Jason

Six Quick Book Reviews

Posted on by Jason

I was going to write an individual post reviewing in depth each of the six books listed below. But since I’m a bad citizen and have given in to the fact that I will never find enough time to do so, I’m going to give a quick review for each of them here. So in the order I’ve read them…

Included are reviews of:

Jason

Tools for the Startup

Posted on by Jason

toolbox
Back in July, I left my job to become a full time entrepreneur. In addition to helping InvestorGeeks grow, I spend my working day incubating a few projects through my design and development firm Stranger Studios.

At my old job, huge IT budgets were the norm. My salary depended on them. But everyone knows that the pioneers of Web 2.0 are capable of building huge applications and entire businesses on pennies. In any case, it is a lot cheaper than it used to be.

Below is a list of tools I use for my own projects and why I find them useful.

Jason

Pheedo: Ads for Your RSS Feeds

Posted on by Jason

PheedoPheedo places text ads into your RSS feed. Publishers are paid for click-throughs and ad impressions. For publishers with a substantial readership through RSS, this is a great option for monetizing traffic that may not always make it to your site.

We have integrated Pheedo into our RSS feeds here at InvestorGeeks and think that you should consider it for your own sites. (Apologies to any of our feed readers who may have witnessed some anomalies in our feed as we switched things over.)

Jason

Virtual World Entrepreneurship

Posted on by Jason

Virtual WorldsThe size of virtual worlds like Second Life and World of Warcraft (Wow) are making them more and more the target of entrepreneurs and investors. The stats are hard to calculate, but each world has about 4 million “inhabitants” and growing. Here is a quick round up of some of the business going down in these new markets.

Jason

Should You Submit Your Blog to TheMoneyBlogs.com?

Posted on by Jason

Howard Lindzon “smells a rat” at TheMoneyBlogs.com:

I called Brice (owner of TheMoneyBlgs), who picked up his own phone and asked him some questions. I immediately smelled a rat. Trading Markets will take my content and brand it in moneyblog design and keep all the advertising dollars from the aggregated data.

I love blogging and don’t mind doing it for free, but this is just plain sneaky.

If you run an investing, personal finance, business, or “money” blog, you’ve probably gotten an email from Brice Wightman of TheMoneyBlogs.com. InvestorGeeks got one, and we initially signed up since we’re proud of the relationship we have with a similar service pfblogs.org. But once we found that TheMoneyBlogs would not include a link back to our site the original article, we immediately removed ourselves from their network.

So how can you make these aggregators work for you? Find out how some people are trying to make TheMoneyBlogs work them. More importantly, I’ll go through some questions you can ask yourself to determine up front if a blog aggregator is really offering a win-win situation.

Vince

Career Allocation … Asset’s Estranged Cousin

Posted on by Vince

One of the reasons I get into stock investing is that I like to live vicariously through my investments? Say what? Yes, I live vicariously through my stock holdings because I imagine that I’m the owner of the company — hard at work building it. I become an intimate stakeholder of the business by owning its stock; as opposed to investing via mutual funds. But how many investors out there feel that their miniscule ownership can actually affect changes like Warren Buffett or Carl Icahn?

Chris

8 Rules to Successful Partnerships

Posted on by Chris

There is a chronic personality flaw that I see in so many entrepreneurs, that unnecessarily impedes their true success — resistance to having partners. I’ve had partners in the past, and I know the difficulties that can be faced by having a partner that is not picking up their fair share. But the secret to success in business is not to exclude people! Having partners is essential when you want to elevate your wealth.

Chris

The Importance of a Mentor

Posted on by Chris

Becoming wealthy is a full-time job. Successful entrepreneurs have worked for years to build a deep knowledge base in areas as diverse as sales, marketing, accounting, stock investing, real estate investing, leadership, team building and personal finance. For someone who is still laying his foundation, finding a mentor can help him avoid potholes he otherwise would not have seen, and is an invaluable asset as both a friend and a counselor.

A mentor is someone who has already done what you have set out to do. Whether that means becoming a successful stock investor, or real estate mogul, your mentor is an expert and is willing to share his experiences. Just as professional baseball players have pitching coaches and managers have leadership coaches, so should budding entrepreneurs have a mentor that can help steer them down the right path.

Chris

Investing vs. Starting a Business

Posted on by Chris

There’s a very important topic that I’d like to discuss briefly here, and it’s in regards to starting your own business. Fundamentally, a business is an investment. Any company’s goal is to generate profits for its owners, and in the case of a small business, a salary as well. The problem with businesses is that they’re a job. And not only are they a job, they also cause a lot of stress and a generally poor social life during the initial years.

Real estate has always been a passion of mine. Many people have made fortunes off real estate and growing up with a father in the business, I understand how the model works. However, getting started is a big effort, which involves management, construction, marketing, and all the other jobs associated with starting a business. This is not coincidence — buying investment property is a business.