The Online Investing AI Blog

Recently I discovered Bountify, a new way to outsource small development tasks. It’s like Stack Overflow meets Guru.com. It’s useful because there are times when you want a complete solution to a small problem, and don’t have the skills or time to do it yourself. The model is similar to Fiverr, but you can pay up to $250 per task.

There are several things that are interesting about Bountify. It was created in Ruby on Rails by a single developer. This shows the leverage that Rails delivers to the programmer. What used to take several people months to do can now be done in 2 weeks by a single person.

Read more…

Accelerating Technology, Business Strategy, Internet, Success bountify, business, crowdsourcing, productivity, programming, ruby on rails, stack overflow, Success

President Obama upset some business folks when he basically said… you didn’t build your business.

In fairness, here’s what he said:

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” he said. “The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”

So, he could be referring to the roads and businesses. In other words, businesses do not build the infrastructure necessary to allow their companies to bring in raw materials and send out completed products, or however else they conduct their operations.

But he’d still be misguided, for a few reasons–and perhaps it’s semantics.

If what the president is saying is that businesses did not build the roads, then he is only partially correct. Money from businesses in the form of taxes did indeed pay for those roads and bridges. Businesses partnered with government to create infrastructure.

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Business Strategy, Internet, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI business, government, gratitude, Obama, politics, Success

I’ve become disenchanted with the whole “alternative income, new lifestyle, instant riches” line of books recently.

Disenchanted isn’t the right word.

Bitter. That’s more like it.

In fact, I’ve blogged about it in the Douchebag’s Guide to Instant Riches on the Internet. Basically, since the 4 Hour Work Week came out, writers have been stealing Tim Ferris’s script and churning out books with very little new information and a total absence of information that addresses some of the criticisms of the alternative income idea. Book after book said, “Find something you like, write about it, and create an informational product… then just count the checks.”

I was expecting the same with the $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love and Create a New Future, by Chris Guillebeau. I just about gagged when I read the title. In fact, the only two reasons I could think of to order this book was:

a) I had money left over on a gift card.

b) I like that new book smell.

And I now can admit that I am… actually enjoying the book.

Read more…

Business Strategy, Great Books, Internet, Investing, Money blog, book, business, ebook, entrepreneurship, income, Money, startup, Success, Tim Ferris

When people think of investing, they usually think about investing money. They consider the return they are likely to receive, and how much risk is involved. Yet there are investments available to us that are far more powerful than any monetary investment.

Image courtesy of Chipmonkey (^o^)

Imagine all the investments you have made that have nothing to do with money: investments of your time and effort, investments in people and relationships, investments in your body, mind and spirit, etc. These are investments that are mostly non-monetary. I believe that certain investments in time and effort are more important than any financial investment.

Think about it. How do you calculate the value of connecting with a best friend? Enjoying time with your family? Or even spending a Sunday doing whatever you want, because there is nothing that you “have” to do that day?

A wise man once said,

There is nothing of value that you can buy with money.

Read more…

Business Strategy, Dreams Come True, Internet, Money, Online Investing AI, Success all worked up, business, destiny, entrepreneur, friends, future, Investing, Money, relationships, startup, Success

This is a guest post by Tim Eyre.

Failing Fast: Leveraging Strategic Failures for Unparalleled Success

Why hasn’t technology yet brought us a working time machine? Then we could go into the future, find out what products, services, and what business models were going to succeed, come back into the past, and replicate them – or at least invest in them. Or if not a time machine, how about a crystal ball? Every businessperson I know would like to have one of those!

Image courtesy ItzaFineDay

Well, we don’t have time machines or working crystal balls – at least, nobody I know has one!

So, we are doomed to fail, at least some of the time.

That’s what I used to think.

Read more…

Accelerating Technology, Business Strategy, Dreams Come True, Success airplane, business, customer, design, failure, product, risks, service, Success, technology, wired

This is a guest post by Diane Johnson. She writes about several topics including travel, shopping, and classes online.

If you’re looking to grow your business, whether you’re the only employee or you already have thousands, there are a number of things you can do. Most obviously, you can pour more money into marketing and advertising or incentivize your sales team to grown your customer base. There are also more subtle things you can do that may not have a direct effect on growing your business, but will help motivate your workforce and focus your energy—both of which will lead to expanding your business. In fact, one of the best things you can do is create a culture for your business by defining your goals, empowering your employees, and setting a social agenda.

Image courtesy of alfoeldi0815

Define Your Goals

As the Cheshire Cat says to Alice, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” If you have no idea what the goals of your company are, how can you measure success? More importantly, how can your employees measure success? If you don’t define goals for your company, your employees will think success is simply the monetary gain they get from working for you. But if you have a goal in mind you can solidify their purposes and work together to reach the end. To galvanize your goals, post them around the office and have monthly or quarterly meetings to discuss progress. Breaking down your goals into manageable steps will help your company focus on the job at hand. Read more…

Business Strategy, Success business, culture, employees, empowerment, growth, guest post, social agenda, Success

According to BlogPulse, there are now 150 million blogs on the Internet. And, that number is growing by 58,000 per day! What many people are discovering about having a blog is that traffic is not automatic. There are certain things we can do to increase the number of people who read our blog.

One of the best resources I have found is the Blog Success Manifesto from Erica Douglass. (Yes, it’s free. You can get it here.) Although there are millions of eBooks and blogs about getting more traffic, I found this one particularly good. There are quite a few reasons that I like this eBook.

Why is this a good resource?

Read more…

Accelerating Technology, Business Strategy, Dreams Come True, Great Books, Internet, Success blog, business, ebook, erica, free, google, readers, Success, traffic

Unfortunately for the American people, the U.S. national debt is approaching $14 trillion, and growing at a record pace. In fact, this works out to about $45,000 per citizen. This is far greater than the average savings of each citizen!

Are we bankrupt yet?

After ignoring the problem for decades, the media has finally begun to publicize the problem. And, the congress is actually considering doing something about fixing it. People say that democracy moves slowly, but if they take action within the next two years that would be great.

How are we ever going to get out of this debt?

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Business Strategy, Money, Success, US Economy bankrupt, business, debt, government, india, jobs, medicaid, Medicare, outsourcing, Social Insecurity, social security, trillion

After writing about our new hosting provider a few weeks ago, I have been thinking about the incredible empowerment that a blog delivers. For just $7 per month, you can deliver any content you want to anyone in the world with Internet access. This includes text, images and video.

You are probably saying, “So what? I already know that.” It seems obvious, but millions of people do not have a blog. In fact, most people do not have a blog. It allows us to share our ideas easily, effectively and quickly. And, it creates the opportunity to make money.

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Accelerating Technology, Business Strategy, Dreams Come True, Internet, Money, Success blog, business, change, empowerment, Internet, power, Success, technology, video

Huh? Sears and Facebook in the same sentence? Sounds weird, doesn’t it? Well, it’s true. Sears is gunning to be the next Facebook. It is integrating various social networking functionality into the shopping experience.

Sears may have been a boring old company in the past, but it is reinventing itself for the future.

Is this Social Shopping thing a good idea?

Read more…

Accelerating Technology, Business Strategy, Internet, Success, US Economy Amazon, blame, business, complaints, economy, facebook, fear, Money, online shopping, sears, social networking, Success