Don’t worry – we’re not replacing Jay Leno on the Tonight Show. But we did, like Conan O’Brien, have a brief appearance on NBC (on the Nightly News tonight) in a special report about the reaction of small businesses to the initiatives that President Obama announced in his State of the Union speech last night. That report (crowdSPRING appears at 1:37 of the video) is below.
Prior to crowdSPRING, I practiced law for 13 years. During that time, I counseled and represented clients (from internet startups to Fortune 100 companies) in transactional matters and in complex trials. I’ve set at the table as a lawyer, and now have the perspective of an entrepreneur.
This week on my personal blog, I’ve been talking about the biggest frustrations expressed by entrepreneurs when working with lawyers. Many of these frustrations are fair, but you can take steps to improve your relationship with your lawyer – and more importantly, to find a lawyer you trust. In the video below, I discuss five things that entrepreneurs and small businesses can do to reduce their frustrations and to improve the relationship with their lawyers.
Do you have other suggestions that I haven’t discussed? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!
Breathtaking Collection of High Resolution Free Photoshop Brushes – http://bit.ly/5QCWxr
Lately, I have been noticing a lot of solutions companies using crowdSPRING for their clients and it’s very exciting that they use us for their design needs! A project posted by Mark Wray of Digital Beckley (www.digitalbeckley.com) caught my eye initially because it was a small web design for the Austism Recovery Resource Center in West Virginia. As I researched the company more I found all of different services they offer their clients and it’s pretty extensive.
Digital Beckley offers web design, enterprise class e-mail solutions, graphics (ie: logos, brochures, magazine, etc), website hosting, and company branding. All very important aspects of a successful company these days.
I asked Mark Wray a few questions to help you guys out and hear from the perspective of a business solutions company!
1. How did you get things designed before crowdSPRING? (or, if this is your first project, what other options were you considering?)
Digital Beckley used a full time professional artist up to August of 2008. We spent almost a year looking for GOOD talent before being referred to CrowdSpring. In June 2009, after examining all the CrowdSpring has to offer – it just seem natural to stay, certainly a win win for everyone – Us, CrowdSpring, and the creatives! We now use CrowdSpring almost exclusively for our web designs.
2. Why in the world did you decide to use crowdSPRING?!
After a few test projects on CrowdSpring, I soon realized that not only we can save costs (on average of $500 per site), but we are now able to present our clients with a large number of concepts as opposed to just 3 or 4. Our clients are still amazed we can present over 15 concepts, whereas our local competitors around do well to present 3 or 4. The variety of creatives allows us to deliver a larger palette of designs than just 1 or 2 interpretations with what we could before.
The name of your company and your logo are two creative elements of your brand, but your brand is much more than the company name and logo design.
A brand is the sum total of the experience your prospects and customers have with your company. A strong brand communicates what your company does, how it does it, and at the same time, establishes trust and credibility with your prospects and customers. Your company’s brand is, in many ways, its personality. Your brand lives in everyday interactions your company has with its prospects and customers, including the images you share, the messages you post on your website, the content of your marketing materials, your presentations and booths at conferences, and your posts on social networks.
The PSFK Good Brands Report 2009 (PSFK is a trends research and innovations company) recently identified the top 10 global brands. The report prompted me to think about our own branding strategy for crowdSPRING and about the branding strategies of the companies we admire (Amazon, Apple, Zappos, 37signals, among others).
As I thought about those strategies, I realized that they explained five common lessons that small businesses and startups can learn from the world’s best brands.
1. A Brand Should Have A Good Name and Logo
A strong company (or product) name is easily recognizable and is important to good branding. New startups and small businesses face many challenges in coming up with a company name (among the challenges: it’s very difficult to find a good name and an available domain; many short names have already been taken). However, plenty of successful brands have proven that there are many different ways to create a company name. For example, many successful brands use real words (Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Yelp), some use misspelled words (Google), compounds (Facebook, Firefox, WordPress), phrases (LinkedIn, SecondLife) and other variations. If you’re interested in more examples – especially if you’re struggling to find a name for your company – I recommend you read this post about company names types.
When you start thinking about building your brand, ask yourself the following questions:
What do you hope to accomplish with your company?
What do your customers and potential customers currently think of your company?
What do you want your customers to think when they think of your company ?
How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?
The above questions are important not only for selecting a strong company name, but also for selecting a strong logo.
The logo is one of the most important elements of a brand. As you think about your logo, keep your audience and products/services in mind because you want your logo to reflect your company. A good logo builds trust and a strong logo will help to pull your brand together.Think about the logos of some of the world’s most admired brands (Apple, Google, Amazon). How do you feel (emotionally) when you see one of those logos?
In March, Ross and I will be hosting a talk at South by Southwest; it’s called “Third Coast: How to be a Startup Outside of Silicon Valley.” We have been thinking a lot about this lately and discussing the challenges we have faced on our own path. When we first conceived of the idea that would ultimately become crowdSPRING, we never even discussed the possibility of starting the company anywhere but Chicago – it never occurred to us that we might have an easier go of it elsewhere, or that we might be able to tap into resources not available to us here. We live in the Chicago area. Our families live in the Chicago area. Our friends live in the Chicago area. Why go elsewhere? This is a question that all entrepreneurs should ask themselves as they are moving their idea towards a reality. Are you better off staying where you are, or could you benefit by moving it to Mountain View or Palo Alto?
In our thinking, it boiled down to 3 tips we’d give to entrepreneurs considering whether to locate somewhere outside of Silicon Valley:
Make sure that the business itself is a viable idea and that there is a market for your product or service.Research, research, research.
Be sure that your location will provide the resources and knowledge you will need to launch and sustain your startup.
Surround yourself with smart people to help you execute. Find them wherever you choose to locate – track them down, sign them up, and put them to work!
Many of the challenges startups face are common no matter where the company chooses to locate. Three important factors that founders have to consider (no matter their location) are networks, funding, and talent. Here’s how we viewed each of these:
Networking was critical to us. Neither of us had ever started a company before and neither of us came out of the tech industries. So we made a great effort to introduce ourselves to those who had the experience and knowledge we lacked. Fortunately Chicago has a reasonable pool of these types and we found that most were very generous of their time and willing to share their knowledge.
Funding, too, was a challenge. The number of VC firms located here and funding Chicago companies was tiny compared to the number in Silicon Valley (or New York and Boston for that matter). Nor was there a widely established network of Angels with a track record of supporting local companies. Our hurdle was to develop our own network of investors and we did this the old-fashioned way: one degree of separation at a time.
Finally, recruiting talented workers has been an ongoing concern. For instance, the pool of software developers is not as deep here as it is in Silicon Valley, and finding the right people, with the right skill-set can be daunting.
In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.
We’re very proud to feature Cyrene Quiamco (crowdSPRING username: CyreneQ) today. Cyrene lives and studies in Little Rock, Arkansas.
1. Please tell us about yourself.
Who am I? Already stumped on the first question!
My name is Cyrene Quiamco – for short. My full name is Salathiel Cyrene Ganzon Quiamco. I find it amusing when school teachers perform role call for the first time and see my name. They would pause, give a confused expression, and attempt to pronounce it. I was born in beautiful islands of the Philippines in Bacolod City. I’ve lived there for 7 years before I moved to the United States. I landed in Little Rock Arkansas and have been living here for 13 years now. I’ve known and lived with myself for 20 years now. I am full time student (taking the max 18 hours every semester) at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock where I’m working towards a Studio Art: Graphic Design degree.
I’ve been doing art ever since I figured out that crayons were art supplies and not food. I’ve won my first art contest when I was in 1st grade. It was an onsite competition and I made 5th (out of 10) places competing against 6th graders. Every time I make art, I found that people would smile. I don’t think I understood it back then, but I liked how my creations make people feel happy when I give it to them. Until now, that still holds true. I like to see clients happy whenever I show them the logo I made for them.
Fun facts about me are: I love turtles, I have 10 box turtles. They live in an outdoor enclosure and I’ve been caring for turtles for 13 years. I also have hermit crabs. My fascination started four years ago and I’ve had some of them for four years now. I’m a picky eater – I don’t like ketchup, mustard, pickles, salads, mashed potatoes, peanut butter, cherries, coffee…the list goes on. I’m your typical geek – I’m obsessed with the latest gadgets, love video games, and a fan of Asian dramas (Japanese and Korean) and cartoons (anime). I’m scared of the dark but I LOVE scary movies. I collect world currency as a hobby.
Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!
The hard part’s not making the resolution it’s sticking to it… For that reason we wanted to see what everyone’s New Year’s Resolutions were for 2010 so we posted a contest on Facebook gave everyone a week and a half to get their submissions in and Pete and I picked a winner.
And the $50 Visa gift card goes to…
Yancie Davis from Santa Clara, CA!! Yancie is a 25 year old freelance designer who’s been designing since he was 12. He’s currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Graphic Design at the Academy of Art. You can view some of his recent work here http://www.flickr.com/photos/yankydoodledesign
Yancie’s resolution can be read below:
My New Years resolution for this year is to fully immerse myself in all things design. I get so wrapped up in fulfilling my responsibilities at work and at home, and I feel I’ve used it in the past as an excuse. But this year, I’m going all in. I’m going to set up an artspace iat home where I can have space to be a more productive artist; I’m going to try to attend at least one major graphic design conference; I’m going to invest in the tools needed to be a better graphic designer (better computer, a high quality camera, pencils and paints, etc.). My goal is establish myself in my local design community by this time next year. I’ll work on national establishment in 2011.
We wish you the best of luck in 2010 and hope you accomplish all you set out to do!
We also want to thank everyone for participating it was so exciting and inspiring to read your resolutions and we hope everyone can follow through with them! Have a great 2010 everyone!
In 2009, Mike and I spoke at a Chicago Convergence conference about creativity. In our presentation- A New Perspective on Creativity – we talked about the democratization and evolution of the creative industries. We believe that the creative industries are undergoing a rapid change. Those who think they can resist the change can learn valuable lessons from the music and publishing industries – where many tried to resist change and failed. Here’s our 15 minute presentation:
How do you feel about the ongoing changes in the creative industries?
crowdSPRING is the world's #1 marketplace for entrepreneurs, small businesses, nonprofits and agencies who need custom logo design, web design, a new company name or other writing and design services. Over 115,000 designers and writers work on crowdSPRING. We are trusted by more than 29,000 happy clients around the world.
