Late last year, one of my business coaching clients asked me what was the best piece of advice I could give him on his startup. I’m not actually one to give other people specific advice on what they should do, but in having the Arts Hub adventure with David Eedle, there were plenty of key principles that we learned that I doubt you’ll be able to find in any business book, and our belief is that we should at least share some of these learnings with those who wish to tread a similar path.

The first thing I told this client was to narrow his focus down from the twenty plus objectives that he was looking at, to between one and three things that could form the bedrock of his new business. There’s more about the issues around trying to get the right focus in your business in the post “The One Thing”.

Over the holidays though I thought harder about this client’s position and business proposition and realized that once he was underway he was probably going to face the other big issue David and I faced during the Arts Hub journey, and that is what I call, ‘the last 2 percent’. We’ve written in detail about what the last two percent of issues were that held us back from having the ideal business in Chapter 4 of our book Niche Content Millionaire – and what we needed to do to overcome these. Read More→

I’m not sure if you’re experiencing the same sensation as me that opportunities are coming into your frame again, but in the last couple of months I’ve noticed that more ideas and opportunities seem to be floating about in the world around me. People seem a bit more open-minded, a bit more engaged with life.

For quite some time it appeared, to me at least, that everyone was preoccupied with small thinking and making themselves a small target. As someone who loves to talk about ideas and to explore the possibilities, it seems that one couldn’t have an intelligent ideas-based discussion anymore. Some fearful person was going to shoot one’s germinating discussion and ideas down in flames. But just lately, things have been changing.

My guess is that as we come out of the GFC that life and business will speed up for those in any industry, but I’m particularly mindful of those entrepreneurs working online, and those in niche content spaces. Read More→

In around May this year, David got this blog you’re reading going. At the start of 2009 we had written a book together about our experience of starting up, growing, and then selling the online niche content and community-focused business, Arts Hub. Because David and I both see a huge pathway forward online being all about creating more niche content communities, we hoped to distil our experiences into some key points and tactics that the next generation of internet content players could use to save time and get big faster.

Time is money in the offline and online worlds, and in business David and I have often found time to be the more precious resource. It just drips away all too quickly and whilst you can reduce your expenses back to virtually zero or claw back most bad debts, it is impossible to slow time down or to recover any that you’ve lost or misused. Therefore, having gone through several startup experiences, David and I have really come to place a premium value on time. And if we can impart knowledge that helps others do things faster, we figure we’ve made a contribution that could make a positive difference to a startup player. Read More→