Using the amazing project management platform, 5PM, I was able to pull all sorts of information necessary to create our project management status board pieces.  I love seeing when my people add a new progress note or if the “Other CWS Tasks” list gets cut in half.  I know stuff is being accomplished.

CWS Status Board Items

• Tasks assigned to me (via 5PM)
• Tasks assigned to others (via 5pm)
• Progress bars for tasks (via 5pm)
• Events in the next 7 days (via Google Calendar)
• Current time since we don’t have a clock (PHP)
• Current weather and tomorrow’s forecast (Yahoo Weather)
• RSS feeds for Digg, Lifehacker,  Smashing Mag, and Web Designer Depot (probably counter-productive)

Every container is automatically refreshed via AJAX so there is never a reason to manually refresh the page.  Every 30 minutes or so it will do an automatic full page refresh because Yahoo Weather doesn’t like the AJAX request for some reason but, again, no manual page refresh is required.

Why have a status board at all?

Think about how many windows or tabs you have open when you are working.  Think about the time it takes to navigate from 1 to the other and check what might be happening.  Imagine if you could always have a screenshot of the most important things going on regarding your company.  Rather than checking all your tabs, you just glance at your status board and see everyone all in 1 place.

Now if I can find a way to easily import Quickbooks data into this, this will be a super status board!  Any ideas on things to add?  How would you set up your status board?

Some time over the last week Connected Web Solutions officially turned three years old.  In these 3 years we’ve seen

• Countless (re)designs and apps developed
• Our first official product, alumLINK
• Clients have come and gone (I guess you can’t keep them all)
• The business has changed locations twice
• Worked in Costa Rica for a month (see www.mymovableoffice.com)
• A company car
• Annually increasing revenue, profits, and expenses (I guess the last is inevitable)
• A larger team
• And loads more but these are all that come to mind right now…

These 3 years have been a great learning experience not just in terms of web design and development but also in business and life.  I wanted to take the opportunity to thank all the clients and people that have worked with us in these three years.  Let’s hope the next 3 are just as exciting and successful!

“Learning never exhausts the mind.”

Leonardo da Vinci

3 years ago when starting the company I saw the need for this kind of product.  We had no good way of communicating with all the soccer alumni that went through my school.  We always thought it would be nice to have a way to communicate with all of them and provide job opportunities and a way to mentor the younger alumni or even current students.  alumLINK now makes this possible.

Head on over to http://myalumLINK.com and give it a test drive.  We are currently implementing this for teams, Greek organizations (fraternities/sororities), as well as athletic departments and even entire schools!

Setting Goals

• Double my client base in Harrisburg as well as the Lehigh Valley (achieved)
• Increase revenue AND profit by 25% a year until 2012 (achieved)
• Find subcontractors to lighten my work load (achieved)
• Improve quality of work and complexity of project (achieved)
• Become THE company to provide quality, standards-based, web sites (almost there)
• Drive my dream car (2006 Dodge Charger) that my business paid for (achieved, proof of the goal -scroll to the bottom)

Achieving Goals

Figure out all of the little milestones to reach your goal

For my financial goals, I figured out how many hours I needed to bill on average weekly to improve my numbers to what needed to be.

Successfully hit each milestone

Once I figured out these milestones, I watched my billable hours very closely. If it looked like I was going to be short I actively went looking for more work. This meant following up with current clients to see if we could improve or build on what they had as well as finding new clients and asking for referrals or partnerships.

Be Disciplined and Focused on Your Goals

It is easy to forget about your goals and push them away to do other things. To help with this I have a whiteboard right next to my desk that shows exactly how much I must bill on average weekly to hit the yearly revenue number. Along with this I have how many hours of billable time this would take as well as the average monthly revenue needed. I also have a list of open projects, late invoices, and end of contract dates. Having these metrics in front of me at all times keeps me very informed of my goals and what is necessary to accomplish them and how I am doing.

The Payoff

This is the best part.  Actually having your goals down in writing makes the payoff that much sweeter.  I look at that article above where my personal goal of driving my dream car within 5 years and it was written in late 2007.  I was able to buy the car in September of 2008.  I was able to accomplish a 5 year goal in less than 1 year.  The same goes for all the goals.  The fact that I have been able to increase revenue (28%) and profit (43%) each year since I wrote the plan makes me feel like I have accomplished something great.  Sometimes the goals don’t seem like great payoffs if money or objects are not involved but the lessons learned along the way in achieving the goals you set are invaluable.

A couple weeks ago Gary Vaynerchuk (Host of Wine Library TV and super inspirational young speaker, @garyvee on Twitter) posted a link to his talk at the Big Omaha conference on his Twitter stream.  It was about an hour and the majority of it Q&A but after listening to it during my lunch break I felt refreshed and that I could take on any project and was itching to get back to work.  This is not the first great talk from a conference that I have seen on a Twitter stream.  I also follow Tim Ferriss (author or 4 Hour Work Week, @tferriss) and he always posts his talks at his conferences.  With my work/soccer schedule I can only get to so many conferences but by following certain people on Twitter and certain blogs you can get a lot of the footage from them.  No you will not get every keynote and lecture but you will still find some amazing content.

I would highly advise you all subscribe to Twitter and start following some industry leaders out there if for nothing more than pure inspiration.   I am sure that we have all been there in jobs, whether it’s corporate or entrepreneurial, where you hit that wall and can’t find any creative juice or drive left in you.  Go out there and find a talk or TV spot with Gary or Tim and within a few minutes you will find yourself recharged and ready to take on whatever is in front of you.  There are tons of other people out there to follow but I find great information from these guys in every blog post or talk.

1. Do your homework
   I was fortunate that I had someone to ask a handful of questions (the former GM at my pro soccer club) about starting a business before I took the plunge but that is not the case for all of you.   Learn about the appropriate paperwork to fill out in your state.  Figure out what kind of business entity you want (LLC, Corporation, Nonprofit).  Learn about registered trademarks and copyrights if they apply.  There are tons of books out there but I recommend contacting SCORE with a list of pre-made questions you have about starting a business to get your answers quickly.  SCORE is an amazing FREE service that is basically a bunch of retired business owners that offer their advice to people starting or growing small businesses.  They will usually meet with you if it is possible and do anything from market research to business plan to help from my experience.  Find your local SCORE office and take advantage of them.  They are volunteers so you know they are there to help you.
2. Set up an accounting system as soon as possible
   Unfortunately I was not introduced to Quickbooks until a few months into starting my company even after freelancing.  This made things difficult down the line but it has been a super useful tool.  Since using Quickbooks for the last 2+ years I have learned quite a bit about the software but even more about my business and managing the simple things.  It can be used for invoicing, tracking expenses, and handling a lot of other things.  They even offer a free version (Simple Start) that can track up to 20 clients (previously unlimited clients).  I have since upgraded to Pro and have already learned a ton more about my company as well as more control over what I am doing.  I still keep all invoices, purchase and payment receipts but using Quickbooks sure beats tracking things in a notebook which is what I did as a freelancer.
3. Save money on free (or very cheap) software
   Since I bootstrapped my business I only purchased the bare essentials of software.  I have been able to find some phenominal free alternatives to some standard software packages.
   • Mozilla Thunderbird – (Microsoft Outlook)
   • Open Office – (Microsoft Office alternative)
   • Quickbooks Simple Start – (Functions just fine for very small business needs)
   • Skype – (Has easily replaced an office line at a very low cost using SkypeIn)
   • Gimp – (Photoshop alternative)

4. Learn as much about the industry as you can
   I wish I could say that I read everything related to the business in the first couple years but I would be lieing.  I HAVE READ/LEARNED CONSTANTLY FROM THE DAY I CHOSE THIS INDUSTRY, NOT JUST THE FIRST YEAR OR TWO.  It’s the truth.  Every day I am either reading industry blogs, listening to podcasts, reading business or web related books, or  brushing up on the latest technologies (for instance venturing into Ruby on Rails and learning Javascript over the course of last year) and usually it’s all 3.  I always say that I have a huge thirst for knowledge and it’s true.  This will not only keep you informed but help a TON when pitching to potential clients.  I love teaching a potential client about something.  It could be anything from showing how the keywords they want to rank for are not in their page title all the way to explaining fluid vs fixed layouts and why there is a cost difference between them in development.
5. Be ready to work long hours but also manage your time
   For the first 4 or 5 months I had another job (professional soccer player) so I could only delegate so much time to my freelancing.  I did what I could to learn web standards and get up to speed with everything web design and biz related.  Once I retired and started CWS I had a lot of free time and not the biggest client load.  I could only continue to learn my trade and practice and refine my skills on my current as well as personal projects.  Once I started to pick up more and more clients I found myself having less and less time.  Pretty soon I found myself working up to 12 hours a day and maybe 2 or 3 of them were billable.  The others consisted of reading related blog posts/books, invoicing, billing, emailing current and potential clients, and setting up meetings.  For a while this worked out because I began to bill more and more hours but still was in front of  my machine almost all day.  Eventually it got to a point when I realized I was not managing my time well.  I have since implemented hours of work for the week related to business tasks.  This way I can plan my time much more efficiently.  I make sure to start my day at 10 so that when I get up around 8 I can take the first 2 hours to catch up on emails, plan meetings, and read any current web-related material.  I try to plan in 2 hour increments for at least 3 days in advance.
6. Network like crazy
   This is possibly where I had the most luck with everything.  Since while I was playing professionally I was always meeting a ton of people and working with a ton of kids.  Throughout my playing career I was able to meet a lot of great people who wanted to help me out.  I would honestly say that about 50% of our client base has been from some kind of soccer relationship.  Whether it was college alumni figuring out what I did or old teammates that needed some web help or they knew someone that knew someone that needed a website.  Again I say this being very lucky with all of my personal relationships but if you always make it point to network and meet people there are always people looking for services you can provide.  If you do a good job they will be the first person to refer to someone else.  If you do 5 great projects and get 1 referral each, you could have doubled your client base (and hopefully your revenue) without spending any money on marketing or advertising.

Hopefully this small list will give you some things to consider if you decide to venture into starting your own business.  I must say that is not the easiest thing in the world to do.  Be ready for long hours and little pay while you get established and put efficient systems into practice.  Also go out and read the 4 Hour Work Week  and see what you can learn about automating your business.  I wish I had read that book 3 years ago but it’s a tough road either way.  That being said it has been one of the most satisfying things I have ever experienced.

1. Skype
2. Syncplicity
3. Google Chat
4. Blackberry (As a modem)
5. Thunderbird
6. WordPress

Skype – Since before CWS was founded in 2006 we were using Skype.  Skype is a free VOIP solution to speak to other Skype users for free.  Skype also has a multitude of services that CWS takes advantage of.  SkypeIn associates your Skype account with an actual phone number that anyone can call.  For about $30 a year and and an additional $3 a month to make unlimited calls to and receive from the US.  This is perfect for CWS considering just about all of our clients are based in the States.  So here while the company is being run from Costa Rica I can still receive and make calls just like I would at our home base in Pennsylvania. 
USEFULNESS GRADE: A

Syncplicity – I had put off backing up data online for a multitude of reasons. One of these reasons being that most services charged you per computer. Considering our office has at least 2 computers running at any given time and usually 3 or 4 when working in the main office this would be expensive. After scouring the Internet I came across Syncplicity. Not only did they support unlimited machines but they also had an option to sync your folders between machines. This is exactly what I was looking for since a lot of work is completed away from the office and before leaving and after returning I would always have to manually sync at least 3 computers. Thanks to Syncplicity it knows when files have changed and reflects the most updated files across all machines. It even has some versioning in case you delete something or prefer a previously edited version. 
USEFULNESS GRADE:  B+

Google Talk – Google talk is basically a stand-alone program of the chat used in Gmail’s web interface.  This way you do not need to be logged in to Gmail to chat with your contacts.  We use Google Talk to communicate with some of our designers/developers as well as an outlet for clients to get in touch with us immediately.  We are not always on but it can replace a phone when you only want to get a quick answer to something.  Again a free utility that definitely serves a good purpose for business as well as personal communication. 
USEFULNESS GRADE: B

Blackberry – Now I am only going to mention 1 facet of the Blackberry but I have found it quite useful. It is possible to tether a Blackberry phone to a laptop and have it function as modem. This has been very beneficial when meeting clients somewhere without an Internet connection or when you don’t want to pay $10/hour to use the Internet in an airport. Granted the connection speed is quite slow but you can still view web pages on a laptop screen instead of a phone. This has saved more than 1 meeting in the past.
USEFULNESS GRADE: B

Thunderbird – Now like the Blackberry, Thunderbird alone is a fantastic application but I want to hone in one aspect it. Thunderbird is an email client similar to Microsoft’s Outlook. The main attraction is that it’s free. The power of Thunderbird is with it’s add-ons. With the correct combination of add-ons (Lightning and Google Provider) you can have a full-blown email and scheduling application that syncs with your Blackberry wirelessly. Schedule a meeting on the road on your BB and it is synced to your Thunderbird by the time you get back to the office and vice-versa. Make appointments and meetings in Thunderbird and a short time later you will see them in your BB’s calendar. Technology is a wonderful thing.
USEFULNESS GRADE: A-

WordPress – Finally where would we all be without WordPress. WordPress is a very popular blogging platform that is endlessly customizable. It is open-source so you are free to tweak anything and everything you want in the code. Companies have built themselves on customizing WordPress installations for a myriad of things. This CWS blog is built on WordPress with some heavy CSS editing but otherwise unchanged. I decided to set up a personal blog, www.mymovableoffice.com, to blog about living in Costa Rica for 3 weeks and it has gotten some fantastic buzz. The site is less than a month old and I am already getting about 15 visitors a day.  Granted that is nothing special but nothing else we have working on has gotten this much attention.  There are plugins for everything imaginable and I took full advantage of them (Google Sitemaps XML, NextGEN Gallery, All-in-One-SEO Pack, and more).  The reason I chose WordPress as a platform because of how easy it is to use, how quickly it can be set-up, and how much control I can get over the system.  Like I had mentioned before in a previous, starting this company blog has help double our traffic.
USEFULNESS GRADE: A-

Does anybody else out there have any good tools to help them work remotely?

Since creating our company blog in August I have noticed some significant advantages to having a well-maintained company blog.  Some of these may be very small but each one has had a positive effect on Connected Web Solutions.  While these may not be 100% accurate for everyone and their company blog but I am sure there are more than enough reasons to persuade you to give business blogging a chance.

1. Our site traffic has doubled - Granted we were not getting millions of unique visitors a month but this is still a very important statistic.  Maybe that 1 article you write will generate 1 more lead for your company that could turn into the next big client that does business with you for years!
2. Our clients know that we are actually working – A simple blog post about current or past projects can keep clients aware that you do not just sit around throwing paper clips at your co-workers.  Highlight some recent projects/deals that are OK’ed by your client by making case studies or at the least a small feature post.  This will not only please your featured client but also show other businesses that you are working.
3. Get more SEO – This pairs with #1.  Think about it, if you post once a month on a topic related to your field you are more likely to get more traffic from search engines on keyword matches than if you just let your static business site sit around stagnantly.  Original related content is HUGE in terms of getting more search engine optimized.  Our post concerning podcasts to make commutes fly by got a small amount of traffic for keywords you would not expect.  Think about keywords you want to rank well for and maybe write a blog post with them as the focus.  I don’t mean stuff a post with those keywords but for example if you are looking to start ranking for the word goalkeeper, try and write an article about your latest training session with your college goalkeepers.  Do not focus on the word “goalkeeper” (but make sure you include it in the title) just write naturally.  You will be suprised how often “goalkeeper” and some synonyms (keeper, gk, goalie, etc) will be in the post.

I will make some additions to this post later but this is just a start.  I want to reinforce the power of a blog and how it has helped CWS.  There are many free open-source blogging platforms out there that can help you with this process.  We have completely customized one of these platforms to fully integrate into our site as well.  So all that being said, start your company blog and start reaping the benefits.  More eyeballs on your site, keep clients engaged and informed, and improve your SEO!

I would like to mention the importance of conferences for someone in the web/tech world here in this post. I was fortunate enough to attend South-by-Southwest (SXSW) last year and had an unbelievable experience. I was able to listen to the big-wigs of the industry speak at various panels and key-notes. I was even lucky enough to speak personally with Tim Ferriss (4 Hour Work Week, author), Frank Warren (Post Secret, creator) and Tony Hsieh (Zappos.com, CEO). The most important and beneficial parts of the conference were the time between the lectures and panels. I was able to meet, network, and speak with so many different kinds of people surrounding, not only the web world, but film and music people as well. I was able to relate to them with similar interests in anything from running a company to how the new Nokia cell phone could stream live video to the web. I was also fortunate enough to bump into a college classmate of mine, Rob Sandie, that turned out to be the co-founder of the amazing web video service, Viddler.com.

This year I am proud to say that I will be attending the Web 2.0 Expo in NY in September as well as SXSW again in March also. I will be representing Briz.com, the social networking site for businesses, at the Web 2.0 expo and CWS at SXSW. Stayed tuned for a full feature on Briz.com in an upcoming post. I hope to see you all in NY in September.