Starting a business in 30 days - day 22!

Condredge

Hello Startup Nation!  I am so glad to have discovered this site - it looks like an awesome resource.I am actually in the midst of starting up my latest business called Webamorphosis.The plan is to start up the business from scratch with almost no financial investment and get it to cash-flow positive within 30 days.  I`m on day 22 so I`m getting awfully close to my deadline - but I`m having a blast!The business is providing website management services to companies who already have a website but who want to get the most out of the Internet (or, if they don`t have a website yet, to create one first and then go from there)I know that web design is a pretty tight niche, but the angle I am taking is that there are lots of companies who have spent a fair chunk of change on getting there website built and then it just sits there and gets old, stale and outdated and doesn`t do anything for the company. I believe there is an opportunity to come alongside those organizations and help them by creating an online strategy designed to achieve specific goals for them and then working with them each and every month to keep the site fresh and gradually improve and grow it according to the strategy.Anyhow, my question for the community is what advice you would have for someone who wants to ramp up their business in a hurry?  How would you get a business going in 30 days or less?  Also, any specific advice regarding Webamorphosis would be greatly appreciated as well.Thanks!CondredgePS - I hope I posted this in the right forum - if not, I apologize.

Condredge

wow.  You guys are amazing - thank you so much!  You`re giving me more feedback than my best friends and family - you don`t know what an encouragement that is.  I absolutely agree with all of your advice and I`m going to work to implement it here as soon as I get a chance.I`m going to have trouble parting with my large text - I love large text as a design feature - people by-and-large don`t want to read anything, but huge letters get read. However then you can only have a few of them!  I`m thinking that I might keep the big text for the top header of the pages and then reduce the size below the fold - however then I run the risk of people not bothering to look below the fold.  Hmmm... catch 22.  Maybe if I make the text smaller but make better use of bullet points, bold and italics that will make the content inviting enough to read and still give me enough room for some good content. Or, I make the statements at the top of the page more intriguing - raise a little curiosity to convince people it is worth scrolling down and reading the smaller text.I also agree that my site is pretty general and I need more specifics - that`s a very good point.  I do have the `24 Possibilities` page that has some specifics of what we could do, but people may not click on it, I should probably either put some of those details on the main page and the learn more page - or provide more links to that page so that people who want details can check it out.Thanks again for all your help - I can`t tell you how much I appreciate it!

Condredge

As far as marketing goes - today I`m sending out some lovely postcards that my wife designed - this is a precision marketing tactic that I`ve used in the past to devastating effect. I find companies that desperately need what I`m offering and send them a hand-written postcard. Wait a couple of days (or longer if out-of-town) for the postcard to arrive and call them up asking for an appointment.  Cold-calling is often difficult because people ignore you if they don`t know who you are. Direct mailing is difficult because people don`t open ads. But a hand-written note is *always* read. And then they know who you are, so when you call, they are slightly warmed up to already.  I have found it to work quite well in the past, so I`m going to try it again this time - I just need a few sales to put me at a baseline where I can grow from there.  Have you tried anything like this?

Condredge

Hey Guys - you`ve convinced me   I`ve scaled down the text size so that it isn`t painfully large now, but it is still bigger than normal which is what I`m going for.  Craig, you are absolutely right about CSS font sizes, although (and you may already be aware of this) you`ll find you have a lot more control if you use `em` for the measurement.  1 em is equal to 100% of the default font size set in the browser. So you can make smaller size text by using less than one (say 0.8em for 80% of the default font size) or a larger size by using larger than 1 (say 1.2 em for 120% of the default font size).  Also, you are mostly correct regarding % - but it is actually the percentage of the parent element.  So if you have a <div> that is 800px wide, you could have a <p> within that that is set to 50% width and it would be 400px wide - even if the browser window is 1000px wide.I`m still working on improving the copy on the website according to your suggestions (which are very helpful, by the way) - I will hopefully be able to get to it soon, but I`m busy this weekend with weddings and church and family reunions... you know how it goes!My accountant friend met with me this afternoon to help me get my books set up properly which was a huge help so things are moving along nicely.Thanks again for all your help.  I`ll post again once I get the content updated - if you don`t mind taking another look at it then, I`d be very appreciative of that!

Condredge

Hey Guys, sorry for the slow response - I`ve been knee-deep in self-promotion the last several days - starting to see some good stuff happen, so that`s good news!  I think that I will have to re-visit these ideas again early September as I`m away on vacation next week and the next few days are packed for me already.However, I just wanted to thank you again for your tremendous help and encouragement!  I`m going to be making use of it for sure (as soon as I can) and I`ll be back again to contribute to this amazing community and probably draw on it some more too.Sincerely,Condredge

txbassguy

checking out the site.  i think i`d want a bit more in depth detail about what i`d get for the price. The price seems a bit high to me, unless I`m reading it wrong. Is it 3 hours time per month.I think a before and after of websites would get the point across more than text. I`m thinking of the `webpages that suck` site and others like that where they show before and after designs along with an explanation about why the changes are more pleasing. But I`m also coming from an engineering background where managers simply want to know 1) what are the changes, 2) how does that impact my bottom line, 3) what`s the time frame for implementation.