Jason's Business By Bootstraps

Category: Business

  • If I had to start over…

    Sometimes at the end of a long day my mind wanders, and I think about what I would do differently if I was starting my company today. It’s a tool for reflection, and a little bit of self-congratulation as I recognize some of the things I’ve learned in the past ten months or so. But […]

  • Removing lapsed customers the web 2.0 way

    I received a helpful reminder last night from Facebook that they’re about to make some major breaking (but, it should be noted, well-publicized) changes to their app requirements.  Specifically, some authentication code that used to work won’t anymore, and all apps will have to be hosted on servers with SSL certificates. This is going to […]

  • Triple-entry accounting: a hazard of consulting

    (Nothing to do with accounting; just my favourite video about the number 3.) I know very little about accounting, but I’m content to do sustained damage for a while longer before I dump a big box of mayhem on some bookkeeper’s desk. One of the joys (and incredible dangers) of consulting on a fee-for-hire business, […]

  • Imaginary competition and surprise innovation

    Last week I warned about the dangers of copying only what you see, because your competitor typically has a bunch of stuff going on in the back end that can mean all the difference in the world when it comes to business profits. But what if, to quote Will Smith, the things you think you saw […]

  • The Four Hour Work Week and the future of “Real Jobs”

    Last week I ran my company from the cottage. I had decent enough internet, but I didn’t want to to be too good, since the point was to relax as much as I could while keeping the wheels turning.  Over the course of 9 days, I probably averaged close to the mythical four hour work […]

  • Giving people what they want, or swarm evolution

    With my new morning workout routine I’m exposed to too many televisions in the gym, most of which are showing news shows.  I don’t listen to any of them (if I’m on a machine that can hold it I’ll watch a video on my phone, otherwise it’s an MP3) but I’ve had the opportunity to […]

  • Unlimited vacation

    Guin tweeted a link to the Social Media Group‘s new HR policy for vacation time: take as much as you want. Paid. Basically they stopped tracking it back in October, and while the sense is that people are taking more paid vacation time, that’s kind of the point, since they want to have refreshed employees […]

  • Infinite innovation vs sufficient suckage

    I only took one undergrad economics class but then I boosted that with stuff like Freakonomics, so I’m 100% qualified to talk about this today. Some wireless carrier ads got me thinking today.  Rogers has this data sharing plan, which, if I’m not mistaken, lets you share your data plan across multiple devices for $10 […]

  • Personal congruence with business goals

    I’ve been thinking lately about personal congruence as a success factor. I had a client last night reporting that he couldn’t see some ads on a page of his site.  More specifically, it was a “link to us” page and the sample banners weren’t showing up in Chrome.  And of course, they worked fine for […]

  • Entrepreneurship: hourly rates come from hourly costs

    One of the key lessons I’ve learned this year as head of my own service-based company is to figure out my hourly costs to better gauge my hourly rates.  Take all the company expenses (rent, staff, training, hosting, telecom, etc) for the month, add on some level of actual income, divide it by 20 for […]