Digital Marketers

Chirag Kulkarni: How Content Can Turn You Into A Serial Entrepreneur

If you’re an avid fan of reading online, Huffington Post is the name that you couldn’t have missed — but ever thought of contributing to the Huffington post?

I’m pretty sure that seems like an impossible task.

Not for Chirag Kulkarni, who got his first post published in the renowned magazine when he was just 18 years old.

With such a great start, Chirag became the Chief Marketing Officer of Medly, a digital pharmacy based in New York.

Now he’s running in his own venture and doing a lot of things at a young age along with being featured as the top 25 marketers by Forbes.

Eager to know more about his story?

Here’s all you need to know about the serial entrepreneur Chirag Kulkarni.

Early Life:

Chirag was a bright teenage boy living up to the aspirations of his father.

His father wanted him to quintessentially become an entrepreneurial spirit and learn by tackling his problems on his own.

Learning by trying and testing things, Chirag started his affiliate blog at the age of 13.

Undoubtedly he was filled with passion and an urge to create a space for himself in this world.

Soon, he moved to explore SEO and wrote about it.

A Kickstart to the ‘Writing Potential’

It was then that Chirag decided to write a cold email to Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post.

And guess what?

This fearless instinct of him led to the start of his vibrant career as a writer.

So, Ariana Huffington picked one of his works on Meditation that got published in the Huffington Post.

This began the glorious journey for Chirag Kulkarni.

He became an accidental specialist in marketing by discovering and exploring things by himself.

And it was a time when the only form of marketing that was popular around the world was the door to door marketing.

Curiosity is the Path to Discovery

His curiosity compelled Chirag to explore the power of content and online marketing strategies such as SEO.

Once Chirag figured out affiliate marketing, he went on to find new and other marketing practices on the Internet that could help one carve a niche for themselves.

The prominence of the Internet helped Chirag discover smart tactics in the content marketing space and how he could use content marketing to create sales conversions.

Failure is the Best Mentor

But what’s learning if everything is served on a plate? And so was the case for Chirag.

In 2011, at the age of 15, Chirag co-founded his first company STR and started tennis racquets stringing business.

He then went on to study the success and failures of entrepreneurs all across the world.

Soon after this, his venture insightfully that focused on predictive analysis and cross-platform research was launched but did not show significant results.

It ended up tanking!

Realizing the True Potential

This was the point where Chirag realized that his true calibre and potential lied in content and SEO.

And that’s how the popular content marketing agency ‘Taco’ was born.

The aim behind Taco was to provide SEO and content solutions to companies with $1 – $10 million in revenues.

Eventually, in 2013, the Chirag launched the C & N group.

The business venture was developed to find solutions for existing businesses by providing dynamic methods of business development and innovation.

The company incorporates strategies for Tech startups, App markets, operation management, logistics, ups and downs of business and more.

What Budding Content Marketers Must Read?

Chirag recommends budding content marketers to gather information from sources such as Quick Sprout, Social Media Examiner along with Content marketing Institute etc.

And just to hone your skills, you can also use various tools available in the market for curating content for the right audience.

Some of these tools recommended by Chirag are Suno, Crazy Egg and Kissmetrics.

Chirag is the proud owner of the website chiragkulkarni.com where you can learn about the latest content marketing practices and tips for your business.

Awards and Achievements:

Apart from being the CEO of Medley, Chirag Kulkarni has various recognitions and accolades credited to his name.

Chirag was invited to deliver a lecture as a guest in Fordham School of Business on the topic Innovation and Strategy.

His venture Taco, was also featured as one of the top 6 companies that grew fast in the year 2016 by Tech cocktail.

Chirag was also named among the top 25 marketers by Forbes along with a thought leader and expert in marketing by Inc.com.

Renowned Recommendations

Chirag has also been appreciated by a lot of people all across the world.

His influential persona and ability to learn has been admired and applauded no matter where he goes.

Popular Featured Publications

On his journey to becoming a serial entrepreneur, Chirag Kulkarni has been featured in various reputed national and international media.

He had made his mark in the world with his unique and engaging content.

Here are the top publications, where Chirag has been featured-
● Forbes: Advice For The New 30 Under 30 Class From The Alumni And Summit Attendees
● Inc.com: 10 Things Entrepreneurs Need to Know about Intrapreneurship
● Inc.com: 3 ways to Become A Thought Leader
● Venturebeat.com: Here are my rules for avoiding burnout while building a business
● The Huffington Post: 5 Non-Traditional Educations Doers Should Consider
● ExcelR8 Management Consulting: Five Corporate Growth Pains That Companies Will Face Over The Next 5 Years

5 Tips From Chirag Kulkarni That Will Help You Brainstorm New Ideas

When most of the writers are pressed with the urgency of work, they often fail to deliver the quality.

Furthermore, it becomes extremely challenging to keep up the motivation and think of new ideas for writing in such scenarios.

Chirag Kulkarni says that since the world is becoming more and more content driven the ability to stand out is extremely important for bloggers.

Here are a few brainstorming tips that writers must swear by:

Get Out:

Locking oneself in one room and thinking of new ideas can be extremely challenging.

Through his personal experience, Chirag shares how frustrating and stressful this practice can be.

For this reason, he emphasizes on the fact that getting out of home or office can be helpful in coming up with new ideas.

You never know how many correlations you might find as you move from one place to another.

Furthermore, as you meet new people or explore places, new ideas and thought processes start working rapidly.

So get out of your monotonous room as you find your go-to methods for thinking there.

Look For Opposite Blogs:

When we keep on writing a certain way, we often run out of fresh ideas.

However, Chirag Kulkarni states that looking for inverse blogs can be an excellent way to rejuvenate the thoughts in our brains.

For example, if you’ve written about ‘3 habits of highly successful people’, you can try writing inverse of the topic such as ‘3 habits successful people stay away from’.

While this will engage your users on the one hand, on the other hand, it will give you something to write.

Inverses are an excellent way of brainstorming new ideas.

Ask Your Audience:

As marketers of content, it can often be misleading if you only come up with blog topics from your gut.

Though this strategy may work a lot of times if you have experience, it is always best to research what your audience wants to read.

So, why not ask your audience what they prefer to read?

Now, you can ask your audience in plenty of ways, using social media or external surveying tools.

This practice will help you get a lot of ideas and increase the engagement for your blog as well.

Change your Timeframe:

Changing the time frames of your post is similar to looking for inverse blog topics.

A timeline can help gather engagement as well as help you think from a different point of view.

For example, if you’ve been writing on ‘social media’ for a long time, try writing about ‘Social Media Trends that Will Take 2019 by Storm’.

Doesn’t that sound more impactful? Exactly!

Chirag Kulkarni states that this practice gives you the scope of writing about current ideas and topics that might be helpful to a particular audience or segment.

Take the help of 3rd party tools:

If you’re still out of writing ideas, the last option you take up is referring to a few external tools.

Chirag shares his personal favorite tool Hubspot blog topic generator that instantly generates topics for you based on your top three keywords.

Hubspot blog topic generator gives you a week of topics for free along with a year of topics that is available in is paid plan.

Final Words

So, if you’ve got the creative writing potential just like Chirag, it’s time that you sharpen your skills and explore the world.

The key to success lies in reading more and more about the success and failure of different people, methods and practices.

Remember that the more you learn and out to practice, the more will you experience.

Chirag Kulkarni is currently the Chief Marketing Officer of Medley Pharmacy, and founder of Taco.

He has helped various companies such as Expedia, Dairy Queen, Berkshire Hathway, Infibeam, and others increase their return on investment using digital marketing.

If you’re a passionate writer and learning by your own experiences, let us know what motivates you, in the comments below.

Digital Marketers

Learn How to Embrace Criticism and Hug Your Haters from Jay Baer

Introduction:

We’ve all heard about this phrase that says, ‘If you love what you do, you will never have to work a day in your life.’

This saying is often related to the era of Confucius and Mark Twain, where it originally came from.

But the question is, have you seen a real-life example of this phrase?

A person, who is irrevocable in love with what he does and has accomplished a million things in this lifetime.

Curious to know who the person is?

We’re talking about New York Times bestselling author of six books and one of the most popular digital marketers in the world, Jay Baer.

Jay Baer is a business strategist most famously known for his social media marketing tips and his blog Convince and Convert.

He has worked with more than 700 companies in the world and helped them find their way in the market through best digital practices.

An insight into his early life:

Jay Baer was born in an ordinary family in the year 1969 in Lincoln, Nebraska.

He grew up in Arizona and graduated from the University of Arizona with a major degree in political science and minors in communication.

A bright student at school:

Even though Jay pursued his education in Political science, he was always eager to write and explore content on the Internet.

Throughout his time at the University of Arizona, Jay was one of the brightest students.

He also received the prestigious Flinn scholar award that was only given to the top 20 high school senior students annually.

A desire to do more:

Jay officially began his move into digital marketing in the year 1994, before which he was working as a political consultant and brand marketer.

In-spite of his good going life and a job that paid off well, Jay wanted to help people and innovate in the field of marketing.

Talk Triggers Jay Baer Full Length Keynote Speaker – Word of Mouth – Customer Experience

First breakthrough email campaign:

However, the turning point in Jay’s life was when Senator John McCain ran for the position of President in 2000 his email campaign, which was run by Jay Baer became an instant hit due to its interactive nature.

This was one of the earliest time, where Internet could impact politics.

And that’s when Jay Baer realized that he should advance in the field of marketing.

Therefore, in 1994, Jay got his first job in marketing as the Vice president of Internet Direct, which was Arizona’s first Internet Service provider.

Finding its first venture:

After Internet Direct, Jay moved onto co-finding his first venture azfamily.com, which was a local content website.

His website soon became one of the world’s second largest content website.

Gradually, Jay Baer made his grip strong in the field of marketing by working across different companies and finding ventures of his own.

In 2000, he worked at Visitalk.com, a VOIP video calling service and also started a new venture Mighty Interactive, a digital agency.

The beginning of a multi-million dollar company:

Finally, in 2008 he founded his one of most successful marketing consultancy firms, Convince and Convert.

The company has helped more than 700 businesses across the globe in excelling through best practices.

Over the years, Jay has helped various companies establish their feet in the market and reach out to their customers like nobody else.

His passion for his work and longing desire to write more and more has pushed him to become the man that he is today.

The journey till today:

Today, Jay Baer is an active venture capitalist, investor and advisor to nearly 25 early stage technology and social media companies.

He is a successful author to 6 best selling books and founder to 5 multi-million dollar businesses.

When asked about what he loves the most about marketing, Jay says that he loves people and their stories.

And marketing done well, is ultimately a long term relationship with the customer.

“Believing that volume equals success. Constantly shifting best practices and required skill sets. Sub-optimal project management capabilities. Fear of delegation. These are some of the biggest obstacles keeping marketers from doing their best work.” – Jay Baer

Awards and Recognitions:

Jay Baer has various awards and accolades credited to his name through his hard work over the 25 glorious years of his marketing career.

He’s the most retweeted digital marketer in the world and second among B2B marketers.

The list of Jay’s recognitions is endless. Some of these include:

  • One of the 200 living members of the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame.
  • Certified speaking professional by the National Speakers Association for the year 2016
  • Amazon’s Best Seller Author in the year 2016 for his book Hug your haters.
  • 3rd on the New York Times Best Selling author list in 2013.

Apart from these hard earned recognition, Jay Baer has also been a renowned advisor to nearly 700 companies since the year 1994.

These companies include Caterpillar, Nike along with 32 of the top FORTUNE 500 companies.

Jay’s interest in presentations and addressing live audiences through motivational and thought provoking speeches has also helped him earn the title of Best Marketing Podcast in the year 2015.

His valuable works have also received mentions in International Media and renowned magazines.

Jay Baer Hug Your Haters – Full Presentation

Let’s have a look at Jay Baer’s life changing publications:

Best Publications:

1) Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers
It is one of the earliest works by Jay and the first modern take on improving customer service for business.
It is based on the realities of improving customer expectations in today’s times rather than five or ten years ago.

This book also ranked among the top three business books of the year 2016 by Strategy: Business Magazine.

2) The Now Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter, and More Social

It was Published under Wiley publications in the year 2011 and talks about the customer’s demands from companies in real-time and with authenticity.

3) Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is about Help Not Hype

Jay Baer’s publication of 2013 was one of the New York time’s best selling books.
It focused on the power of helpful marketing. It was also a number one on the Amazon Best seller list.

4) Talk Triggers: The Complete Guide to Creating Customer with Word of Mouth

This is Jay Baer’s latest books and is a detailed guide to creating customers using strategic and operational differentiators that induce and compel work of mouth marketing.

The book is a manual for assisting the growth of businesses through customer conversation.

Jay addresses the audience across the world more than 60 times in a year.

His blog Convince and Convert has also been named as the world’s #1 blog by the credible Content Marketing Institute.

Apart from these, Jay has also been featured and is till being mentioned in various articles and contributions in popular magazines such as Forbes, Entrepreneur.com etc.

Where can you learn from Jay Baer?

You can learn and grow your content, social media, word of mouth, email and online reputation through Jae Baer’s consultancy.

He keeps on writing new posts on his blog where you can read and learn about the best practices of marketing.

His methodologies and consultation promises to double the digital for anyone.

You can avail his consultancy and training at Convince and Convert.

To refer to his latest posts, you can go to his blog jaybaer.com.

Top 5 tips from Jay Baer on Creating Customers that will last a  lifetime:

Jay Baer has helped more than a couple of companies in the past year to achieve complete success and customer satisfaction through smart practices social media tips and hacks.

His goal is to assist companies in creating more customers through their existing customers and authentically handling their expectations.

1) Discover the needs of your customer: Understanding the personas of your buyer, is one of the critical factors in maintaining a long term relationship with them. Find out the information about buyer personas using various research tools, social surveys, interviews, web analytics etc.

This practice will help you from niche content or product for them, that is specifically designed to fit their needs.

2) Map the needs of your customer to potential programs run by you: Buyer personas may help in understanding the needs and demands of the customers, but until you take action over them, you can’t capture your potential customers.

Run social media campaigns, programs, video series, ebooks etc. addressing a particular buyer challenge or problem. Jay highlights that when you do so, try to relate your product or services around them. It is one of the crucial concepts of marketing.

3) Market the marketing:

Do you treat information casually? Suppose your customer sends you an email of appreciation.

Now all you do is accept it and thank them.

That’s it? Well!

Jay Baer suggests businesses market the marketing.

Use social media platforms to market your client’s content first, and then their products.

In other words, treat content like any product or service that you market for your business.

4) Respond to negative comments:

Jay Baer has often noticed that most companies that receive flak on social media through negative comments etc. choose not to respond to them.

And this is where all their customer service efforts turn to vain.

Jay recommends businesses to respond to comments, especially negative ones. This will impart a feeling that you value and care about the concerns of your customer.

Being unresponsive to criticism on social platforms puts your brand and especially your customer service in the negative light and wrong impression.

5) Embrace criticism and grow:

Praise might out your chest out upfront, but it seldom teaches you anything.

You already know the key areas where you and your business are excelling. However, criticism is the only way of knowing where you can become better and improve.

Jay asks people to take criticism constructively and build a culture of helpfulness into your company. Use the bottom up approach from your employees to CEO so that everyone can be of some help to the customers.

Final words

Jay’s journey to become the most successful marketer is an inspiration to all who aim of achieving significant through writing.

Today, Jay is the author of six best selling business books and also the founder of 5 multi-million dollar companies.

He helps brands improve various aspects of marketing that include social media marketing, email marketing, word of mouth marketing along with content marketing.

His most successful venture is his consultancy Convince and Convert that has helped world’s most iconic brands such as the United Nations, Oracle, 3M, Cisco, Nike, Hilton, Caterpillar etc. find their feet in the market.

Jay is a living example of a self-made marketer, who has made it all possible through his hard work and perseverance all these years.

Does Jay Baer’s journey inspire you? Or is there someone else helping you get your hands on in marketing?

Let us know in the comments below.

Entrepreneurs

The Incredible Story of the Youngest Billionaire and Facebook Chief Mark Zuckerberg

“Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.”
——-Mark ZuckerBerg

It’s not just the prime directive of Facebook CEO, Mark ZuckerBerg to his team of developers, it’s the philosophy he breathes and lives by.

We are bringing to you yet another inspiring story today.

Success stories of the greatest entrepreneurs stimulate motivational juices within us and inspire us to emulate them, so that we can also achieve incredible success in our life.

Mark Zuckerberg has actually moved fast right from his Harvard days, when he launched Facebook before the alleged gang of HarvardConnection could actually think of implementing it and soon became the inventor of world’s biggest social media platform.

Launching Facebook globally

Zuckerberg and his dorm room friends Tyler Winklevoss, Cameron Winklevoss and DivyaNarendra of HarvardConnection actually came up with an idea of a social network like Facebook, but they accuse Mark of stealing the idea and launching Facebook, which was their brainchild.

Facebook is not just a social networking platform, but it has become an integral part of our lives today.

Mark Zuckerberg was just 19 years old when he launched Facebook in 2004.

He is the youngest billionaire in the world and is the owner of the biggest social media platform Facebook along with two other most popular social media platforms Instagram and WhatsApp.

Mark Zuckerberg Biography: Success Story of Facebook

The Mark Zuckerberg story

Mark Zuckerberg’s story is quite fascinating and unbelievable.

Mark Zuckerberg is not just another successful billionaire; he is placed among the Ivy League of people, who have changed the world.

If Apple has changed our lives by introducing touch screen smartphones, Facebook has changed the way we interact and communicate with each other.

In fact, FB has gone much ahead. Beyond communication and interaction, it also helps you form interest groups and fan pages to not only promote businesses, but also lifestyles, think-tanks and ideologies.

It shatters barriers and enables you to interact freely with the people with the same interests as yours.

Facebook as a social influencer

Facebook is considered a major factor behind political revolutions such as Arab Spring and changing the fate of elections in various democracies.

It is such an influential social media platform that you cannot ignore it.

These days it has more than 1.3 billion active users which make it equal to the third largest country in the world.

Early life as a child prodigy

Mark Zuckerberg was born in 1984 and he was brought up in an ambitious and well educated middle-class Jewish family in the sleepy Dobbs Ferry town in the suburban New York.

He has three siblings and he is the only son. His father Edward Zuckerberg runs a dentists clinic in the area and mother Karen Zuckerberg works as a psychiatrist.

Mark Zuckerberg is not an ordinary person. He was a prodigy as a child and exhibited his programming skills, when he connected the computers in his father’s dental clinic and enabled the staff to communicate with each other through a program created by him.

Earlier in such types of clinics, the staff yelled to communicate with the dentist. He named this texting platform “ZuckNet”. He also learnt several languages in his high School including Latin, French, Hebrew, and ancient Greek. He also wrote poems in Latin. It is extremely difficult for a 14 year old child to accomplish that.

Impressed by his programming skills and his interest in software programming, his father arranged a private tutor for him.When he finished elementary school, he was admitted to the prestigious boarding school Phillips Exeter Academy, where he learnt the art of decision making and communication.

When Zuckerberg was in his high school, he joined a company Intelligent Media Group as a programmer and created a media player program known as “Synapse”. The program was based on artificial intelligence and it recognized the individual preference for music based on their listening habits.

Microsoft wanted to purchase the product for $2 million and also offered him a job as a programmer once he finished high school, but Mark Zuckerberg declined the offer. According to him, it was his inspiration and therefore it was not to be sold.

Mark Zuckerberg’s 2004 Interview: See How Far He And Facebook Have Come

Joining Harvard University

Later on, he was admitted to prestigious Harvard University, where he started studying psychology. His mother wanted him to learn psychology, but Mark Zuckerberg was more interested in programming.  So, he joined some IT courses at Harvard in addition to his major course.

When,Zuckerberg was in the second year at Harvard, he created a program known as CourseMatch which allowed the students to share their experiences around their chosen subjects.

His second superhit project was Facemash, in which he offered Harvard students an opportunity to vote for the students’ photos as to who looked better and hotter.

To implement and run this program, Zuckerberg successfully broke into the University database to steal the photographs of the students.

He just survived a possible suspension for the offence of hacking the database.

Students also complained that their photographs were used without their consent, so University had no option but to shut down the program Facemash.

Mark Zuckerberg later on launched another project in which the photo albums were protected by password so as to ensure privacy of the students.

Facemash was actually the beginning of Facebook because it emerged as a communication masterpiece and a popular social network.

Zuckerberg was helped by Eduardo Saverin, Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskovitz in creating the social network platform Facebook.

The new site was ready in less than a week’s time and it became even more popular than the actual product Facemash.

Facebook was initially designed for Harvard students, but soon it became quite popular among the most reputed universities in the United States such as Stanford, Columbia and various other universities in Boston, Massachusetts, New York, and Canada.

The biggest success of Facebook is not to bring everybody on the social networking platform but to create interest groups, where users could express themselves without any inhibition or hesitation.

Even today you will find interest groups on Facebook such as atheists, same sex couples, fans of celebrities, and people interested in gardening or bodybuilding etc.

Inviting venture capitalists

By the end of 2004, Facebook was able to have more than 1 million users.

It attracted the attention of venture capitalists interested in investing in such an immensely popular platform, which could be monetized to yield excellent returns.

The domain facebook.com cost $200,000 for Mark Zuckerberg in 2005, when Facebook had more than 5 million users and was adding.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Top 10 Rules For Success

Becoming a billionaire

In 2007, Mark Zuckerberg announced that his project was worth $15 billion and he bought 1.6% of the total stock, which was $240 million.

In 2015, Facebook became the second most visited website globally and Mark Zuckerberg also became the youngest billionaire on the planet.

Just like many other popular CEOs in the world, his official wage is a still $1.

He has also been honored by the title of the most influential person in the world in 2010 by Time magazine.

Personal life

Mark Zuckerberg is known to live a moderate and close life and doesn’t believe in pomp and show and throwing off cash like some other billionaires.

He married his Harvard friend Priscilla Chan, who comes from China in 2012. Chan gave birth to a daughter “Max” in 2015. The couple was so happy at that moment that they decided to donate 99% of their wealth before they die.

You won’t believe but it’s true that before 2015, Zuckerberg was living in rented houses, even though he was a billionaire.

When he realized that his family and the newborn needed a cozy home, he decided to buy a house which cost $7 million.

The house is situated in Palo Alto in Silicon Valley and is very near to Facebook office in Menlo Park.

Awards and recognitions

Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to run Facebook in 2004, but back in 2017 Harvard gave him an honorary degree of doctor of laws.

Mark Zuckerberg At Harvard: We Should Explore Ideas Like Universal Basic Income | CNBC

In 2017, Zuckerberg also announced that Facebook had achieved yet another milestone – It reached 2 billion accounts.

Net Worth

In 2017, Forbes announced that Mark Zuckerberg had a net worth of $69.5 billion (Source 24smi.org), so he was way ahead of Sergey Brin and Larry Page — the founders of Google.

Yet, the youngest billionaire in the world is not mad for money. He doesn’t believe in mad accumulation of wealth.

He is known to be associated with dozens of charity organizations around the world.

He has also joined the group “The Giving Pledge” whose members are committed to donate 50% of their wealth in their lifetime.

Quotes of Mark Zuckerberg

  1. “Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.”
  2. “I remember really vividly, you know, having pizza with my friends a day or two after — I opened up the first version of Facebook at the time I thought, ‘You know, someone needs to build a service like this for the world. But I just never thought that we’d be the ones to help do it. And I think a lot of what it comes down to is we just cared more.” (Jan. 2014)
  3. “If I were starting now I would do things very differently. I didn’t know anything. In Silicon Valley, you get this feeling that you have to be out here. But it’s not the only place to be. If I were starting now, I would have stayed in Boston. [Silicon Valley] is a little short-term focused and that bothers me.” (Oct. 2011)
  4. “The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” (Oct. 2011) 
  5. “Building a mission and building a business go hand-in-hand. It is true that the primary thing that makes me excited about what we’re doing is the mission, but I also think, from the very beginning, we’ve had this healthy understanding which is that we need to do both.” (Sept. 2012)
  6. “My goal was never to just create a company. A lot of people misinterpret that, as if I don’t care about revenue or profit or any of those things. But what not being ‘just’ a company means to me is building something that actually makes a really big change in the world.” (Feb. 2011)
  7. “People can be really smart or have skills that are directly applicable, but if they don’t really believe in it, then they are not going to really work hard.” (Oct. 2005)[Source:Entrepreneur magazine]

Further reading:
Think Like Zuck: The Five Business Secrets of Facebook’s Improbably Brilliant CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Final words

More than a billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg is a man with a mission. He wanted to change the world and he is doing exactly that.

He is a great strategist and kills the competition before it poses a threat. He bought Instagram and WhatsApp at the right time and both turned out to be his best decisions.

Currently, he is working on many projects including Internet of Things (IOT), which is aimed at providing internet connectivity to less developed nations for free.

Entrepreneurs

The Small Biz Marketing Guru: Ramon Ray

To encourage and give you some words to keep you moving despite facing challenges in entrepreneurship, I have the story of Ramon Ray.

Ramon Ray is the editor of the popular smallbiztechnology.com and also the editor and founder of Smart Hustle Magazine.

This talented journalist and technology evangelist is the author of Technology Solutions for Growing Businesses.

He has written other books including Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing and it is one of the best sellers in Amazon.com.

Ramon has had the honour to speak to many audiences including the White House.

He is invited by the Office of the President of the United States to speak to the Congress as an expert.

This led to numerous events such as “Small Business Technology Tour,” “Smart Hustle Small Business Conference,” Small Biz Big Things” and “Small Business Summit.”

Ramon has brushed shoulders many respected celebrity entrepreneurs, but his connection with the main street remain contact.

He likes to interview small entrepreneurs and business owners and share their stories.

Some of the prominent people he has worked closely with and even shared a stage with them include Guy Kawasaki, Daymond John, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Simon Sinek.

Ramon interviewed President through Google Hangout, the first interview of its kind for the President. Besides, he also interviewed many sharks though Shark Tank.

Facebook Marketing Tips For Small Business with Ramon Ray

Early Life

Ramon Ray started four companies but later sold one. He studied at the New York Institute of Technology.

He is a journalist and a talented speaker whose meetings are full of laughter.

Ramon was not born rich, he created business and it was he sold the third one that made millions that catapulted him financially. He loves technology and calls himself a technology evangelist.

Having owned four companies, he is an experienced entrepreneur who knows the struggles and challenges of becoming successful.

In his ever full conferences, he communicates insights that work for his audience regardless of their location around the world.

This entrepreneur and the speaker know how to connect with his audience at a personal level and many people have testimonies how opened their eyes and they were able to take their business to another level.

Ramon used to be a technology consultant and has first hand experience with different technologies including mobile computing, online software, computer networks and social media among others.

He is an expert in technology, sales and marketing. He has excelled in business growth, networking and personal branding.

Over the years, he has written informative articles, which are more than a thousand. Besides, he has spoken to big audiences and thousands of entrepreneurs.

His proven tactics and advice has impacted thousands of upcoming and small business owners.

Today, he specializes in sharing his wealth of knowledge and is always to attend events when invited.

Awards & Accomplishments

Ramon Ray and Anita Campbell are the founders of the Small Business Influencers Awards.

The program is meant to recognize those leading in the small business world.

It is a way to appreciate their support and contributions in news outlets, apps, leaders, media and experts.

Ramon the entrepreneur

Ramon Ray is a technology evangelist, but according to him he just started small.

He worked hard to give the best and then people started coming to him for advice and he turned to a technology evangelist.

When giving out his advice to entrepreneurs he knows that business is different depending on the location of the investor.

He believes technology can take a business to another level, if only investors are willing to try it.

Apart from increasing sales, they should take advantage of online payment methods.

Ramon’s favourite technology tools for running a small business are the Batchbook and Google products.

With online applications such as Carbonite and Dropbox, Ramon says he can easily manage his virtual team and run his business smoothly.

Ramon Ray talks about growing your business on Business Circle

Ramon Ray the speaker

Ramon is a professional speaker who knows how to present an inspiring message to his audience.

He helps investors and professionals to elevate their brands and crush their competitors, which in turn boosts their revenues and enhances their overall growth.

Ramon shares how he grew from the nothing to become a highly sought-after celebrity.

By sharing his experience step by step, other investors can see where they make mistakes thus helping them improve.

According to Ramon, branding is being different from others and finding a way to sizzle and pop and stop chasing deals and just wait for them to come looking for you.

He has expertise in personal branding, and he speaks so well sharing practically with his audience and guides them on how to create their brands.

One of Ramon’s unforgettable talks is how he guides business owners to date leads and marry customers. It’s all about sales; most people want to sell more, but they forget to keep the ones they already have.

It is important to nurture relationships with potential customers and to make sure they buy from you again, not just once.

Ramon, the speaker, also insists on the importance of using social media.  All the platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter can help build a brand and generate sales.

Why Ramon is a Top Global Influencer

Ramon Ray is one of the most recognized top global influencers. His efforts are mostly seen through is his books, speaking tours, informative videos and Smart Hustle magazine.

He also has other small ventures that are all business focused meant to help small business owners and other professionals interested in investments.

Ramon Ray Is a Great Marketer

Ramon Ray has rich experience in marketing and his book titled “The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing?” he believes most people do not understand marketing and that’s why they do not get much from the biggest social media platforms.

He researched and studied social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and GooglePlus. Whereas most small businesses use Facebook, Google Adwords is another marketing tool they should use according to Ramon.

Ramon Ray: 3 secrets to conquering selling

Ramon’s Advice for the Young People Who Want to Succeed

Ramon has been working with young people for years. He has volunteered as a teacher; his tips for those who want to succeed are:

Having a Good Character and Attitude

Everyone knows a smile and a warm welcome are essential, but they do not seem to realize that it’s imperative.

Mostly, a young person is judged by his or her physical look, so start with the first impression.

Smile and have a positive attitude.

Be honest and always do the right thing; also help those who a bit far down than you.

Opportunities will come to you in the future just because you helped someone.

Hard Work Is Important

If you are willing to work hard and leave your comfort zone to extra work, you win.

You will get some positive results eventually. If anyone shows up when you are working, let them know you need time to finish work before you talk and have some fun.

Avoid calls that are no important; you can call later.

Hard work is an excellent trait that people frown at and will give you names such as workaholics, but as long as one knows when it’s time to take a rest.

Every successful person with money and wealth took the time to work hard to reach where they are.

Learn New Skills

You can go back to school or learn a new skill online.

Keep learning new things, and you will always have something to help you make money. Make sure you learn how to do something like a pro not just learning theoretically.

There are great videos where one can learn things like video editing, fixing cars and much more.

You can learn to do things you love and make some money.

Ramon loves sharing his knowledge with other people.

He says that most people will commute daily to work and spend about eight hours doing a job they hate wholeheartedly.

Here are some of the tips he gives and calls them core fundamentals that can lead to success:

  • Keep reading and learning
  • Experiment with different things that you love and enjoy doing
  • Ask questions where you are not sure
  • Ask for help if you need to
  • Be honest and avoid breaking the law
  • Volunteer
  • Eat healthy, exercise and keep fit
  • Learn about multitasking and know what to prioritize
  • Make new friends and learn things
  • Budget, save and avoid getting into debts
  • Be nice to people as much as you can; no need to be a jerk
  • Always start your day early in the morning

SEO Experts

Sara Davis: From a college dropout to award-winning marketer in less than 8 years

The story of a young girl who went from a Del Taco cashier to a marketing thought leader in less than 10 years.

Writing-the unconventional aspiration

As Sara grew up, she aspired to be a writer.

She loved the way that words could evoke emotion, elicit a response, or create a story. But, writing wasn’t a preferred profession for Sara’s parents.

They had more traditional ideas in mind such as teaching or nursing, but those were never her forte.

Early jump to college

Sara graduated high school early, when she was just 16 years old, mostly due to the fact that she hated high school. Immediately following, Sara was enrolled in college.

And so, a 16-year-old Sara found herself pursuing a business degree, because she had no clue what she wanted to do with her life. 

Struck by the lack of passion

In college one day Sara’s English professor pulled her aside and told her that she was a promising writer and it was something that she should consider as a profession.

But the burden of social obligations, youth, and lack of real-world adulting made it impossible.

As a few years of college passed by, and Sara dropped out of college – with a lack of passion for any specific profession.

The power of vulnerability | Brené Brown

The ecstasy of the first job

Soon after dropping out, Sara’s got a job at an SEO agency.

It was Sara’s first job that wasn’t at a fast-food chain or a call center.

Although she knew nothing about SEO or marketing, she was ecstatic to have a “real job.”

Joy of learning

As Sara started her job, she learned old-school SEO tactics, and she excelled.

She quickly made her move up in the company because she was quick and eager to learn. And that’s when Sara fell in love with SEO.

The leap of growth: awards and recognitions

Fast forward 8 years, and Sara is currently the VP of Growth for CanIRank.

Over the span of these years, she has managed to contribute to credible magazines including Forbes and MoneyInc.

She was also awarded a Stevie Award in 2016 for being the Woman of the Year in “Marketing, PR, and Advertising.”

As her career grows, her presence grows as well.

A Self-made Women

So why is Sara’s story important?

Sara’s story is also inspirational because, in a somewhat-backward circle, her passions followed her.

As a lot of her day-to-day job is storytelling and writing, her parent’s belief that writers make no money — was wrong.

The Mantra of success by Sara Davis

So, here are a few tips from Sara that will make you pursue the career of your dreams-

Don’t let anyone tell you what you should or shouldn’t do with your life, dream big. Do what inspires you.

A lot of people often ask Sara about how she got to where she is at such a young age, and this is what she usually tells them:

  • Find a career/industry that you love (or can at least tolerate, preferably love).
  • Go to work every day, be on time.
  • Strive to learn.
  • Do things outside of your job role’s requirements.
  • Learn to be a better leader.
  • Study emotional intelligence.
  • Teach those around you what you are best at.
  • Find a mentor.
  • Be consistent.
  • Ignore anyone who doesn’t believe in you.
  • Take feedback seriously, change where you can.
  • Keep at it. Never stagnate.
  • Fake it till you make it (seriously)

People will underestimate you. People will judge you. People won’t like you. So, ignore them.

A woman who loves what she does!

At CanIRank, Sara helps businesses of all sizes grow themselves, through the means of the company’s custom-tool.

Utilizing machine learning, CanlRank’s SEO software provides actionable opportunities specific to an individual’s business.

While most tools simply provide data, CanIRank takes the data and creates a game-plan for you.

And the affordable pricing of the tool allows Sara to help budgets of all sizes.

If you are growing your own business you can try it out for free here.

Sara’s company also has a full agency behind the software that can do the work for you!

And seriously, if Sara can move from Del Taco to the C-Suite, so can you! Whether you are passionate in art, eCommerce, science, or physics, the world is your oyster.

And if people tell you, you’ll never make money following your passions. Well, Sara would tell you:

They are wrong.

Famous Bloggers

Harsh Agarwal: An ordinary engineering student to being the CEO of ShoutDreams

Ever been frustrated with your 9 to 5 job?

I’m pretty sure every working professional has been there not just once but many times in their lives.

But are you willing to leave everything and be your own boss?

If you’ve answered yes, this is what you should be reading right now.

This story isn’t about a multi-million-dollar start-up, but of an ordinary college student who became his own boss through the power of blogging.

Let’s discover the fantastic story of award-winning Blogger Harsh Agarwal.

The journey from a call centre employee to a blog scientist

The struggles of early life

Harsh Agarwal is an award-winning blogger and the founder of ShoutMeLoud.

His company is a part of the movement that aims at liberating every human being from their monotonous 9 to 5 jobs.

ShoutMeLoud is therefore not just a blog but a community and platform for like-minded bloggers. But constructing a successful blog isn’t as easy as it seems.

Just like other students of his batch, Harsh was an ordinary engineering student who was passionate about technology and computing.

He completed his graduation and was lucky enough to be placed in one of the front-running IT companies.

Filled with enthusiasm about his field, Harsh joined a call centre in the spare time he had before joining his campus job.

And it was then that he started blogging as a hobby. However, seldom did he know that it would be the turning point of his life.

Struck by the passion for blogging

I’m pretty sure that you’ll agree with me on this.

Most of the first-time bloggers start writing on platforms such as blogger or Blogspot.

And so did Harsh, but with the responses he started receiving from his first blog, he soon moved to WordPress.

Purchasing the very first domain

Still, in his struggling phase, Harsh borrowed some money from his friends and invested in a domain name.

One of the most challenging tasks was choosing a domain name that was catchy to read and added a branding value.

After many thoughtful days, the idea of ShoutMeLoud finally took shape.

Building a connection through blogging

I’m sure by now you’re curious to know how a tech enthusiast found his writing niche in personal experiences and digital marketing ?

Harsh Agarwal did write about tech in his initial days of blogging, but this gradually slid towards building his connection with people and sharing personal experiences.

The turn of events soon took place, and with a few experimental writing pieces and learning experiences, ShoutMeLoud found its niche.

Want to know a fun fact?

Even after all this, Harsh had no clue how to make money from blogging.

He started blogging out of fun and connecting with people.

But there was one thing that Harsh Agarwal swore by.

He was constantly reading day and night and learning how to improve his blog.

He read about SEO, AdSense, experimented and gradually added Adsense to his website.

3 Powerful Tips for Blogging Success

The excitement of first earning

Harsh Agarwal’s first income was $10, which he earned while helping someone fix their WordPress error.

After the implementation of Adsense, his first earning was $40.

By this time, the simpleton engineering graduate had realized that he wanted to be his boss.

Knowing what he really wanted to pursue, Harsh quit his job of 6 months and developed a blogging business plan to take ShoutMeLoud to the next stage.

The choices were tough especially when he had to leave his full-time career path, but Harsh managed to convince his family.

A life changing accident, and that’s how things turned!

But seldom does life go on without challenges.

It was in 2009 that Harsh met with a fatal accident that damaged his foot severely.

He was put on bed rest by the doctor for six months.

With nothing else left to do, Harsh dedicated all of his time to reading and exploring credible works from other bloggers.

And that’s when his life changed.

The new learning and experience pushed him to find a new direction in his life.

Harsh Agarwal was now writing nearly 14 hours a day and learning new things.

Within four months of this experience, Harsh was earning double than his job salary.

Never looking back…

Growing and evolving is a part of life, and so was it for Harsh Agarwal.

Once he started making decent money out of blogging, harsh expanded his blog into a venture.

Taking inspiration from his current blog name, he set up his blogging company ShoutDreams.

The Master of Digital Marketing

Over the years Harsh has partnered with various bloggers and currently owns a couple of blogs successfully running under his venture.

Some of these are ShoutMeLoud, WPhostingDiscount, ShoutMeTech, WPSutra, CoinSutra etc.

Every bussing blogger can find inspiration in Harsh Agarwal through the medium of his story and experiences that he shares on his blog.

Some of the Useful material that you can find on ShoutMeLoud are:

  • Digital marketing tips for bloggers, freelancers & businesses.
    Guides on “How-To” of inbound marketing to increase traffic, sales & brand value of your website.
  • Exclusive deals & discounts on new tools.
  • The Affiliate Marketing Handbook & FREE WordPress eBook by Blog Scientist Harsh Agrawal that have more than 8K downloads so far!
  • You can also find a list of the top blogging tools recommended by Harsh here.

The Mind blowing Income report:

Harsh Agarwal has always been transparent about his earning so that people come to know how small changes on your website can impact it in a certain way.

The latest income reports from Harsh Agarwal blog ShoutMeLoud suggest that he earns an astonishing $200 thousand annually.

It is thrice the amount that he could have made doing a 9 to 5 job.

And the benefit is not just concerning the money.

Harsh is now his boss and enjoys the flexibility of working and doing what he loves to do.

According to his latest income report June 2017, Harsh earned a total of $32,480 from his blog.

He also shares a breakdown of his income on his website ShoutMeLoud.

And apart from the earnings, a lot of readers on ShoutMeLoud are from countries like UK, Nigeria, Canada, Philippines, Pakistan, Australia, Bangladesh and Indonesia, making him a global icon.

His shares his income report regularly so that people understand that blogging is not just a hobby but a tool to be your boss and make unlimited money.

And the Award for the Blog of the year goes to…

Harsh inspires bloggers and businesses through his blogs.

He gets more than a million page views every month and impacts the lives of people positively.

ShoutMeLoud also won the best blogger of the year award for 2017 by Indiblogger.

It has also been featured in International media.

Harsh’s blog ShoutMeLoud has also received India’s best tech blog award for the year 2013.

Harsh has been popularly featured in YourStory, BloggeersPassion, Writersincharge along with SEMRush.

 

Interview with Professional Blogger Harsh Agrawal from Shoutmeloud.com

 

5 Tips from Harsh Agarwal that will inspire the blogger within you

Hard word over smart work:

Harsh insists on pursuing hard work over intelligent work.

There is no easy way to learning.

If you want to introduce something to your audience, you will have to learn and experiment it yourself.

Smart work may help you earn easy money, but hard work is the only tool that will help you finish the race.

Start right away:

There is no specific time to start your blog.

If you keep on waiting for a perfect time, you will already lose a lot of it.

Once you start, you will keep moving, and that’s how one finds their ways.

Find your writing style and be creative:

As you keep on writing, you will discover your writing style.

Share your experiences, how you improved from experimenting, what new things did you learn and a lot more.

That’s how you will develop a writing style. Scratch your creative instincts and reflect upon your thoughts.

Never blog for money:

With all these years of experience in blogging, Harsh Agarwal genuinely believes that one cannot pursue blogging for money.

You can connect with people only if you do it with your instincts.

Money can just be a motivation in the short term.

You can also learn about the top 3 blogging tips from Harsh for the complete success of your blog.

Spend time with yourself:

Spending time and introspecting is one of the most important necessities for a prolific writer.

You keep on writing day and night, but until you spend time in nourishing your mind and body, you won’t be able to come up with new ideas.

The journey of Harsh Agarwal from being a college student to a prolific and award-winning blogger is inspirational in every sense.

His love for writing and passion for creating something of his own pushed him to become what he is now.

You can also learn how to be a successful freelance writer from Harsh Agarwal.

Harsh Agarwal is currently the CEO of his venture ShoutDreams and now planning to expand it to build one of the largest communities of self bosses.

Victoria Galpereina, Head of Affiliate Marketing at SEM Rush has also praised Harsh Agarwal for being one of the super affiliates in SEMRush’s affiliate programs.

Are you a blogger like Harsh Agarwal?

Tell us what inspired you to pursue writing.

Entrepreneurs

Jeff Bezos – The Inspiring Story of the Richest Man on the Planet

“Jeff is crazy — crazy like a fox. He has a very clear vision and design.”
—   Nadia Shouraboura, a former Amazon executive.
Jeff Bezos is not just a rich businessman; he is the richest person alive on the planet.
He started his venture from a garage and turned it into the most popular eCommerce shopping portal on earth.
He is the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, the biggest E-Commerce marketplace in the world.
Hiscreation Amazon has catapulted him into the billionaire’s club.
At present, Jeff Bezos is $56 billion richer than the second richest person in the world – Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft.    
Just like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos is an avid risk taker and a ruthless boss, who has zero tolerance for complacency.
On the personal front, Bezos is a generous person and a “relentless” romantic. His life revolves around romance and innovation.
Bezos’ life is a story of twists and turns, the invisible hand of fate and his futuristic approach to businesses. He was estranged by his biological father, when he was just 17 months old.

AMAZON CEO | Jeff Bezos Biography | Success Story | Startup Stories

Net worth

According to Inc. magazine, Bezos’ total wealth has been estimated to be around $163 billion (real time net worth $139.9 billion as of January 16, 2019, according to Forbes).

So if we compare it with the average US net worth of $97,300, every $1 spent by an average American equals to $1.7 million spent by Jeff Bezos.

Passion for space travel and future technologies

Part of Bezos’ success can be attributed to the fact that he believes in future and had big dreams since his childhood.

He has also been a space nerd.

As a high school student, he wanted to save humanity by developing permanent settlements in orbiting space stations, protecting and preserving the nature on the planet Earth.

It was probably the same approach that led to the launch of his space flight services company “Blue Origin” in the year 2000.

Since the beginning, JeffBezos was passionate about space age technologies. He was quite fond of watching Star Trek TV serial as a child.

Bezos also played a cameo role in the movie Star Trek Beyond. You can spot him dressed up as an alien in the movie.

Difficult childhood as an estranged son

Bezos was born in 1964 as Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen to a teenage mother, Jacklyn Gise, (16 years old at the time) and a teenage father Ted Jorgensen (barely 18 years old), in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Jeff’s mother divorced his father, when he was just 17 months old. After that the family was estranged by Jorgensen, as Gise asked him not to intervene.  
Jeff Bezos was brought up by his mom and stepdad Mike Bezos. His biological father Ted Jorgenson died in 2015 after brief illness. According to Jeff Bezos, he has no memories of his biological dad.  

Career switch from Finance to Internet

When Bezos was in the final year at Princeton University, he refused many lucrative job offers including the ones from Intel and Bell.
After getting a degree in electrical engineering and computer science, he joined a startup known as FITEL, where he learnt how to run startups. Soon he became the director of customer service in the company.
After that he joined Bankers Trust as a product manager and worked there for two years. The next company he joined was DE Shaw Co., which was a hedge fund.
His career was moving in the right orbit at the Wall Street, as he became senior Vice President at D E Shaw in 1994.
Just like Bill Gates, he was stunned to see the growth of the Internet usage by 2300% in a year. However, nobody was using the Internet for selling goods. He studied the most profitable mail order businesses and decided to sell books on the web.
One of the Greatest Speeches Ever | Jeff Bezos
Marriage Life
Jeff Bezos always wanted to get out of the third world prison and wanted a resourceful woman. He spotted one such woman in his own staff at D E Shaw Co. – Mackenzie Tuttle, an analystand novelist and married her in 1993. His wife was very supportive and instrumental in the launch of Amazon.
Moving with his wife to Seattle
Soon, Bezos quit his Wall Street job and moved to Seattle, Washington to setup his e-commerce shop.
Like the most successful businesses in the United States, Amazon also started from its humble origin in a shabby and semi-insulated garage.
Bezos’s parents were initially skeptical about their son leaving his prestigious Capital Market job to start a risky eCommerce business selling books.
However, convinced that their son was quite passionate about his new venture, they gave him their nod.
Even Bezos was apprehensive that the entire investment may go down the drain if the project doesn’t take off.
It’s important to note that the investment Bezos’s parents had done in Amazon back in 1995 was around $250,000.
Today, it’s worth more than $30 billion considering the stock value of the company.

At present, his mom Jackie and dad Mike Bezos run the Bezos Family Foundation.

Launching world’s first online bookstore

Bezos launched his E-commerce website and got it tested by some 300 of his acquaintances. It turned out to be a success as it was smoothly working across different platforms.

You’ll be surprised to know that Amazon was known as “Cadabra” in 1994.

The name was inspired from “Abracadabra” often used by magicians.
It was often misspelt by the users and staffers, so it was changed to “Relentless” and soon it was christened as Amazon, which is the name of the famous river in Latin America.
Amazon experienced meteoric success right from the beginning.
Within 6 months of its inception, it started selling books in all of the 50 states in the US and in 50 locations overseas.
So, in early 1995, the first eCommerce platform was making $20,000 per week from its sales proceeds.
Bezos hadn’t anticipated any profit in his business plan for about four to five years, but it made a profit of $5 million in the year 2001.

Early problems and software glitches

It is not that the journey of Amazon was swift and smooth.
In the early days, the platform encountered a technical glitch and it resulted in the negative amounts appearing on the invoices generated for customer orders.
Amazon systems found themselves crediting the money back to the credit cards of the customers.  Soon the management spotted the glitch and fixed it.
How Jeff Bezos Became the King of E-Commerce

Family

Bezos has three sons from his first marriage and an adopted daughter, who hails from China. He kept his children away from digital devices specially smartphones for a long time following in the footsteps of Bill Gates.

Philanthropy and generosity for good causes

Bezos supports social causes such as helping homeless families, opening preschools, and financing the same-sex marriages.
Bezos is a strong supporter of the rights of homosexuals. In 2012, an Amazon employee approached Bezos during a fundraising campaign for the cause of same sex marriage. The employee was looking for just $100,000, but the couple went far ahead and donated $2.5 million and became one of the biggest financiers for the cause in the US.
In Sept. 2018, Bezos pledged $2 billion for homeless families and expand the network of Montessori-inspired preschools in the U.S., through his charity known as Bezos Day One Fund.

Owner of the Washington Post

Bezos had bought the prestigious Washington Post group in 2013 for US$250 million. Bezos had always been a smart investor.

He had invested $1 million in Google in 1998, when it was just a startup. That investment is equal to 1 billion US dollars today.

You will be surprised to know that since the launch of the Amazon IPO, the stock price of the company has increased by 97000%.

Had you bought the stock of Amazon in February 2016 at the bargain price of $500 per share, an investment of $5000 would be worth $20,000 in the year 2019.

[Source: MSN]

Smart Entrepreneur

When Bezos launched Amazon Web Services, Netflix used to distribute its videos to millions of American households round the clock.

Bezos signed an agreement and allowed companies to use Amazon servers for the purpose. He reduced the tariff for the companies using it servers.

When he was informed that it will mean suffering loss for a long period of time, he said, “More profit means attracting more competition.”  

He first learnt about company automation during his summer job at McDonald’s in Miami as a fry cook. He worked in a kitchen where automation was implemented. He himself designed a system that was attached to a buzzer and it helped him start and finish his core tasks in time.

Entrepreneurship was in his blood and he first launched his entrepreneurial venture known as Directed Reasoning Methods (DREAM), when he was in his High School.

It was a summer education camp set up for 5th graders. His partner in this venture was his girlfriend Ursula “Uschi” Werner. [Source: MSN]

Passion for ski-fi technologies

The virtual assistant technology used at Amazon is Alexa, which is inspired from the talking computer on a Star Trek television series.
Alexa is being developed on the pattern of the computer shown on science fiction show Star Trek, which can be controlled remotely and would be AI enabled.
Jeff’s quotes
Jeff believes in reverse engineering as far as the success of Amazon is concerned.  
His famous quote is:
“Start With the Customer and Work Backward.”  [Source: Goodreads]
Lessons to learn from Amazon’s meteoric success
Here are some of the secrets behind the unprecedented success of Amazon that the entrepreneurs must be aware of.   
Pay attention to customer service

Bezos’ strong background in customer service at FITEL, where he was the director, customer service was instrumental in the success of Amazon.

You won’t believe but it’s true that even as a CEO, he still handles emails directly from customers.

If the issue is quite big, he forwards it to the concerned team with a “question mark” on it.  It’s clearly a red flag and it means that the concerned team has to fix it immediately.

Be an entrepreneur and enjoy the freedom
According to Bezos, if you want a fulfilled life and more freedom, be an entrepreneur. So, even if you are 50, it’s not too late. You’re twice as likely to become successful than a 25 year old. [Source: MSN]
Focus on basics
In an interview with Lyons of Slate magazine, Jeff Bezos said that focus on basics, i.e. low prices, selection of products, reliability, fast delivery and convenience and your eCommerce business will thrive even in the bad economy. If you consistently do it, you will reap its rewards for many years to come. [Source: Slate]
Reverse engineer your business
Bezos always believed in “customer first”. He is often quoted as saying “Start with the customer and work backward.”
During his interview with Slate magazine, he said that development of Amazon Kindle as a dedicated reading device was a big step in that direction.
Form smaller teams
Bezos believes in smaller teams for success in the business world.
The term “two-pizza team” was coined by him and by it he meant that the ideal team should comprise of the members, who can be fed no more than two pizzas. It enables better communication and agility.
Jeff Bezos | How He Became World’s Richest Person | Case Study | Dr Vivek Bindra (In Hindi)

5 Tips for leadership by Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos, the Internet billionaire is known for his unique approach and strategies.
You can learn the following things from his unprecedented success.
  1. Don’t follow the crowd.
  2. Adopt a data driven business model and cut the emotional component.
  3. Work hard to offer the most competitive prices.
  4. Don’t let failure push you back.
  5. Always think for the long term.
Final words
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is not just an accidental entrepreneur, he is an inspiration for millions of entrepreneurs around the world.
You can learn from him how you can fuse a futuristic approach with the basics of a customer-centered business to ensure success in this uncertain world.  
Even if you forget about his wealth for a minute, he is still one of the most successful persons, who have changed the world.

SEO Experts

A General Approach to Designing Your Web with Denis Pinsky of Savvy Herb

There is a clear difference between launching and growing a company or website.

Luckily, many developers know the story behind successful ones well.

Of course, using unified approaches will help you to turn site visitors into clients.

From optimizing the marketing channel through to enhanced conversion, the result should be real e-commerce.

Here is how Denis Pinsky of Webfia will bring in the seasoned experience of online marketing specialists and the current advertising skills to manage it for you.

Types of Design Approaches

Nowadays not all businesses are running well. Some fail by far to reach the financial goals while others experience double revenues.

Well, operating a web development and design consulting firm means targeting to give the best services.

For Denis, everything started 15 years ago. He crafted applications and websites for organizations until when he took his skills to his own business.

Forbe’s Denis Pinsky further explains the development approaches used today as:

Static design

With this design, the web applies some fixed page size. There is no adjustment regardless of your browser’s measurement. The various types of devices used by clients will display the sites differently.

Desktops may need level scroll bars, while the smartphones or iPhones require horizontal scrolling. In this way, the content gets read easily or viewed when the page is zoomed in nonstop. Usually, the earlier designs had this layout used but thanks to technology today.

Liquid design

The tactic is different to the fixed page plan in that the page gets filled. Such happens despite your browser’s size. As the name suggests, the outline shows the fluid look on the web.

The design applies proportions or additional measuring units like ems. You will, however, face some challenges with too small or big browser size when using the fluid model.

Responsive design

The responsive approach of web designing comes from the knowledge of both similar units and an adaptive plan. With this, you can overcome the disadvantages of the liquid model. That said, your page will loosen updependent on the size of the browser.

The web gets used to the dimensions without any space allowances. The texts are neither contracted further than what the reader regards as comfortable. Such design of sites has a mobile-first style and the designers in the futurelook for meansofexpanding the plan.

The quality of downloaded images and videos vary with responsive web designs. But your internet speed will as well matter.

Adaptive design

Such web design approach applies the CSS media demands. The queries help to discover your browser’s size and can change the layout of the page accordingly. Similar to the fixed design, this layout uses static measurement units.

With this, your site will automatically adapt to both mobiles and desktops. The users will end up having a superior viewing experience. One fault faced by designers is the need to use redirects to cross-link.

The Secret of Success Behind Webfia

Denis believes that despite the personality of the end user, every designer must choose a perfect and economical layout to a business. The site as well needs to remain user-friendly and straight forward.

The goal of Webfia team is to provide a holistic web development approach to the clients. The role is that which tell apart the services and the reason for devotion to creating, designing, advertising, and maintaining the customer’s sites.

Pinsky’s Advice To People Looking to Begin a Similar Business

Studying the trends in the marketplace will make your practice in web development exciting. Well, the variety of skills makes the process of creating a site simple. When you realize the thing that motivates you, then you have higher competitive advantages.

You need an integrated approach and know that after building and designing a great site, you ought to concentrate on drawing customers. Through a targeted SEO and social media marketing, you can achieve it.

Recommendations

Many companies and individuals agree that Denis and the team offer the best site solutions.

Among the things said by satisfied clients include from:

  1. Andrew Roenko of Internet Marketing Manager at Ekran System who confirmed Denis’ team as rare to find. The mix of the technical, creative and scrappy sides made him all their business needed. With limited resources, you are sure of significant growth in e-commerce.
  2. Aleksey Andrusenko, the Head of SEO Department at LivePage described Denis team as self- driven and reliable. The expert in technical marketing and fast discovery of solutions to problems lead to clients, attaining the goals. The team ensures everything gets done giving an enjoyable and valuable experience.
  3. Prerna Sinha, an Associate Director of Talent Development at Uncommon Schools also confirmed the liking of being part of Denis team. As an organized and strategic leader, the skills in you get growing. You will undoubtedly enjoy working here and face new and useful career challenges.
  4. Adrienne Vogt, the Social media producer at CNN, says partnering with Denis means reliability and trustworthiness. The skills and social media power and tools in him gets harnessed and worth to capitalize on a project with him. Even with emergencies, he maintains composure and ensures the right persons resolve every issue quickly.
  5. Tom Post, an Editorial Advisor at Forbes Finland and the Baltics has a lot to say about Denis. But he describes Pinsky as a driven and useful digital wizard to Forbes, with proof on what happened to the site’s traffic. Denis will pull your business out of possible serious jams and build strong.

The bottom line is, hit the nail on your niche in a market that is not saturated. That is the place you can experience the most significant impact on your new investment. Never startup when you do not have enough capital for undoubted success.

Digital Marketers

Shama Hyder, a Digital Marketing Expert, Keynote Speaker, and TV & Media Personality

Now, I want to be a little bit in your face and ask a direct question, “If God forbid, you face 18 job rejections in the very early stage of your career, how would you react and behave?”

You will probably go nuts and start behaving in a crazy manner.

Many will lose all hope and develop suicidal tendencies.

This is not the case however with the most successful and revered entrepreneurs in the world and that’s probably the reason they are at the top.

Believe it or not, it sounds as if they are made of a different metal altogether.

Here we are talking about Shama Hyder, a web and TV personality, an award-winning CEO and founder of The Marketing Zen Group. She is also an acclaimed keynote speaker.

Shama Hyder, International Keynote Speaker

The beginning of her entrepreneurial journey

One of the most successful young Indian American entrepreneurs, Shama Hyder was born on April 25, 1985 in Goa, India.

She is from an average middle class background, despite that she made in big in the US. It was largely because of her desire to do something big and an unwavering support she received from her parents.

She had strong faith in the potential of social media since the beginning. The quality education she received at University of Texas, in the US is also a major factor behind her early success.

Shama is an example of an inspiring immigrant success story. She built a tremendously successful business empire based on digital and social media consulting services. She launched her entrepreneurial journey from a humble initial investment.

It involved a lot of hard work as the multitalented girl from India became a best-selling author, a globally renowned public speaker and a prominent TV, media and Web personality.

Moving to the United States

Shama’s family migrated to United States in 1994 and found another home in Dallas Texas, when she was barely 9 years old.

She graduated from University of Texas at Austin in 2003. She did her Masters in Organizational Communication and Technology in 2008.

In the University of Texas, she met Professor Dawna Ballard. In an interview with KVR Webtech, she admitted that Dawna was an influence in her life as she was the first influential person outside, who believed in the young prodigy and encouraged her to do something big.

Her struggle story

In an interview with Moe Abdou for 33 Voices, Shama admitted that she was also on a look out for a job, when she finished her graduation in 2007 as most of the university graduates would do in the United States.

Social media was like a hot cake back in 2007, as Twitter had just taken off and Facebook was the reigning social media. Excited by the stats and the number of users of those big social media platforms, she started looking for a job in consulting companies, because she also had a background in social media but she couldn’t find even a single job.

In 2007, she appeared in about 18 interviews and she was rejected from all of them. It was a time when she saw the world slamming all the doors in her face, but she was not ready to give up on her passion in social media.

She needed something to crawl through to get out of this mess and eventually it dawned upon her that to keep her passion alive, she should start her own venture.

She strongly believed that there is future in social media and that was the tipping point that led to her entrepreneurial career in social media.

Shama TV – Market Like a Zen Master

Shama’s contribution to social media marketing

Shama Hyder is also an author and a well-known digital marketing expert. She started her entrepreneurial career in 2009, when she founded Zen Media, which is now a global marketing and media company with 27 employees.

As a CEO of Zen Media and a keynote speaker, she has got worldwide recognition and popularity. It’s largely because she has a unique approach towards digital and social marketing.

A leading influencer on LinkedIn

Recently in 2017, she was ranked as one of the top 10 influencers on LinkedIn.

She had started very young, when she was under 25. She was named as one of the top 25 entrepreneurs by BusinessWeek magazine back in 2009.

In 2015, the leading business magazine Forbes recognized her as the top 30 under 30 Movers and Shakers.

Forbes 30 under 30 Entrepreneur Shama Hyder CEO of Zen Media on Stories in Business Podcast.

Shama’s revolutionary approach towards digital marketing

Very few people can actually afford to achieve such super success in their early thirties.

In 2009, when Shama launched Zen Media as a digital marketing and social media marketing company, social media and digital marketing were rather mysterious territories.

Most of the business owners were confused about the changes taking place on digital landscape. Very few people actually understood how to implement it correctly.

Shama is a dynamic leader and a visionary entrepreneur. It was her vision and passionate approach for digital marketing that led Zen Media to grow at an astonishing rate of 400% annually since its inception in 2009.

With an organizational strength of 27+ and clients including nonprofits and Fortune 500 companies to small business owners from across the world, Zen Media is a truly global organization.  .

Recognitions from White House and the UN

Shama Hyder was honored by the State Department and she was selected as the only woman delegate to mentor technology business owners in Asia and Middle East region following the White House initiatives to spread awareness about tech businesses worldwide.

United Nations honored her as the top 100 young entrepreneurs of United States.

Books, magazines and TV

Shama’s first book The Zen of Social Media Marketing was published in 2010 and it became an international bestseller. The book has been reprinted many times in the following years.

In 2016, she published another book Momentum, andit was about branding in the digital age.

She is a featured author on the Forbes and Inc. magazines, where she is a columnist. She also runs a YouTube channel Shama TV that offers expert tips and advice on digital marketing strategies and new media technologies. It also throws light on the current business trends.

Mentor, investor, media and business personality

Shama hosts many television programs in Texas about digital marketing and social media marketing. She is a busy entrepreneurs and she keeps on attending several workshops both national and international, where she is invited as keynote speaker.

She offers tips on crucial business topics such as entrepreneurship, leadership, millennials, and technology etc.

She is regularly invited by fortune 500 companies such as Siemens, Bentley University, Cisco, HubSpot, and many others.

Shama is a media correspondent for Fox Business news channel. She is also a mentor and investor on Young Entrepreneur Council. Currently, she is a board member of Forbes Business Council.

Wealth and Net Worth

According to Forbes, in 2014, The Marketing Zen Group earned revenue of $2 million. Current figures about her net worth are not available, but her company has been assessed as a multimillion dollar enterprise.

Shama Hyder’s Top 10 Tips on Entrepreneurship

Speaking to the Source of Insight, the CEO of The Marketing Zen Group –a full service web marketing firm, Shama Hyder offered her top 10 tips for the entrepreneurs.

1. Shed your fears, plan, research, take help from others and launch your venture.
2. Start as young as possible.
3. Leverage tech in a big way.
4. Think global, even if you are acting local.
5. Young or old, your age is an asset, young means energy and a promising future and old means a lot of experience.
6. Hire intelligent people, use your instinct while hiring, resume may lie about the potential of a person.
7. Always have a business lawyer by your side.
8. Listen and respond to your marketplace.
9. Invest in services, workforce and marketing.
10. Use creativity instead of money, especially when you are a startup.

Free resources for entrepreneurs

Go through the following podcasts:

A. Lessons on Business & Life from ‘Zen Master of Marketing,’ by ShamaHyder about digital entrepreneur.

B. ShamaHyder, Zen Master

Final words

Beyond her venture “the Marketing Zen Group”, Shama is respected for her no nonsense advice for the digital age entrepreneurs.

She is remarkably brilliant and that’s something that differentiates her from the rest.

She is regularly invited for the keynotes and conferences by some of the most prestigious organizations and MNCs.

Her books and keynotes are a treasure house of marketing advice that is both contextual and practical.

Her success proves that vision is always above experience.

Digital Marketers

Scott Stratten: the Keynote Speaker blogger and writer with a difference

In our journey towards the most influential people online, I bring you the mirthful Scott Stratten.

He is different in the way he presents he’s facts across. As he puts it, he let people unlearn the old and bad ways on how to conduct their brand on the Social Medias.

Ordinarily you would dismiss him as just another comedian. Not until you get to know that he once run a successful viral video agency in the world (UnAgency), and he has also written best sellers! Welcome.

Scott Stratten: Education and Interest

Scott went to Sheridan College where he studied Human Resource between 1994 and 1998.

He came back later to the College, as a professor, teaching Human Resource and Employment Law. (2002-2010).

Before that, just after college, he worked as a Human Resource Consultant at Goodwill Industries of Toronto a position he took for two years then moved to Polyair as a National Sales Training Manager.

He took about a year and eight months before moving on to be a tutor at Sheridan College. He spends almost a decade teaching, until he made up his mind and started his company UnMarketing Inc.

He is currently the President of UnMarketing.

Scott Stratten Keynote Speaker Trailer

Rewards & Attainments

Scott has his videos watched sixty million times.

He has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine among many other top online publications.

He was named Top Ten American Marketing Gurus by Business Review USA.

His UnPodcast was signed up by CBS network as their major business podcast to start their new digital network.

Another accomplishment for Scott is that he has co-authored best-selling business books with Alison Stratten, the latest in line being UnSelling: The New Customer Experience .

The book was named Sales book of the year.

Scott was also named Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers in 2013.

Scott the Keynote Speaker

As a speaker, Scott has come in handy in assisting his audience cope with this age of disturbance.

Though a recent inductee into the stardom of the keynote speaker, Scott is a bestselling author of five books and has had taste of marketing and training.

He speaks in events for companies which range from 3M, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Cirque Du Soleil and Deloitte amongst many others.

Scott is one guy who keynotes an event passionately, knowledgably, and as always, full of drama. He bridges the gap between virtual and reality.

He is known to have his audience laughing, but also, reasoning, and doing. He currently does nothing, except conference keynote.

A senior Director of Hardrock International once said that Scott illuminated and amused a bored group on the changes the social media landscape has brought with thoughtful and mirthful examples of branding initiatives.

This was after his keynote speech for the company.

Scott Stratten the Blogger

Apart from being a keynote speaker, sometimes Scott blogs, and when he does, he looks critically at the marketing mistakes made by companies.

For example, from one of his blogs on The National Speakers Bureau, he plainly pointed out the suspicious app review by a Canadian company.

It came out clearly that the employees of the firm actually reviewed the app themselves.

From his views, he saw no reason why the company does not want negative reviews, while it was clear that they could use them to make their product better.

This was a big mistake done by many companies who only focus on 5 star reviews, thinking that they would result into many sales, instead of getting the 1 or 2 stars that would help make their product better.

He clearly speaks against self made review. As a blogger, Scott doesn’t mince his words. He calls a spade a spade.

Full UnMarketing Keynote

What Social Media/ Online marketing skills can we get from Scott Stratten?

  1. Never ever automate your brand page on social media, keep your followers/fans engaged. He calls such automation, is like taking a mannequin for marketing gig.
  2. A small change on a video can determine whether it would go viral or not. He had one of his watched over 13,000 million times on Facebook.
  3. Timing is very essential when tweeting. Avoid automated tweets for they can hit clients in bad times like disasters etc.
  4. Checking out your facts before shelling them out is a must.
  5. People talk about unnecessary thing on Twitter; however, it can be an excellent platform to vent out your brand if you do it well.
  6. Avoid exaggeration of size and numbers on Social Media; you might end up losing instead.
  7. Avoid under pricing just to look appealing, when indeed you may end up making a big loss.
  8. Avoid words like “sign in for a free newsletter” on your website.. They are enticing at all. Instead you can use phrases like: “Sign-up for product updates and exclusive announcements” or “Sign-up for weekly tips on how to save your business money.”
  9. Respect your readers. Don’t email them unless you have something important to tell them. Avoid automated e-mails. Be as natural as possible.
  10. When someone Tweets about your brand and mentions you, ensure that you become part of the conversation. Don’t ignore them.
  11. Stop trying to piggyback off holidays and celebrations by making it about you.
  12. When giving a review, stick to the facts, versus smearing the company.
  13. No need of being on Google+ if you are already on the other Social Medias. Scott finds it an effort in futility, according to him; you’ll still be circling the same people you have on the other platforms.
  14. The best time not to send an email is when everyone tells you. You need to work on your brand first. You will also need to test the same email over different time.
  15. Keep note that nobody joins the Social Media to be sold to. Instead, they buy from people they know and trust. Be nice and help people, then, Social media will be an awesome place for branding.
  16. Always get to know the ROI of any action or activity in your company. Whether it’s meeting, buying furniture for the office etc.

Want to be a Keynote Speaker like Scott? Here are a few tips

  1. He emphasizes the importance of being an expert not a speaker. People are interested in someone who really knows their stuff.
  2. Make sure that you speak, don’t read the slides.
  3. Ensure that you deliver your content effectively, aim to be great on the stage.
  4. Make your audience have something new from you every time you speak. Don’t talk too much about yourself.
  5. Switch off your phone before speaking, and, get used to the idea that someone else phone will go off during the speaking session.
  6. The session is not about you, but, about your audience.
  7. Take note that you know your stuff so well that you don’t need to use any slide during Q&A.
  8. Don’t make apologies to the audience about something that you needed to have but you don’t. Just carry on.
  9. Be passionate with your topic.
  10. Be early and stay late. Get to know your audience well.
  11. Record everything you say, have it on your blog, you will learn more when you watch your own videos.
  12. Tell your audience great stories mixed with humor.