September 2008

If you are dealing with multiple business units, you always could use a help or two from others.

The basic rule of thumbs is not to be a control freak - that is, having all your business under your sole control.

Why?

The best idea of entrepreneurship is to delegate, delegate and delegate. This way, you preserve your most valuable resource - time - and use it either to build more businesses or to have it yourself - a privilege most people don’t have.

Business delegation and business process outsourcing (BPO) can be achieved through my favourite outsourcing method - hiring a virtual assistance.

Virtual assistant help you build a real business, not another job

The idea of starting a business is to make it grow, becoming a real business, not another job.

Job?

Yes - many business owners are sole proprietors. They operate their own one-person company.

If the owner is having problems, so is the business. If the owner stop working, the business stop running, too. If this is your case, then you are having a job, camouflage as a business.

Virtual assistant can ‘redeem’ you from your job-business.

A virtual assistant (VA), hence the name, is your independent assistant, helping you with various job functions and work, such as office administration work, personal assistance, data entry, bookkeeping, and even website design.

The benefit of BPO to virtual assistant

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If you wondered why accessing the Noobpreneur Business Blog is a bit difficult and troublesome, I am actually in the middle of upgrading Noobpreneur.com’s Wordpress to the latest version of 2.6.2 - meaning, better security and other enhancements.

Not only upgrading the Wordpress script, I am also in the middle of custom-designing Noobpreneur.com based on a Do-It-Yourself Wordpress theme structure, Thesis.

Why Thesis? After a long search for custom, user friendly Wordpress theme, I finally take action to purchase Thesis Wordpress theme, for several strong points:

1. Easy customisation, via click and apply method.
2. User and SEO friendly
3. Constantly developed - security and bug fixes, more features, etc.
4. Helpful forums!

The license is $87 for a single site, and $164 for multiple sites. It’s a fair price, considering the quality. If you are looking for Wordpress blog themes, do consider Thesis.

The customisation I am doing right now is almost finished. There will be a small update on the theme in the near future, but I assure you during that time, there will be no more interruption in your visits :)

Please let me know your feedbacks and comments on Noobpreneur.com new design.

Ivan Widjaya
Blog designer

Here is another business resource recommendation for you - online yellow pages.

I know - it’s not Web 2.0, but it’s evolving well, and as many web directories are, well, for websites, you have no choice other than the online yellow pages if you want to find city-specific information.

In my case, I always look for city-specific information that is useful for my business trips, as well as leisure.

Online yellow pages offer portability and ease of use - forget those bulky books with pages coloured in yellow in them :)

City specific info

I was an old fan of YellowPages.com. I use it particularly to look for city specific listings.

From the YellowPages.com city-specific pages, you can see plenty of resources, such as local businesses and, of course, people. This is useful in planning your business trip ahead.

Seek listings that interest you, such as restaurants or entertainments, and make sure to copy it into your notebook. Now you can simply plan the routes, so you can make the most (leisure) of your business trip :)

Plan and learn your trip well through online yellow pages and business listing recommendations, and enjoy your time better during your business trip.

Ivan Widjaya
Business trip planner

If somebody told you that you need a lot of money to enter the business and investment game, they’re wrong.

You and I can be an investor, that also is a bootstrapper. I called it Bootstrapper-Investor

You can invest in business, real estate, paper asset, and other investment vehicles with limited resources.

How to be a proper bootstrapper-investor

Here’s a tip or two on how to be a good bootstrapper-investor:

Do online business - enter make money online market

Today is a good time to make money online - the market is there and the demand is very much higher than supply, in my opinion.

You can learn about this from the real life make money online expert, such as Yaro Starak, John Chow, and Darren Rowse. Please notice, that all that I mentioned is bloggers.

Why? Because the bloggers I mentioned are business owner, and they are more accessible than any online business owners - thanks to the nature of the blogosphere.

Find info on ‘cheap’ real estates

Despite today’s recession, real estate is pretty much still accessible. The idea of real estate is by investing 20 to 30 per cent of the property price tag - some even offer no down payment - you can own the property.

Just make sure you don’t assume that the property will go up in value - most of the time, yes. But today, not really. Invest properties for cash flow. Or, at least on the future potential of the properties.

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I would like to announce the sales of one of my web properties - First Worlds Web Directory.

It’s a niche web directory that incorporates bidding system.

I design the directory myself, based on the original template by the script I use - PHP Link Bid. So, the design is pretty much unique.

The reason behind the sales is due to the much needed investment to boost my offline business through recession.

If you are interested, please visit my auction at SitePoint.com through this banner:

Thanks!

Ivan Widjaya
Web property investor

In your personal finance endeavour, you have to, of course, secure your hard earned money.

Securing your money doesn’t mean opening the most safest account possible. Securing your money means opening accounts and diversify to increase the speed of your money - or in other words, increasing your earning from the interests.

The main goal here is to beat inflation by as much as you can.

My choice of leverages

I have several favourite leverages to increase the speed of my money. The breakdown is as follow:

1. Forex

Not necessarily in forex market, I like to invest long-term in forex that is strong and stable, such as the Euro or British Pounds.

2. Money market

Money market is global financial market for short-term borrowing and lending. In my opinion, a money market account is similar to a mutual fund account, with different market focus.I particularly enjoy online investing - so online money market account, such as M&T Bank eMoney Market Account , is also my choice of flexible, low risk and good yield account.

3. Business

Investing in a business has always been interesting for me. Choosing the right business will likely to return your investment 40 per cent annually - but the figure varies greatly, depending on the type of business.

4. Real Estate

Despite the recession, real estate is still my choice of investment. I particularly enjoy investing in business premises, rather than homes.

5. Precious metal

The safest investment of all is not your saving accounts or deposit accounts - it’s gold. Classic, time-tested and a true asset investment.

What about mutual fund? Sorry - it’s simply not my type of investment. Too volatile, particularly in the place where I currently live.

Let’s say I’m weak at heart in mutual funds and stocks :)

What is your choice of leverages? Share yours by commenting to this post.

Ivan Widjaya
Leveraging money

Today’s recession causes hardships to almost all of us. Inspirations, let alone resources, are difficult to come by. Why? Because we all focus on the problems, not on the solutions.

Here is one to inspire you: the rags to riches, or Noveau Riche stories.

Noveau Riche

Nouveau riche - a French term for ‘new rich’ - is referring to the group of people that are THE wealthy people of their generations, usually rises from poverty.

Their success stories are inspiring to me, because most of them start with nothing and be something - or shall I say - own everything.

One example from this Noveau Riche article is the life of William Gates III, or well known as Bill Gates of Microsoft.

Bill Gates is a Harvard drop-out that, along with Paul Allen, founded Microsoft. Today, he is the third richest person in the world (The richest American) and a Non-Executive Chairman of Microsoft, as well as, along with his wife, the founder of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Do you want to be rich?

“Do you want to be rich?” I do - I want to use my money for greater purposes. I keen on what Bill and Melinda Gates did, and if I have the opportunity, I’d exactly do what they did with their foundation.

But some don’t want to be rich.

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I never been into politics, not even on today’s US election.

However, I interested in learning how the US election will actually help US small businesses, as well as global small businesses, in receiving perks that will be beneficial for all.

Countdown to US November election has never been more exciting today, especially in both consumer and business credit cards industry.

A nation of which people regarded by many as big spenders, US Credit Debt is overwhelming and disrupting lives. Many of its people are in deep credit debt due to mismanaged personal finance, as well as non-conducive law and regulation.

The Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights is highly advocated and anticipated today, due to the political purposes attached to it by the US presidential candidates.

Once provisions of Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights come into effect, you can expect fairer credit card regulations for both consumer and business.

Perks for small business owner

What the proposed provisions of Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights means to small business owner?

Once the provisions take effect, small business owners will enjoy no interest rates increase while they pay their bills regularly on time. Moreover, there will be no new interest rates can be applied to the balances accumulated under the previously low interest rate.

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