Smartlife

Ideas are exactly that — just ideas. On their own, they’re not going to be worth very much and they’re not going to carry much weight. An idea needs to be put in motion and it needs to be pointed in the right direction. You need a plan.

More specifically, you need a comprehensive business plan, complete with strategies moving forward and sales pitches to attract the right customers. This can sound incredibly daunting to novice entrepreneurs, but that’s where BizGym.com can lend a huge helping hand. Described…

QR codes (an abbreviation of “quick response codes”) were invented in 1994 by a subsidiary of Toyota Motors. They were originally designed to track car parts during the manufacturing process, but it quickly became clear that the technology could be re-purposed for a wide variety of uses.

Despite being around for over a decade, QR codes were a fairly obscure technology until the advent of smartphones made them a fairly common part of modern life. Marketers and technologists are experimenting with all sorts of different ideas to make the most…

Startups can have some special concerns when it comes to the process of getting a patent. Hiring a patent lawyer can get pricey, and there’s a lot of paperwork that you have to get just right so that the U.S. Patent Office doesn’t reject your application. But if you have a concept worth protecting, it’s important to get a patent — and it is possible to do so for a reasonable amount of time and money.

The Patent Process

When you apply for a patent, you’re asking the government to…

Ruby on Rails is an ideal framework for building web applications: it’s designed with rapid and flexible development in mind, making it a cost-effective option for getting a web application up and running quickly. Between the fact that Ruby on Rails is open source and it was developed to work with Agile software development methods, it can be a particularly useful framework for startups. That fact has lead more than a few Ruby on Rails developers to become very comfortable working with startups, even to the point of offering flexible…

In the past, you could market a new company by printing out a few business cards and passing the word that you were open for business. But as more startups rely on the Internet for marketing, the steps necessary to promote a company have evolved into a more complex effort. For each step of a product’s life cycle, there are corresponding steps you can take in your Internet marketing efforts to ensure the demand for your company grows.

As you introduce a new company or product, you’ll need to take…

As you work on your first startup, you’ll have questions. Working with a startup consultant can be a fast and effective way to get answers: a consultant can provide concrete guidance on methods to reduce the costs of creating a new business whole, finding capital, developing a business plan, and more. A good startup consultant has worked with several new businesses — ideally, he’s even started a few companies of his own — and can recognize potential problems far in advance. While a startup may not be sure that a…