the commercial imperative of handling customer data properly, and how this affects users' relationships with businesses.

In a year where the ICO saw a 45 per cent increase in cases looked at by its civil enforcement team to 1,300 and a total of 23 organisations receiving monetary penalties totalling £2.6 million, the ICO's own research found that 97 per cent were concerned that organisations would pass or sell-on their personal details. However, only ten per cent of businesses were aware of the legal limitations of how they could use customer's personal data.

Information commissioner Christopher Graham said: “Education and empowerment have been two of the key areas we've focused on in the past 12 months. That work is having real benefits: consumers' awareness of their rights remains strong, and that is empowering people to demand more in return for their data.

“The result is consumers expecting organisations to handle their personal data in a proper way, and in a legal way. Businesses that don't meet that basic requirement are going to quickly find themselves losing customers.

“I think 2013 is the year that organisations will realise the commercial imperative of properly handling customer data. The stats we've seen about public concern around personal data show that, as does a company the size of Microsoft choosing privacy as a theme of a national advertising campaign.

“The message to business is simple: consumers understand the value of their personal data, and they expect you to too.”

ICO talks up data management and handling as key trend for 2013

The ICO claims that 2013 will be the year that the importance of good data handling will finally be realised.

Speaking yesterday at the launch of its annual report, information commissioner Christopher Graham said that 2013 will be the year that organisations realise the commercial imperative of handling customer data properly, and how this affects users' relationships with businesses.

In a year where the ICO saw a 45 per cent increase in cases looked at by its civil enforcement team to 1,300 and a total of 23 organisations receiving monetary penalties totalling £2.6 million, the ICO's own research found that 97 per cent were concerned that organisations would pass or sell-on their personal details. However, only ten per cent of businesses were aware of the legal limitations of how they could use customer's personal data.

Information commissioner Christopher Graham said: “Education and empowerment have been two of the key areas we've focused on in the past 12 months. That work is having real benefits: consumers' awareness of their rights remains strong, and that is empowering people to demand more in return for their data.

“The result is consumers expecting organisations to handle their personal data in a proper way, and in a legal way. Businesses that don't meet that basic requirement are going to quickly find themselves losing customers.

“I think 2013 is the year that organisations will realise the commercial imperative of properly handling customer data. The stats we've seen about public concern around personal data show that, as does a company the size of Microsoft choosing privacy as a theme of a national advertising campaign.

“The message to business is simple: consumers understand the value of their personal data, and they expect you to too.”