2025 marks the seventh anniversary of publishing quarterly updates on my blog. These updates serve as a tool to provide updates about my family, MarketBeat, Homegrown Capital, and the different community initiatives that MarketBeat supports. Many friends and acquaintances have told me they enjoy reading these updates, so I continue to write them and publish …
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My Quarterly Update: Q2 2022
2022 is shaping up to be a year of significant transition both personally and professionally. Our daughter Ady will be entering Kindergarten this fall, marking the first time we have had two kids in school full time since Micah was born in 2012. As MarketBeat grows, My role at the company is transitioning away being …
How Eight Years of Angel Investing Lead to the Launch of a New $17 Million Venture Fund
Eight years ago, I made my first angel investment in a company called Tradesy via Tim Ferris’s AngelList syndicate. Within a matter of months, I made several more investments in startup companies via AngelList. I also made a couple of angel investments directly in local companies. I didn’t know what I was doing at the …
Why You Should Come to Work at MarketBeat — We’re Hiring!
MarketBeat is an Inc. 5000 financial media company that empowers equity investors to make better trading decisions with real-time financial data, in-depth analysis, and best-in-class stock research tools. MarketBeat has been recognized by Barron’s, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc., and Prairie Business for its rapid growth and success. With more than 2.5 million email subscribers, MarketBeat is …
My Quarterly Update: Q1 2022.
Over the last several weeks, I have been putting together a list of goals and projects that I hope to see come to fruition in the next year. As I look at the list, 2022 is shaping up to be a big year for both my career and the community organizations that I volunteer with. …
My Quarterly Update: Q4 2021
When you are a community leader, sometimes the most exciting projects you are working on can’t be discussed publicly because they aren’t quite ready for primetime or because all of the pieces necessary to complete the project haven’t fallen into place. You might find yourself working on an important project for months, sometimes even years, …
Two-Way SMS is the Next Big Marketing Channel
Over the last fifteen years of running online businesses, I have had the opportunity to test and leverage many different marketing channels, including email, browser notifications, Twitter accounts, Facebook messenger bots, Instagram accounts, YouTube channels, and a few others. Just about every year, some new social media company comes out and encourages businesses and influencers …
Developing a Thriving Regional Startup Ecosystem Along the I-29 Corridor
South Dakota has some unique challenges when building community and capital resources for startup founders. We have a small and spread-out population compared to the rest of the country. There are also just fewer people working on developing high-growth technology startups at any given time, which makes it difficult to build a non-profit organization around …
Sioux Falls’ Startup Ecosystem is Stronger Than Ever. Here’s Why.
Developing a healthy startup ecosystem is important for any community because it provides entrepreneurs, startup founders, and small business owners critical business resources in the earliest stages of their businesses. It’s not always clear which startup will become the next major employer in town, but by offering resources to all of them, we can be …
MarketBeat is Hiring for Three Additional Positions
MarketBeat’s growth has been strong in 2021 since we added three new staff positions in March. In order to continue our growth strategy, we are expanding our team once again and adding three new positions. As our premium subscriptions grow and as our website traffic is picking up after a brief summer slowdown, now is …
My Quarterly Update: Q3 2021.
We have just eighteen summers with our children before they head off to college or into the working world. Over the course of a life, this is a small window to make memories with our little ones before they are not so little anymore. Summer 2020 was unique for many given that everyone’s schedules suddenly …
Apple is Killing the Email Tracking Pixel. Here’s How Email Marketers Should Adapt.
During the World Wide Developer Conference earlier in June, Apple announced that its mail client would start blocking tracking pixels which allow email marketers to know when a user has opened their email. Tracking pixels, which are referred to by some as “spy pixels,” are primarily used to determine which subscribers are active and which …
Four Opportunities to Make Community Philanthropy More Effective
Giving back is a major responsibility that businesspeople have to the communities that helped make them successful. I owe a lot of my success to my parents for the opportunities and access to technology they provided me as a child, to Dakota State University which provided me with a world-class computer science education and the …
How MarketBeat Went 13 Years with No Employee Turnover
One of the things about MarketBeat that I am most proud of is that we have never had any employee turnover in the company’s 13-year history of incorporation. We have only ever hired 12 people over the last decade, but we never had anyone quit or otherwise leave the company until last week. Our first …
Introducing MarketBrew, a Craft Beer from MarketBeat and Remedy Brewing Company
Two things that matter a lot to MarketBeat are giving back to the community and having fun. Sioux Falls saw these values on full display when we launched the MarketBeat Burger at Chef Lance’s on Phillips for the DTSF Burger Battle and donated more than $31,000 to Call to Freedom for their work in helping …
My Quarterly Update: Q2 2021
If you were to tell yourself from two years ago that you would be wearing masks whenever you are out in public, that people would be migrating to different parts of the country because of public health lockdowns, and that your biggest hope for 2021 will be to get a new vaccine that was just …
The Future of Seed-Stage Startup Capital in the Dakota’s
During our last Falls Angel Fund meeting, we heard investment pitches from three high-growth startup companies that are based in the Dakota’s. One company was a software and services business that we had invested in an earlier round. One was a new software company seeking capital for the first time. The third was an early-stage …
Leadership Sioux Falls is Fundraising for New Playground Equipment at Hayward Park. Here’s How You Can Help.
Leadership Sioux Falls is a leadership development class put on by the Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce that provides emerging leaders with personal development skills, education about local and state governments and professional networking opportunities. I’ve been meaning to apply to Leadership Sioux Falls for the last several years, but the dates always conflicted …
Sioux Falls to Celebrate Entrepreneurship Day on March 3, 2021
Beginning this year, Sioux Falls will celebrate Entrepreneurship Day on the first Wednesday of March. For the 2021 celebration taking place on March 3, the general public is invited to join the festivities by participating in a host of events organized by the teams at the Zeal Center for Entrepreneurship (Zeal) and Startup Sioux Falls. …
MarketBeat is Hiring for Three Positions (Support, Data Analyst and Web Developer)
NOTE: These positions have all been filled as of 3/31/2021. MarketBeat’s growth has been astonishing over the last several months. We’ve added more than 2,000 new premium subscribers in the last 90 days, had more than 20 million people visit MarketBeat.com in January and are forecasting more than 100% revenue growth in 2021. To manage …
The Biggest Mistake You Can Make with Your Email Sign-Up Forms
You are a savvy business owner. Maybe you listen to marketing podcasts and have read some popular business books. You understand that one of your business’s most valuable assets is its customer and prospect lists. You put an email sign-up form on your website to build your audience, perhaps incentivized by a discount coupon, a …
Five Lessons Learned from the MarketBeat Burger Project
January has come and gone. The Downtown Sioux Falls Burger Battle has officially come to an end. The final MarketBeat Burger has been grilled and served, and Chef Lance finally has a welcome reprieve from making pork belly and brisket patties. Approximately 25,000 burgers were sold as part of the 2021 DTSF Burger Battle. Nearly …
Seven Lessons I Learned Helping Animal Shelters Raise $18.5 Million Over Seven Years
One of my goals for 2020 was to wrap up some entrepreneurial side projects so that MarketBeat is the only company that I have an operating role in. There were a couple of little websites that I got rid of and a real-estate investment club that I was part of that disbanded, but GoGo Photo …
My Quarterly Update: Q1 2021
With the total train wreck that 2020 was behind us, there is a lot of reason for optimism in the air. More and more people are getting the COVID vaccine every day. Business has been good at MarketBeat and the Sioux Falls economy seems well despite the pandemic. Karine and I find great joy in …
Introducing the MarketBeat Burger (Yes, we made a cheeseburger!)
It was the morning of November 2nd. Some of MarketBeat’s team members were working at our downtown office, getting ready for that week’s staff meeting. Just as our meeting was about to start, a curious email came in from Downtown Sioux Falls, Inc. (DTSF). Here’s what the email said: The time has come to start …
Announcing the Paulson Center at Dakota State University
When I was a student at Dakota State University, I paid close attention to the emails that were sent to all students. A lot of the emails were noise from student activities I was not interested in, but every now and then great opportunities were presented that any ambitious student could take advantage of. It …
The Two Million Dollar Ideas that Propelled MarketBeat’s Growth and Success.
The setting is Thanksgiving of 2010. Karine and I were engaged at the time and were planning a wedding the following summer. We spent the long weekend at her parents’ farm outside of Emery, South Dakota. The weekend was marked by energetic nieces and nephews, board games, walks on country roads and German chocolate pie. …
My 2020 Reading List
With 2020 mercifully coming to a close, I thought it would be a good time to highlight some of the non-fiction books that I have read this year. With two small children in our home, there is not a lot of uninterrupted free time to focus on a book. Consequently, most of my reading has …
How I Plan to Evaluate Charitable Giving Requests Moving Forward.
There are more than 500 registered non-profits that have 501(c)3 status in the greater Sioux Falls area, each with their own mission, vision, values, staff, and board of directors. Some non-profits operate on state or federal contracts or through grant programs, but most small non-profits rely primarily on charitable contributions from individual donors. One consequence …
Five Growth Strategies that MarketBeat Leveraged to Increase Revenue by 75% in 2020.
2020 has been a year of growth for MarketBeat. Our email list has grown by more than 500,000 subscribers since the first of the year. We brought on two additional employees. We just crossed $10 million in revenue for the year and expect to see 75% year-over-year growth for the year. While we did see …
Why Most People Shouldn’t Try to Build a Mobile App
Every now and then I receive an email from someone that is looking for advice about building a mobile app for their business or non-profit. These conversations usually start along the lines of, “Hey, I have a great idea for an app. Who do I talk to?” or “Do you know any good app developers?” …
My Quarterly Update: Q4 2020
As I write this post, COVID-19 numbers are spiking across the Midwestern states and there are more active cases now than at any point during the pandemic. While COVID-19 numbers do not look great in South Dakota currently, there does still seem to be a sense that things are slowly returning to normal. Micah and …
How COVID-19 Has Impacted the Sioux Falls Startup Community (and What’s Next)
At the beginning of the year, it looked like 2020 was going to be a big year for the Sioux Falls startup community. We had gotten into a groove of running 1 Million Cups weekly, doing monthly startup events for Startup Sioux Falls and Zeal, and were planning a couple of bigger events as well. …
Coping with Entrepreneurial Loneliness
For the last twelve years, I have largely worked in solitude in front of a computer screen. First as a remote employee and then later as a business owner, most of my workday as been spent at home or in a small office with minimal human contact during the day. Even today, there are at …
MarketBeat Named to Inc. 5000 “Hall of Fame”
Sioux Falls, SD, August 15, 2020 – Inc. Magazine has ranked MarketBeat No. 2296 on its 39th annual Inc. 5000 list, an exclusive ranking of the fastest-growing privately-held companies in the United States. 2020 marked the 5th year that MarketBeat has been included on the Inc. 5000 list, giving the company a coveted “Hall of Fame” …
My Quarterly Update: Q3 2020
Over the last couple of months, I have had the opportunity to start wrapping up some long-term projects and “clear the plate” to make room for some new adventures in my life. Many people, including myself, have the bad habit of continuing to do things long after they have finished serving their purpose simply because …
Seven Things I Learned Helping with a Local Political Campaign
Last May, I was approached by Alex Jensen to help him with his campaign for an at-large city council seat in Sioux Falls. I felt that we needed a different kind of elected official in that position and agreed to serve as his campaign treasurer. For the first six months of the campaign, our primary …
Why MarketBeat Is Choosing To Integrate Local Art Into The Workplace
For the longest time, my team did not want to get an office. They instead preferred working out of their homes, coffee shops, and coworking spaces. It was hard to blame them. Many offices are barebones spaces with white walls, fluorescent lighting, industrial carpet and just enough furniture to get work done. Even newly designed …
It’s time to focus on your greatest work.
During the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we all learned what life would be like with fewer obligations. Business meetings, church services, kids’ activities and other events all got put on hold and we all found ourselves with a lot more free time. Personally, I went from averaging 10-15 in-person meetings per week to …
My Quarterly Update: Q2 2020
Looking back at my most recent quarterly update, it’s amazing to see how much the world has changed in such a short period of time. A little over a month ago, we were attending church every Sunday morning and Wednesday night, our children were in school and we had a full travel schedule planned for …
Preserving Cash is the Key to Your Business Surviving the COVID-19 Recession
We find ourselves in unprecedented times. Many small businesses have had to close their doors and furlough employees with no idea when they might be able to re-open. Unemployment claims have hit an all-time high and some are predicting that COVID-19 related job losses could reach 47 million. The United States economy is undoubtedly in …
Sioux Falls 2030: Four Hopes for the Startup Ecosystem
These thoughts are my own and are not necessarily those of the Startup Sioux Falls, the Zeal Center for Entrepreneurship or any other organization I may be involved with. With the launch of the new Zeal + Startup Sioux Falls website, the merger between the Zeal Center for Entrepreneurship and Startup Sioux Falls is now …
How Younger Donors are Changing the Face of Charitable Giving in Sioux Falls.
A while back, I was invited to participate in a focus group of business leaders for the Sioux Falls Brand project which is a collaboration of the City, the Chamber, and the Development Foundation to develop a consistent brand and logo to use when promoting the city. The consultants asked our group several questions about …
How to be an Effective Non-Profit Board Member
There are more than 500 non-profits that have 501c3 status in the Sioux Falls metro. The IRS requires each 501c3 to have a governing board of at least three members to maintain their tax-exempt status. Some non-profit boards exist in name only and others are high-profile, high-effort volunteer roles that require a significant commitment but …
Moving is Better Than Shaking: What I’ve Learned about Personal Branding from Kevin Tupy
(Watch this Video on YouTube) A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to attend a Christmas party that entrepreneur Kevin Tupy held for his real estate and business development firm, Cresten Capital Holdings. It was held at the new Tavern 180 restaurant and the food was top-notch (try the Chicken Parmesan, you won’t regret …
My Quarterly Update: Q4 2019
It’s Christmas Eve as I publish this. MarketBeat’s work has largely wrapped up for the year. Our startup community events are on pause until mid-January. The never-ending buzz of social media has slowed to a crawl and my email inbox is surprisingly empty. Our kids are eagerly awaiting their Christmas presents and Micah is excited …
Why “Skip the Latte” is Terrible Financial Advice
(Watch this Video on YouTube) Financial author David Bach is famous for teaching a concept called “The Latte Factor,” which is the idea that recurring small purchases like coffee, cigarettes and ordering pizza add up to a ridiculous amount of money over the course of a lifetime. For example, if you were to buy a …
How MarketBeat is Preparing for the Next Recession and How You Can Prepare Your Business Too
(Watch this Video on YouTube) 2008 was a very bad year for many industries. The financial media space, which MarketBeat operates in, was perhaps the worst hit. Investors took money out of the stock market in droves as the S&P 500 lost 50% of its value during the 18-month bear market that lasted between October …
What to Do When Your Email Campaigns Are Hitting the Spam Folder
By the end of 2019, MarketBeat will have sent over 1.5 billion emails since I launched the business in 2011. We’re currently sending out more than 60 million emails per month to our 1.25 million subscribers. Our ability to send large amounts of email to our customers has scaled nicely over the years, but it …
Seven Volunteer Opportunities to Help Lead Sioux Falls’ Startup Ecosystem
In the last couple of weeks, our startup community has welcomed a fresh set of eyes that has provided a very helpful outside perspective on the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities that our startup ecosystem has. Zeal has brought on Kate Flemming, who was most recently the director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Millikin University, …
How to Get Email Sign Ups by Hosting In-Person Events
Looking for a creative way to grow your email list for your business or non-profit? This video shows a creative hack that lets you use Facebook and EventBrite to build your mailing list. (Watch this Video on YouTube)
How MarketBeat Does Email Re-Engagement and Sunsetting
When it comes to email marketing, having a bigger list is not always better. It’s not the marketer with the biggest email list that wins, it’s the marketer that has the most engaged audience that wins. Email service providers are looking at engagement statistics (open rates, clickthrough rates, subscriber replies, spam reports) more than ever …
The “Blue Text Resend” Tactic That Generated 6,000 Additional Clicks on MarketBeat’s Latest Email Campaign
This simple and underutilized email marketing tactic generated 40% additional clicks on our most recent email campaign at MarketBeat. (Watch this Video on YouTube)
The History and Future of Startup Sioux Falls (We’re Merging with Zeal!)
About a year and a half ago, I began to sense there were some unmet needs in our small business and startup community. While there are approximately 4,300 businesses with fewer than 20 employees operating in the Sioux Falls MSA, we had difficulty getting more than fifty entrepreneurs to attend our 1 Million Cups event …
How I Dramatically Reduced the Number of Meetings I Take Each Week
25 meetings in one week. I have no idea how I did that, but that was my life earlier this year. Over the summer, I set a hard cap of 10 meetings a week on my calendar and here’s what happened. (Watch this Video on YouTube) Prefer to read instead of watch? Here’s a rough …
South Dakota, Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics (Video)
I had the privilege of being on a panel with Ryan Swanstrom from Swanstrom Analytics and Jodi Schwan from SiouxFalls.Business at the South Dakota Technology Showcase event, which is put on by SDN Communications. During the panel, we discussed artificial intelligence initiatives from South Dakota companies, the role that higher education plays in training technology …
My Quarterly Update: Q3 2019
I am going to try to get back in the habit of publishing quarterly updates about the various projects that I’m involved with. It can honestly be difficult for me to keep track of everything that I’m working on at any given time and these posts provide me the opportunity to think through each project …
Why I Stopped Trying to Monetize My Expertise and Started Giving Everything Away for Free.
Watch this Video on YouTube A couple of years ago, I was facing a significant issue with how my free time was being spent. MarketBeat was growing like a weed and I had become involved in a variety of non-profit volunteer roles. At the same time, I was getting all sorts of requests for …
How I Plan to Fund Startup Sioux Falls Through Community Patronage
(Watch this Video on YouTube) One of the most difficult components of running a non-profit organization is finding funding. You’ve got a great mission that you believe in. You’re incredibly passionate about the work your non-profit is doing and you genuinely think you can make a dent in the issue that your non-profit is …
Why You Should Resist The Urge to Sell Your Business
In some entrepreneurial circles, having sold out of a business is a badge of honor. You created something from nothing. You built a profitable business and your business was so attractive that someone wrote you a big check and bought you out. You’ve got a pile of money in the bank and now you’re free …
When is Your Startup No Longer a Startup?
We all ascribe ourselves many labels that describe who we are to the world. One label I’ve carried for the last decade is “startup founder”, but I recently realized that MarketBeat is no longer a startup. In this video, I talk about the five signs that your business is no longer in start-up mode. Watch …
The Future of Remote Work – YPN Crossroads Summit 2019
At the 2019 YPN Crossroads Summit, I prepared a talk that discusses the trends surrounding remote work and how we do remote work at MarketBeat. Thanks to the help of Josh Novak and Main Street Media, I was able to record the presentation so that it can be distributed more widely. Below you will find …
Startup Sioux Falls August Update
We are now just under six months into operations of Startup Sioux Falls. During that time, our primary efforts have been around content creation and building an online community for small business owners and startup founders in the Sioux Falls area. We’ve highlighted the stories of 16 ecosystem organizations and community groups. We’ve published 9 …
What Held Me Back from Hiring an Assistant (and Why I Finally Hired One)
For years, I resisted the idea of having an assistant at MarketBeat due to my middle-class mindset. I finally hired an assistant two months ago and that decision has forever benefited my ability to get work done and spend more time with my family. Watch on Facebook (Watch this Video on Facebook) Watch on YouTube …
Seven Bizarre Things That Happened to Me While Building Online Businesses
I’ve been building online businesses since 2006 and I’ve run into some interesting people in circumstances during that time. From the illegal translation of one of my books to the 80-year-old man that threatened to drive to Sioux Falls and beat me up, it’s been a wild ride. (Watch this Video on YouTube) Prefer to …
The State of Co-Working in Sioux Falls in 2019.
Two years ago, I wrote a comprehensive article covering the state of co-working in Sioux Falls at the time. The Bakery, which was the largest standalone co-working space in Sioux Falls at the time, was on the verge of closing and Meso, another co-working space, had closed the year earlier. This left the Zeal Center …
You Become the Content You Consume
You’ve probably heard the idea that “You become the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” There’s a corollary to that saying you might not have heard of. It’s that “You become the content you consume.” I talk about it in this video. (Watch this Video on YouTube) Prefer to read …
How to Fund a Local Retail or Services Business
Do you want to open a new retail store or local services business in your community? In this video, I talk about what it takes to raise money to launch your business and get it off the ground. (Watch this Video on YouTube) Prefer to read instead of watch? Here’s a rough script I used …
How We Make Working Remotely Work at MarketBeat
MarketBeat has a unique hybrid remote work environment. We don’t spend all day every day in an office together, but we’re also not completely remote either. We’ve developed a system that we think gives us the benefits of working in an office together, without having to be in an office 40 hours each week. (Watch …
Why Your Calendar Needs a Hard Cap on The Number of Meetings You Take Each Week
I’m trying an experiment during the summer. I’m setting a hard cap on the number of meetings I’ll take each week to protect my time for my family and my business. (Watch this Video on YouTube) Prefer to read instead of watch? Here’s a rough script I used for this video. Matt Paulson here. In …
Can Over Exposure Hurt Your Personal Brand?
Can you publish too much content to your social media channels? Will people unfollow you for being a prolific content creator? I have some thoughts. (Watch this Video on YouTube) Prefer to read instead of watch? Here’s a rough script I used for this video. Matt Paulson here. In this video, I want to discuss …
My Quarterly Update: Q2 2019
I used to write a monthly update post about the various projects that I’ve been working on. I’ve gotten out of the habit of doing it lately, but since I’m on vacation this week, I thought I would write an “update post” in lieu of the weekly videos that I have been doing this year. …
The Principle That Tripled My Business for 3 Consecutive Years
The principle I discuss in this video was something I discovered in 2013 when my business was beginning to get some traction. I don’t claim to be the first person to discover this principle, but when I applied it in my life, my business’s revenue and my personal income doubled every year for three consecutive …
4 Characteristics Every Successful Business Owner Has in Common
There are many different reasons small businesses and startups fail, but there are four traits that I’ve seen in every successful entrepreneur I’ve ever met. I talk about them in this video. #startups #business #business #marketing #entrepreneurship #startup #souxfalls (Watch this Video on YouTube) Prefer to read instead of watch? Here’s a rough script I …
Why You Should Unsubscribe From Business Podcasts
In this video, I argue why you should unsubscribe from all of the business podcasts that you listen to. It’s not the reason that you think. (Watch this Video on YouTube) Prefer to read instead of watch? Here’s a rough script I used for this video. Matt Paulson here. In this video, I am going …
Startup Sioux Falls – May 2019 Update
Startup Sioux Falls is about 6 weeks into its operations and I thought it would be a good time to give an update on what we’ve accomplished so far with the brand and what we’re hoping to do moving forward. (Watch this Video on YouTube) Prefer to read instead of watch? Here’s a rough script …
Should you join your local chamber of commerce?
In this video, I discuss the experience I’ve had with my local chamber of commerce and whether or not you should join your local chamber of commerce. (Watch this Video on YouTube) Prefer to read instead of watch? Here’s a rough script I used for this video. For a long time, I thought being part …
Sioux Falls and Fargo: Two Approaches to Building Startup Ecosystems
Last week, Andy Jorgensen from Firebrothers Fireworks and I had the privilege of spending a day with some key stakeholders of the startup ecosystem in Fargo, North Dakota. I had dinner with local startup founders, met with some NDSU entrepreneurship students, spoke at their local chapter of 1 Million Cups, and met with the team …
How to Deal with Haters
Do you plan on being successful? You will almost certainly attract a small group of haters that speak poorly of you, minimize your success and talk about you behind your back. Every successful person I know has a few haters. It comes with the territory. People will project their own insecurities on you and use …
How to Get Your Business Covered by Local Media Outlets
Have you tried and failed to get your business covered by the local newspaper, television stations or local radio stations? It’s not hard to get featured in the local press, but there are three rules you must follow to get your business media coverage. (Watch this Video on YouTube) Here’s some of the media coverage …
Introducing Startup Sioux Falls
Today, I am pleased to announce the creation of Startup Sioux Falls. Startup Sioux Falls is a digital hub that connects entrepreneurs to the startup ecosystem and startup community in the Sioux Falls metro area. You can think of Startup Sioux Falls as one-stop shop to learn about resources available to entrepreneurs and small business owners, to …
Email Marketing Demystified Second Edition Now Available
The second edition of my best-selling email marketing book, Email Marketing Demystified, is now available on Amazon. It is currently available in paperback and Kindle formats and will be available as an audiobook soon. —– Last fall, I was teaching a class on email marketing at the Zeal Center for Entrepreneurship in my hometown of …
Have you ever wondered what MarketBeat actually does?
I can’t count the number of times that I have explained to people what service MarketBeat provides to stock investors. I’ve tried communicating our business model in several different ways, such as saying it’s a financial news service or a stock portfolio monitoring tool. I’m still not sure people really fully understand what our business …
How to Build a Business that Stands the Test of Time
Building a business is an inherently risky proposition, so much so that 70% of companies fail within the first ten years of operations. How do you build a business that stands the test of time? Here are four key ideas that will help your business make it to ten years or more. (Watch this Video …
The Best Business, Investing and Leadership Books I’ve Read in the Last 3 Years
For several years, I posted a list of books I read every year, but fell out of the habit of doing that after 2015. I continue to read about 25 non-fiction books each year, because I truly believe in the classic quote from Charley Tremendous Jones: “You will be the same person in five years …
Email Marketing Demystified Second Edition to Launch March 25th
BREAKING: The second edition of Email Marketing Demystified is coming out on March 25th! Last fall, I was teaching a class on email marketing at the Zeal Center for Entrepreneurship in my hometown of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. During the question and answer section of my talk, a friend noted that Email Marketing Demystified was …
Six Personal Finance Metrics that Everyone Should Track
If you’re building a business, you have to stay on top of your personal finances because your business’s finances and your personal finances will intertwine whether you realize it or not. In this video, I discuss six different financial metrics that you should track on relating to your personal finances. (Watch this Video on YouTube) …
Three Ways to Maximize Your Company’s Cash-flow and Profit Margin
(Watch this Video on YouTube) Prefer to read instead of watch? Here’s a rough script I used for this video. Whenever you’re going into business, your goal at the end of the day is to be able to take money home from your business so that you have an income to provide for your family, …
How to Establish Trust with Potential Customers on Your Website
Given the sheer number of online scams, consumers will be naturally skeptical when they visit your website for the first time. In this video, I show nine different ways that you can foster trust with the people visiting your website, making them more likely to trust your brand and purchase from your company. (Watch this …
How to Grow the Startup Ecosystem in Your City
Are you looking to help grow the startup community or ecosystem in your city? There are three key things that you can do to help bring more startups to your city. (Watch this Video on YouTube) Want to read instead of watch? Here’s a rough script I used for this video. I live in Sioux …
How Important are Trademarks and Should You File One Yourself?
Having your business name trademarked can be an incredibly valuable thing for your business, because it prevents other businesses in your category from using your name. Learn why you might want a trademark and why trying to file a trademark yourself might be a bad idea. Watch this Video on YouTube Here’s a rough script …
Announcing Sioux Falls Entrepreneurship Day on March 6th
March 6th, 2019 marks the five year anniversary of 1 Million Cups in Sioux Falls. In March 2014, we held the first 1 Million Cups event at Queen City Bakery and heard from Andy Traub of Take Permission Marketing. 1 Million Cups has since expanded to more than 100 cities across the country, helping answer …
What to Do When Someone Copies Your Business
What should you do when someone copies your business? Your first inclination will be to get mad at them for stealing your idea, but that may not be the most helpful thing for your business. (Watch this Video on YouTube) Here’s a rough script if you prefer to read instead of watch: In this video, …
Why Angel Investors Can’t Invest in Your Local Business
If you’re looking to raise money to start a business, your first course of action might to go seek out angel investors to fund your business. This works if you’re running a business that has the opportunity to reach national scale, but there are other financing options you should consider if you are developing a …
How to Take Time Off From Your Business (Without Worrying it Will Blow Up in Your Absence)
Totally unplugging from your business isn’t easy, especially if you run an online business that’s generating cash every hour of every day of the year. I’ve made a personal commitment to unplug from my business more this year and here’s what I’m doing to make it happen. (Watch This Video on YouTube) Want to read …
Why SMS Might be the Next Great Marketing Channel for Your Business
MarketBeat has created seven-figure revenue streams with email and web push notifications, now we’re going to try it with SMS. I believe SMS could be the next big marketing channel for our business, and maybe yours as well. Watch this Video on YouTube Here’s a rough script if you prefer to read instead of watch: …
How I’m Putting Together the Second Edition of Email Marketing Demystified
Watch this video on YouTube. Last fall, I was teaching a free class on email marketing at a local entrepreneurship center in my hometown of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. During the question and answer section of my talk, a friend noted that Email Marketing Demystified was written in 2015 and wondered if there was any …
What happened when I agreed let people “ask me anything.”
Last fall, we had a speaker cancellation at 1 Million Cups and John Meyer suggested we experiment with an “ask me anything” format where the speaker didn’t have a prepared talk and the audience could ask the speaker anything they wanted to. I agreed to be the guinea pig for this format and you can …
Why Achieving Your Financial Goals May Disappoint You
It’s early January and you’re setting your business and personal goals for the year. Your first inclination might be to set a big financial goal, but achieving that goal may be a hollow victory. Watch This Video on YouTube Here’s a rough script I used for this video if you prefer to read than watch: …
Why I Wouldn’t Build an Amazon FBA Business in 2019
A lot of people have built 7-figure and 8-figure online businesses by selling through Amazon FBA, but does that opportunity still exist in 2019? I wouldn’t try to start a new Amazon business in 2019 and here’s why. Watch the Video on YouTube here Want to read instead of watch? Here’s a rough script I …
How to Promote Your Small Business on Facebook Without Being Annoying
Watch this video on YouTube. Here’s a rough script I used for this video if you prefer to read: If you’re starting a business, one of the hardest aspects is finding your early customers. You don’t know what works for advertising. You may not be 100% certain who your ideal customers are. You just know …
Should You Enter the South Dakota Giant Vision Competition?
Every year, the Governor’s Office of Economic Development puts on a startup competition for South Dakota residents. There are some good reasons to apply and participate in the competition, but there are limits on how beneficial it can be for your company. Watch This Video on YouTube Learn more about Giant Vision at http://www.southdakotagiantvision.com/ Here’s …
Digital Marketing Conferences I’m Attending in 2019
Every now and then, someone asks me what digital marketing and entrepreneurship conferences I’ll be attending in 2019. In this video, I discuss which conferences I’m attending and why I attend each one year after year. (Watch this video on YouTube)
Should You Focus on Google Reviews, Facebook Reviews, BBB Reviews or Yelp Reviews for Your Business?
Depending on the type of business you run and who your customers , you should look to find social proof from different places. In this video, I discuss what types of businesses should seek accreditation from the Better Business Bureau and which should focus on Facebook and Google reviews. Watch this video on YouTube
The State of Venture Capital in South Dakota
Mike Vetter (CEO of DataSync), Tom Eitreim (Manager of Angel Funds and Market Research at The Enterprise Institute), Dwaine Chapel (Executive Director of The Research Park at South Dakota State University) and I sat down with Jackelyn Severin from South Dakota Public Broadcasting for their Making a Living program to discuss the start of venture …
What I Hope to Accomplish in 2019
Whenever I run into someone I haven’t seen in a while, they invariable ask me, “What are you working on next?” I hear this question at least twice per week from people that I run into in the community. I don’t always have a great answer to that question, because if I thought something was …
How I Plan to Grow and Promote Entrepreneurshp in 2019
I largely took a break from creating content and community building in 2018 to double down on MarketBeat. I plan on doing three big things to grow entrepreneurship in my community, as well as my personal brand as an entrepreneurial thought leader, in 2019. Learn more about them in this video. Watch The Video on …
How to Onboard New Employees in Your Business
When you’re bringing on a new member to your team, it’s important to set them up for success. You want employees to be informed about your business, inspired to do great work and equipped with the tools they need to do their job well. We just brought on two new employees to MarketBeat. In this …
How to Identify Core Values for Your Business
Watch this video on YouTube. For the last several years, MarketBeat has been a small team of four. We had written down some core values in 2013. I wanted to pull them up because we had a couple of new employees and wanted to instill them into our employees. The problem was I couldn’t find …
MarketBeat is Hiring Two New Employees
MarketBeat had significant growth in 2018, but a lot of that growth sat on my shoulders. I have been at my work capacity for a while now, and my goal for 2019 is to build a business that can thrive without me and stand the test of time. To help achieve this goal, we have …
How to Raise Money for Your Business in the Great Plains or the Midwest (Updated 11/18)
As the public face of Falls Angel Fund, I receive a lot of inquiries from entrepreneurs and would-be business owners that are looking to raise money to get their businesses off the ground. In the past couple of weeks, I have received inquiries from an entrepreneur running a medical devices startup, an entrepreneur running a …
Webinar Recording: Holiday Email Marketing Campaigns
Black Friday, Christmas and New Years are just around the corner. If you have an email list for your business, the holiday season is the best time of year to leverage your mailing list to generate sales. I recorded a live webinar on this subject. On the webinar, we talked talk about sequencing of messages, …
What Would an Ecosystem Organization Look Like in Sioux Falls?
Please note that the thoughts expressed in this article are my own personal opinions and do not reflect the opinions of any group, organization or company that I am involved with. The next few months will be one of the busiest seasons for the entrepreneurial community in Sioux Falls in the last several years. A …
My Not-Quite Monthly Update – August 2018
I had lofty goals of sending out a monthly update to keep you informed with what projects I’m working on this year, but that goal fell flat on its face like most New Year’s resolutions. There’s a lot going on at MarketBeat, in my personal life and in the Sioux Falls entrepreneurship scene, so I …
Five Misconceptions Startup Founders Have About Angel Investors
Each month, I meet with five to ten business owners that want to raise money for their startups. Since I’m the chair of a community angel investment fund, there are a lot of people that are told “go talk to Matt” when they ask around about raising capital to grow their business. I take as …
How to Build an Interest-Based Community on Facebook
Every successful community has a central hub for the sharing of ideas the facilitation of random social interactions. Churches have Sunday worship. Service clubs like Rotary and Kiwanis have weekly meetings. Geeks have game nights at local comic shops. These regular places of meeting provide members of a community a forum to engage other people …
How to Invest in Real-Estate Without Having to Deal with Tenants or Fix Broken Toilets
In 2012, a group of seven of my friends decided to purchase a rental home together. We found a nice undervalued property, fixed it up using our own labor, and rented it to one of our friends’ parents for a fair market rate. After a few years, we were able to pay off the house …
Why MarketBeat Became Accredited by the BBB
Over the last 100 years, marketers have pushed the promises they make to consumers to the limit to generate sales in an increasingly competitive world. They have used sex, action, greed and urgency to capture the increasingly fickle attention of consumers. They have made outrageous claims and guarantees about their products that simply don’t stand …
Webinar Replay: How I Went from $500,000 to $4 Million Per Year Using Email, Web Push and Facebook Messenger
I recently recorded a webinar on how MarketBeat has leveraged web push notifications, email marketing and Facebook Messenger to grow our business from $500,000 per year in 2013 to over $4 million per year in 2018. We go over several practical tips in this hour long recording (and there’s no sales pitch at the end!). …
Seven Best Practices for Web Push Notifications in 2018
One of the best ways to build a business in this decade is to capture the attention of an audience and then rent that attention to advertisers that want to talk to your audience. We have done this with MarketBeat by earning the attention of 575,000 individual investors that have subscribed to our daily email …
Launching a Business? Build Your Audience First.
“What’s the first step to starting a business?” Common answers to this question include coming up with a name, figuring out who your target market is, identifying the products and services you want to sell, identifying a location for your business or setting up an LLC. These tasks are all important, but I would argue …
My Monthly Update – January 2018
It’s been about a month since I sent out my last update, but here’s what’s been going on that you might find interesting: Aggressive 2018 Goals for MarketBeat I am hoping to grow MarketBeat to $4 million in revenue in 2018. It did $3.45 million in 2017. I plan on devoting 90% of my work …
My Monthly Update – November, 2017
It’s been about a month since I sent out my last update, but here’s what’s been going on that you might find interesting: – MarketBeat is continuing to grow and it’s growing in a way that I hadn’t expected. Much of the growth has come from selling subscriptions. Currently about 2/3rds of our revenue is …
My Monthly Update – October, 2017
It’s been a few months since I last sent out a monthly update, but here’s what’s been going on that you might find interesting. – Earlier this year, I made a significant pivot to focus less on side projects and more on my core business (MarketBeat). I decided to stop publishing new books for the …
Why I Won’t Be Selling MarketBeat for the Foreseeable Future
Toward the end of last year, I was seriously considering selling MarketBeat and moving on to my next project. The company did not see much growth in 2016 and I thought I had grown the business as large as I could with my current skill set. The work had become mundane and I just wasn’t …
Seven Mistakes You’re Going to Make as a First Time Founder
I have been involved in the Sioux Falls entrepreneurial ecosystem for about four years now. During that time, I’ve seen many people get interested in entrepreneurship, make plans to start a company and give up when their business isn’t an immediate hit or they realize how much work it really is to start a company. …
Why I Stopped Trying to Be the Next Pat Flynn
For the last several years, I’ve tried to make a name for myself in the internet business education space in the same vein that Pat Flynn, John Lee Dumas, Jaime Tardy and many others have. The idea is that by branding oneself as an expert in the space, one can build an audience, sell digital …
What I Learned Losing Twenty Pounds in Four Months
Health and fitness is not a subject that I thought I would ever find myself writing about. I’ve never enjoyed strenuous exercise and have had an unhealthy appetite for soda, fast food and candy for as long as I can remember. I’ve been at least twenty-five pounds overweight since I graduated college. I had the …
What can Zeal do for Entrepreneurs?
If you’re an entrepreneur in the Sioux Falls area and you haven’t been to the Zeal Center for Entrepreneurship, you are missing out on a hub of support and resources for growing businesses. The Zeal building, which is on the northwest side of Sioux Falls near Southeast Tech, houses a mix of idea-stage entrepreneurs, scaling …
What Can the South Dakota Small Business Development Center Do for Entrepreneurs?
Imagine an organization funded by the SBA, the DoD, the Department of Commerce, and the SDGOED, chartered by USD, and operating under the names SBDC, PTAC, MTS, and SBIR. If you think that getting help from this organization must be like visiting the DMV, you would be mistaken. It turns out that the South Dakota …
Five Reasons I Won’t Invest in Your Business
For every dollar that I have available to invest in start-up businesses, there are at least twenty people that would happily take that dollar and promise me big returns in the future. Since the vast majority of start-up businesses fail, I have the overwhelming task of determining which entrepreneurs that want my money will be …
Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Sioux Falls Part 4: Educational Opportunities for Entrepreneurs
A few weeks back, I wrote an important article focusing on the four things that the city of Sioux Falls will need if it is going to be a community that fosters new startup businesses that attract outside capital and create high-paying jobs. Since then, I have discussed capital availability, building community, and storytelling as …
What Can the Enterprise Institute Do for Entrepreneurs?
Where can an entrepreneur go for guidance when their product is selling like hotcakes but they can’t keep up with demand? Or when they can’t make necessary hires because of cashflow issues? Or when the only way to bring their product to market is to build a multi-million dollar processing facility, and they don’t yet …
Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Sioux Falls Part 3: Better Storytelling
A few weeks ago, I published an important post highlighting four things that the city of Sioux Falls will need if it’s going to become a city that fosters new startup businesses that create high-paying jobs and attract outside capital. Since then, I’ve dived a bit deeper into the topics of making capital available to …
What I Hope to Accomplish in 2017: Mid-Year Update
It’s amazing how much can change in your personal and professional life in six short months. At the beginning of the year, I published a list of written personal and professional goals I hope to accomplish in 2017. I thought I’d take a few minutes and provide an update on how each of my goals are …
Integrating Faith and Work: What We’re Doing at MarketBeat
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to participate in the God as CEO breakfast lead by Paul TenHaken. More than 300 local business leaders attended the event. Paul challenged us to stop compartmentalizing our lives and to live out our Christian faith in the workplace. He shared examples of local companies that …
Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Sioux Falls Part 2: Making Capital Available to Entrepreneurs
A few weeks back, I highlighted four things that the city of Sioux Falls will need if it wants to become a true entrepreneurial city that regularly spawns job-creating and capital-attracting startups. In short, if we want a stronger social community of entrepreneurs, we need to do a better job of sharing our success stories, …
Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Sioux Falls Part 1: Creating Community
A couple of weeks ago, I highlighted four things that I believe Sioux Falls will need if it wants to follow the footsteps of Austin, Boulder and other startup communities and become a city that regularly spawns startups that create new jobs, attract investment capital and foster economic growth. We will need opportunities for collaboration …
Startup Q&A #26: Outsourcing, Delegation, Customer Retention, and Email Marketing Technology
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: Use https://manychat.com/ to set up a facebook chat …
Four Things Sioux Falls Needs to Become an Entrepreneurial City
Over the last several months, the business community in Sioux Falls has taken a renewed interest in the role that entrepreneurship plays in bettering the city. The Zeal Center for Entrepreneurship has become more prominent in the community with their recent rebrand and remodel, as well as their launch of an accelerator program. The closure …
Startup Q&A #25: Venture Capital – Pitching and Making a Deal
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: Use short emails to engage your audience with …
Startup Q&A #24: Venture Capital – Who can invest and who can raise money?
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: Do session recordings of your website to find …
Startup Q&A #23: Self-Publishing – Making Money With Your Book
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: Use Booktrakr.com to track the sales of …
Startup Q&A #22: Self-Publishing- Why and How
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: Read Self-Publishing Master Class by Rick Smith …
Startup Q&A #21: Evaluating an Idea, Choosing a Bank, Investing in IPOs, Building an Email List, and Partnership Agreements
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: Use an online invoicing system to get …
Startup Q&A #20: Partnerships, Convention Booths, SEO, Understanding Financials, and Book Publishing
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: Switch your sites over to https This Week’s …
Startup Q&A #19: Learning to Code, Mentorship, Encouraging Kids, and Protecting Intellectual Property
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: Switch your sites over to https This Week’s …
Startup Q&A #18: Investing Options for Entrepreneurs
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: Look into donor advised funds This Week’s …
Startup Q&A #17: Investment Asset Allocation for the Entrepreneur
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: read the investing books listed in this blog …
Startup Q&A #16: Investing for Entrepreneurs – When and How to Start
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: use Personal Capital to assess your investment …
Startup Q&A #15: Email Marketing – Getting to Your Customers’ Inboxes and Monetizing your List
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: Use After Offers to build your mailing …
Startup Q&A #14: Email Marketing – Why to Use It and How to Do It
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: use Mail-Tester.com This Week’s Questions Why is building …
Startup Q&A #13: Focus and Productivity
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: read Essentialism by Greg McKeown This Week’s …
When to Make Your First Hire in Your Online Business
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. You might think that you don’t have enough work to keep an employee or contractor busy or that you can’t afford to bring on a team member right …
Online Business from Scratch Now Available
Online Business from Scratch, my most recent business book, is now available on Amazon. Many of my friends and readers would like to start a business and make money online, but they know it can’t be as easy as some online gurus make it sound. Would you like a realistic strategy that actually works for real people? …
Startup Q&A #12: Bookkeeping, Networking Organizations, Selling a Business, and Politics in the Workplace
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: split-test your subject lines This Week’s Questions What …
Creative Ways to Make Money from Your Online Business
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. There are several other creative strategies that you can use to make money in your business that don’t fall neatly into the broad categories of display advertising, affiliate …
Startup Q&A #11: Managing Your Email List, Funding Your Business, Knowing if You’re Ready to Start a Business, Scratching your Own Itch
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the Week: read Beyond the E-Myth by Michael Gerber …
How to Grow Your Business with Paid Advertising
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. After your business is more established and you have begun to develop your own products and services, you can experiment with doing paid advertising to grow your email …
Startup Q&A #10: Web Hosting Issues, Marketing Spend, Non-Disclosure Agreements, Getting Started with Investing
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the week: do research with BuiltWith.com This Week’s Questions …
How to Use Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in Your Business
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. A standard operating procedures (SOP) is a written document that explains how people working at your company should complete a specific task and why they should complete it …
Startup Q&A #9: Online Business Tools, Health Insurance, Finding Investors, and Formal Education
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the week: read The Automatic Customer by John Warrilow …
Seven Tips to Successfully Manage Your Team
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. Many people think that managing others isn’t hard and that they would be a pretty good boss given the opportunity, but creating an environment with good communication and …
Startup Q&A #8: Building an Advisory Team, Learning from Failure, Evaluating a Niche, and Investing in Gold or Bitcoin
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Tip of the week: use similarweb.com This Week’s Questions What’s the …
How to Find and Hire Your First Team Member
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. I have probably hired about two dozen people between employees and contractors over the course of the last decade. I have never created a single job posting or …
What I Learned About Self Publishing in 2016 (and My Plans for 2017)
In 2014, I set a personal goal to publish a 200+ page non-fiction book. My friend, Andy Traub, had published a book on Amazon and I figured if he could do it, I could do it too. That effort culminated about four months after it began, with the launch of 40 Rules for Internet Business …
Startup Q&A #7: Prioritizing Expenses, Attending Conferences, Performance Metrics, Legal Structures, Business Skills
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Growth Hack of the Week: Go on a virtual media tour …
What Tasks to Delegate and Outsource in Your Business
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. If you are at your maximum workload capacity and are looking to bring someone on to lighten your load, make a list of your current work-related responsibilities and …
Should I Hire an Employee or Bring on an Independent Contractor?
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. In the United States, there are two broad categories of workers—employees and independent contractors. Employees tend to work for a single company and contractors tend to do a …
Startup Q&A #6: Bootstrapping vs. Investment, Networking, Business Banking, Industry Changes, Exit Strategy
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Resource of The Week: Built to Sell, by John Warrillow This Week’s …
What I Hope to Accomplish in 2017
“So, Matt, what are you working on next?” This is by far the number one question that I get when I run into friends and business acquaintances. I hear this question at least twice per week from people that I run into at coffee shops and networking events. I usually don’t have a great answer …
Starting a Business? You Need a Team
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. There are two broad categories of work related to your business—working on your business and working in your business. If you have read the book E-Myth by Michael …
Startup Q&A #5: Reinvestment, Marketing Responsibility, Pricing SaaS, Prep for Entrepreneurship, Vetting an Idea
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Resource of The Week: Kickbox.io This Week’s Questions How do you approach …
How to Generate Sales for Your Digital Products After Launch
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. You might generate a large number of sales during your initial launch period only to find that sales taper off after the promotional efforts for your launch conclude. …
Tools to Help Make Your Digital Product Launch a Success
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. There are several companies that produce software and services geared toward people selling digital products. Here are some software packages and services you might consider using as part …
Startup Q&A #4: Allocating Profit, Finding Service Professionals, Selling an Equity Stake, and Hiring
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Growth Hack of the Week: Export your contact list from LinkedIn …
How to Successfully Launch Your First Digital Product
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. In order to successfully launch a product to your audience, you need to make a really big deal about your launch and give your audience incentives to buy …
How to Create Your First Digital Product
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. Before you begin creating an outline, writing or recording videos, the first step to creating your digital product is writing the marketing copy you plan on using to …
Startup Q&A #3: MLMs, Business Incorporation, Pitching Investors and Angel Investing
Watch or Listen to This Episode: Watch on YouTube (Video) Watch on Facebook (Video) Download MP3 File (Audio) Subscribe to Startup Q&A Subscribe via YouTube (Video) Subscribe via iTunes (Audio) Subscribe via Stitcher (Audio) Subscribe via Google Play Music (Audio) Subscribe via RSS (Audio) Growth Hack of the Week: Stop doing low-value tasks in your …
How to Develop an Idea for Your First Digital Product
The same strategies that you use to identify what kind of content to create on your website can be used to identify what kind of digital products to create. You can create products based on what your competitors are doing, build products around the issues that people in your niche are talking about on Quora …
Startup Q&A #2 – Content Creation at Scale, Automation, Business Debt and More.
(Note from Matt: Startup Q&A is an experimental video show that I am working on. It is in “beta” and production values will steadily improve from week to week.) Links: Watch on YouTube Watch on Facebook Download Audio (MP3) Subscribe to Audio Podcast Subscribe on Stitcher Subscribe on Google Play Growth Hack of the Week: …
When Should You Start Selling Digital Products in Your Online Business?
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. Launching an online business requires an incredible amount of work over a long period of time and there’s never quite enough time to get everything done that you …
Why People Will Buy Digital Products from Your Online Business
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. You might think that you won’t be able to sell a digital product to your audience because there are people that know more than you that are already …
Startup Q&A #1 – Going Full-Time, Hiring Employee #1, Tackling Big Ideas and More.
(Note from Matt: Startup Q&A is an experimental video show that I am working on. It is in “beta” and production values will steadily improve from week to week.) Links: Watch on YouTube Watch on Facebook Download Audio (MP3) Subscribe to Audio Podcast Subscribe on Stitcher Subscribe on Google Play This Week’s Questions #1 – …
An Introduction to Digital Products
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. When you promote other people’s products and services on your website through display ads and affiliate offers, you only get to keep a small fraction of the revenue …
Worried That You’re a Failed Entrepreneur? Read This First.
Have you ever been trolling around Facebook and seen someone whose profile suggested they had their life all together? They have well-behaved children, have adorable pets, have lots of friends and regularly go on exotic vacations. You might compare what’s happening in your day-to-day life to the things that they share on their Facebook profile …
How to Make Money with Your Email List
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. Your email list can be an incredibly powerful way to generate revenue from your audience. After you have built a sizable email list, you may find that you …
How to Make Money through Affiliate Marketing on Your Website
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. Affiliate marketing is a type of online advertising that pays publishers and marketers a flat fee or a percentage of a sale when a user takes a specific …
What Ad Networks Should You Run in Addition to Google AdSense?
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. Google AdSense is not the only game in town. There are hundreds of other ad networks that you can use in addition to or in place of Google …
How to Make Money on Your Website with Google AdSense
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. Google AdSense (www.google.com/adsense) is the 800-pound gorilla in the display advertising world. Google AdSense enables publishers to access inventory from Google’s own advertiser network, Google AdWords, and from …
How to Make Money by Running Display Ads on Your Website
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. As I mentioned, placing display advertisements on your website will almost certainly be how you make your first dollar online. If your website is up and going, you …
How to Identify New Marketing Channels by Learning From Your Audience and Your Competitors
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. One of the best ways to identify missed marketing opportunities is to study what your competitors are doing. If a competitor of yours is consistently running a Facebook …
How to Set Up Web Push Notifications on Your Website (and Why You Would Want To)
You probably regularly receive notifications on your smartphone for things like calendar items, Facebook posts and emails, but did you know that a similar technology exists for desktop web browsers? Web push notifications are a relatively new technology that allows a website owner to send notifications to people that subscribe to notifications on their website. …
How to Promote Your Business with Guest Posting
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. Writing guest posts for other people’s blogs is another effective way to leverage other people’s audiences. Just like a podcast tour, you have the direct opportunity to promote …
How to Promote Your Business with a Podcast Tour
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. A creative way to promote your brand and leverage other people’s audience is by getting yourself booked on podcasts that are relevant to your niche. A great time …
How to Find Topics to Write About on Your Website
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. When you commit to creating content on an ongoing basis, one of the biggest challenges you will face on a week-to-week basis is figuring out what to write …
How to Develop a Content Calendar for Your Website
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. When you have decided which publishing channels you want to use in your business, the next step is creating a content schedule. A content schedule is simply a …
How to Effectively Use Facebook and Twitter to Promote Your Business
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. Every business should have a presence on Facebook and Twitter because they are currently the two most broadly used social media platforms. A study from the Pew Research …
Which Social Media Channels Should You Use to Market Your Business?
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. When developing your content strategy, your first task will be to determine what platforms you want to publish content on. Your website will serve as the hub for …
How to Get Help With WordPress
Below, you will find an unedited excerpt from my new book about building Internet-based businesses, Online Business from Scratch. To receive updates about the book, visit www.fromscratchbook.com. By now, you’re probably either saying “I already know all of this stuff, let’s get on to the good part!” or “This is overwhelming. I have no idea …