There is and will always be a debate among entrepreneurs on when is the right time to purchase your business cards. There are some who believe that it is a waste of money and time because it does not directly add to their product or service. My opinion from experience is that if you plan on interacting with people at all (99% of entrepreneurs will be) then you must get your business cards early on. Business cards are very inexpensive online and very straightforward to purchase so there is no real excuse as to why anyone should not have them besides laziness. Your business card is what people will remember you by; it is a small representation of you when you are not there. It’s ok to try and cut back on silly spending and focus your resources on what’s best for the company, but there is a difference between being a savvy cost cutter and a cheap one.

We’ve now had 3 interns at bongobing, so I thought I’d share some of our lessons learned. There is a big difference between hiring an unpaid intern and a paid one. Not because the quality of their work is any different (although many times it is), but because the expectations may be different. The interview needs to be a mutual interview and not just you pushing information onto them and hopping that they agree to it. You need to make sure that the candidate is a right fit with the culture of the company and that they are doing it for the right reasons. Wrong reasons to get an unpaid internship: (1) my parents said that I had to do something, (2) my friend works there too, (3) I’ll be able to kill some time and have something to do. Great reasons to get an unpaid internship: (1) I am very interested in the field and don’t care about getting paid because I’m still in school, (2) I’ll be able to get my foot in the door and hopefully have a job after I graduate, (3) I don’t know much about the industry, but have a good work ethic so I’ll give it a shot. Your job as the interviewer is to identify why the candidate is trying to get the internship. Ask a lot of questions and try to do more listening than talking.

We are finally far enough along with technology that sending out holiday invitations for Thanksgiving and Christmas is as easy as abc! Do not plan on making some fancy design yourself for each individual holiday card because it will take you forever. Instead, use the web and its powerful technology to make the invitations for you! There are sites out there now that can help make your holiday invitations a piece of cake. We at bongobing have decided to go the tech route and electronically do the creation of the cards and the shipping to every individual family member of ours. The holidays are about having fun and getting together with your family, not about sitting there and slaving away on invitations for days. This holiday, be smart and go online!

As many of you know, part of bongobing’s strategy is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) so I thought I would share some tips. First, there is onsite and offsite SEO both of which do involve a great deal of work. As a whole, SEO comes down to producing relevant content for your users and getting inbound links from around the web. If you have great content, people will link to you and you will rank higher on search engines. Onsite SEO involves the building of that content whether by you or your users. Offsite SEO involves getting the word out about your product or service so that people start talking about it and linking to it from across the web. Despite what many people believe, Google is fair and very algorithmic based so there is no “maybe they don’t like my site”. If you have great content and make some noise on the web about your product you will have a successful SEO strategy.

As a fulltime entrepreneur you have to do a lot with very little. In order to successfully continue as an entrepreneur, you must cut costs and KEEP THE CASH on hand. The best policy is to identify need to have and want to have items because they are almost never the same. Learn how to identify these things for your personal life and you’ll be able to do the same for your business. It’s been very helpful to us to have a strict budget that we live by as a company and as individuals. The budget needs to be realistic, but can’t be the equivalent of 100k a year because that’s a little high (obviously). We set our budget at 2x rent which is pretty fair and allowed us a tiny amount of play money and enough to eat and live while working full time on our venture. The most important thing to remember is to stick to the budget regardless of what it is and keep an eye on the cash because that’s your lifeline.

My biggest drawback has always been my inability to stay focused on a boring task, but it is something that we must all do. The way that I’ve grown to deal with it is by using the same thought process everyone goes through right before they go into a pool and are afraid of touching the cold water. I sit there and first think to myself “I don’t really need to do this now”, but then I say to myself “just do it” (like the Nike slogan) and jump in; before you know it you’ll be done. I’ve been trying out this “just do it” lifestyle for about a month now and have to say that it really works. After a week or two of “just do it” you won’t even think about it, it’ll become habit. Staying organized and focused is all about doing the little boring things that need to be done every day in order to move forward, so “just do it”.

First off, don’t pick a card just because it’s “cute”, there are many factors to consider when picking out the perfect card for someone. Consideration #1: who is the Christmas card for, co-worker, family member or friend? If it’s a family member, then you are ok regardless of what you pick because they’ll appreciate the thought behind the card more. If it’s a co-worker, you have to take into account whether or not they even celebrate Christmas, and what you write on the card needs to be simple and to the point. If the card is for a friend, you should probably mention a fun time that you had together and throw in a funny joke. Consideration #2: should there be a present with the card? Presents (unless they are very inexpensive) should be reserved for only family and friends. Final consideration #3: deliver the card personally or by mail: of course if you are too far from someone then you have to choose by mail, but when it comes to your co-worker you should always stop by their cubicle and deliver it to them in person. Good luck finding the perfect Christmas card!

It’s that time of year and everyone is worrying about what presents to get for their friends and family. Personally, I think that a heartfelt Christmas card goes a long way. You would be surprised as to how good you can make someone feel with just a few scribbles on a card letting them know that you appreciate them. At bongobing, we’re getting all of our co-workers Christmas cards just to let each other know how much we enjoy working together. I’ve always debated if the card should be an e-card or a physical card, but I’ve come to realize that the act of actually writing it yourself by hand means a lot to people. I’m looking forward to this Christmas, let the holiday shopping begin!!!

Promotional Christmas cards are a great way to stay in touch with your mailing list, frequent customers or future prospects. When designing your holiday cards, it’s a good idea to remember that many other businesses also use seasonal cards for promotion—how can you make your holiday card stand out from the rest? There are a few techniques you can use to set your own campaign apart. What are the trends among your competition? Do they send out Christmas cards with conservative designs and muted colors? Or do they take the opposite approach? One way you can compete is by going in the opposite direction as your business peers.

Another good option is to examine the contents of those custom holiday cards. Do your fellow businesses offer simple “Season’s Greetings” messages? If so, they’re missing an opportunity to drive more traffic to a website or bricks-n-mortar business. Include a call to action in your custom holiday cards. The card that doubles as a discount coupon ensures at least a portion of your recipients will hang on to it instead of filing it away with the rest. If your custom Christmas card doubles as an invitation, you’ve created something that is both a thoughtful gesture and possible keepsake—many people save their invitations to special events, and your holiday card could remain in-house far longer than those of your competitors. There are many such ways to make your cards distinctive, it all depends on the kind of business you want to promote.

Things have been hectic over the past few days with the holiday shopping season creeping up and the bongo team working as hard as possible to get the site ready for the upcoming wave of traffic. On a more positive note, I’ve learned a bit about myself and what I’m good at as an entrepreneur. When it comes to starting and operating a high tech business you must have the following: (1) tech person who can make changes on the fly to the product, (2) sales/marketing person who can keep revenue/investment coming in and (3) a stellar operations person who can keep an eye on all the little things that will come back to haunt you if left unattended. I’ve always admired the tech development side of things, but have come to realize that in order to become a good entrepreneur you have to be honest with yourself about what you are and are not good at, and for me my strength is not in inventing tech, but doing the sales & marketing for it. Key things to take away: (1) make sure you have tech, operations and sales & marketing people on the team, (2) know which one you are and which one you are not. Until next time, keep on building.