Chatroulette, for those who don’t know is the webcam network that lets you see and chat with complete strangers picked at random. It is the new web phenom and everyone is talking about it, from CNN to hallways in high-schools around the country. It is very easy to use the service, simply get on the site, activate your mic/cam and click next until you find someone you wish to chat to. Oh and one more thing, be prepared to encounter a host of disturbing images especially masturbating pervs. Of more interest to me is the fact that the service was developed by a 17yr old Russian school kid as a way to pass time with mates. Even he has no idea how the service has grown so much into some web heavy weight people can’t seem to get enough of.

While the idea itself seems pretty genius and really captivating, it’s the quantity of lewdness that turns people off. The lewdness is so much that you will certainly have a scarred mind at the end of your chatroulette experience. A friend of mine once described it as Russian roulette but with genitals rather than bullets. It’s almost impossible to get through 10 people without running into a perv! It’s that terrible. Even the founder, Andrey Ternovskiy, understands that his little project turned web phenom might be under threat of fizzling out should he not do something to stop the trend. But how can you fully get rid of these pervs? It remains to be seen what measures he will take.

On the other hand, Chatroulette does seem to be a brilliant little startup. It is very addicting and one can’t seem to stay away. The premise is that you get a random stranger in your screen everytime you hit next. It could be a guy, a girl or some weird picture/video playing. Either way, you don’t get to pick who you will chat to. The hype building around this little project hasn’t gone unnoticed however, investors are already looking to throw some money into the project and make it even bigger. I am anxious to see where they go from here with chatroulette, even though it shows traits of brilliance, it is still terribly marred and that could limit or completely halt its growth.

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While there’s no shortage of blog platforms out there on the market, most of them are basically a re-hash of the same old things. If you want simple blogging, options exist, but they are usually quite limited in what they let users do.

ReachBy.com is a simple blogging platform with some new and unique advantages that make it a solid startup. After chatting a bit with Tolu, we came to think that the readers of Generation-Y Startup might be interested in hearing about it.

A beta version of ReachBy was recently released. Here are some reasons why we think it has a bright future ahead of it.

Reaches a Wide Market

ReachBy provides features for new bloggers and savvy pros alike.

For those new to blogging, a ReachBy “Stream”, as they’re called, is a compelling place to start an adventure into the blogosphere.

We know that setting up and designing a blog is confusing for many people new to the practice. People simply don’t want to invest time or money into starting a blog, especially when they don’t know if they’re going to stick with it. A ReachBy Stream makes it easy. You just sign up for an account and then you’re basically ready to go. You can upload your avatar and a background picture to customize your Stream, similar to Twitter.

Experienced bloggers might be interested in ReachBy, too, since the dynamic interaction platform allows readers to contribute their own blog posts to a Stream. With this, you can take content contributions from anyone, without having to give them sign-in access to your blog. It’s similar to posting on someone’s Facebook wall. But, in this case, bloggers can take contributions from readers or other writers, then edit the content and post it. Of course, the system also allows readers to comment on posts.

For example, let’s say your favorite rock band is the Kings of Leon and you decide to start a Stream about them. Then readers and other contributers can add updates, performance reviews, post videos, discuss the latest album, etc. Basically, anyone can add to the Stream of content, and you act as editor to make sure all the content is the right fit.

Social Integration

All of the ReachBy pages have social sharing tools embedded — a must have for any great blog platform today, but something that can be too complicated for some people to do on their own.

ReachBy also lets you promote your Twitter or Facebook page, or even other websites and blogs, by adding social icons links to your Stream. We’ve made this easy for anyone to do. Just paste a link and the icons are automatically added.

Because it integrates with social media so well, we think ReachBy can play an in-between role. Meaning, in addition to serving as a full-service blog, it can also act as a place to continue conversations and create connectivity between social media and blogs.

User Centric Approach to Ads

There have been other blogging startups based on interacting communities — like Vox. I was actually a Vox beta tester in ‘06. Vox is a great site, with great designs. It was developed by Six Apart, which is obviously one of the best startups in the past decade, so I’m not out to knock Vox. It was, and still is, a lively, fun community. However, the thing that always bothered me about Vox was that they put ads up all over my content. I had no control over it whatsoever and I began to feel exploited. At least Squidoo shares ad revenue.

ReachBy gives you full control over whether or not ads appear on your Stream. If you do decided to put ads up, guess what? You place them with your own AdSense account. Meaning, if there’s revenue made from ad traffic, you keep all of it. ReachBy places its own ads on some main pages, but it doesn’t touch one penny of income that you might generate from visitors to your Stream.

We think this is a good way to attract and motivate users. We’ve made the process of placing ads on your Stream as simple as possible.

Usefulness

We can think of many ways that experienced bloggers might make use of a ReachBy Stream.

Let’s say you develop an open-source web app or a Wordpress theme, but already have a website with information and download links for your product.

A ReachBy Stream might act as a place to get collective feedback and discuss future enhancements. It can also serve as a location for users to crowdsource solutions and help each other out with answers. Basically, you can use ReachBy as a forum on anything, then link it all back to your home website, Twitter account, and Facebook fan page. This gives you an instant way to provide support and communicate openly with your users, without having to give out your email, invest money, or spend a lot of time developing a wiki or forum on your site. Plus, if your Stream builds an audience, you can capitalize on it with ads. This is a better route than opening a Google or Yahoo discussion group. You have more control and you can make money.

Also, because the ReachBy technology platform was designed to be lightweight and fast, it loads very quickly on mobile devices. If you save a ReachBy Stream as a bookmark on the home screen of your iPhone or iTouch, ReachBy uses the avatar image from the account to automatically generate an icon with that image. Pretty fun.

More Features Coming Soon

Since ReachBy is run by a small nimble team, we’re working to make it even more interactive and dynamic. Some very novel and very cool ideas are being developed, and hopefully, we’ll be able to release them soon.

What Do You Think?

If you have a chance to visit ReachBy.com, we’d love to know what you think of the site and how we might improve it. In fact, we’re looking for beta testers to give us some feedback, so if you have a moment to help us out, we’d love to hear your thoughts. We appreciate any help we can get in our work to make ReachBy better.

I’d also like to thank Tolu for giving us a chance to tell you about ReachBy!

Image by wilbertbaan via Flickr

Over the past few months, I have learned a whole lot as I continued building my startup and consulting for a brilliant company already making waves in the real-time tech industry. I have drawn inspiration from several sources and the experience I have gathered from all the startups I have worked with is immense. Last month I received dozens of emails from young Entrepreneurs who have built or in the process of building their own companies asking to get featured on the site but I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready to fully open the doors to accommodate these requests. When I started Generation Y Startup, my idea was to constantly document my experiences as I consulted for several startups and built mine. I have been able to meet a decent number of awesome people via this site and the connections I have made are invaluable! I am truly pleased to been involved in the capacity of Founder of this website- turn- company.

After all the emails and tweets I received last month especially, It got me thinking about how I can use genystartup help new Entrepreneurs and if I wanted to be the “TechCrunch for Gen Y startups” as one of the e-mails I received stated. Early this week I finally decided to go fully into being a news/information source for Gen Y startups rather than the typical documetary-style blog I had been running all along.

The site will now feature a number of breaking stories about startups by Gen-Ys, developing tech news etc… Every now and then I will post a story as I have been doing before but mainly we will have an editor to whom pitches, story ideas and so forth will be directed to. The new changes will be in effect starting from 25th of January, 2010 and so if you have anything to send in to us, we have started accepting stories, tips, news and pitches. Stories that will be featured on here will strictly be by merit and so any story will be reviewed and given an equal shot at making the site. Please direct all stories to entrepreneur@genystartup.com. For any other inquiries and opportunities, send your emails to info@genystartup.com

I have been unable to really blog as much as I would have liked to lately, but there’s a good reason. I have been quite busy with some consulting work I am doing for this amazing start-up called Gaucho and my own new venture: Videfy. The most important feature of these two startups is the real time capabilities they have both incorporated. If you have been paying attention to the developing trends in web2.0 these days, you’ll understand why. Everyone is starting to use the internet for everything: Moms who are looking to save and find coupons in stores can now find awesome deals by looking at the live savings stream specific to their location on Gaucho. Professionals who are looking to meet up with their friends for a couple after hour drinks can now look on loopt or foursquare to find out their location and prior movements. With videfy, Brands/companies will be able to keep a realtime interaction going with their many fans, update them on developments at the company via the most effective means of information dissemination…Video. With all the information being placed on the web, it’s no wonder everyone is looking to scrutinize them, get only those that matter to them and get them as soon as they are released.

Investors are also embracing this new trend. Ron Conway has been a big fan of startups that incorporate realtime features in their operations and it’s been evident on the two occasions I’ve heard him speak: TechCrunch50 and most recently Crunchup held in San Francisco a few days ago. Little advise to Entrepreneurs: Include Real Time in your startup. This is the time to do so!

Like i mentioned earlier, I am currently working on two innovative start-ups and I received couple of emails after a tweet I sent out some days back asking me about Videfy. I will write a detailed blog post about it soon, but in the meantime, I can tell you we are about 10 days from a beta release. Anyone, brand and studio is welcome to signup for invites and test it out.

On the other hand, happy thanksgiving to everyone! If you are looking for ways to save on black friday, there’s going to be a bunch of deals, coupons and stuff here.

Parting notes: Remember that Entrepreneurs are in it to come up with innovative ways to change the world, build something that makes people’s lives easier first and you will be rewarded for that.

Two years ago, I was watching the local news when an interesting and perplexing story took hold of the airwaves.  I looked up from my computer and read the headline on the screen:  “Girl Scout In Hot Water for Using Net to Sell Cookies.”  The news reporter then went on to discuss why this young girl was in such trouble.  As it turns out, the Girl Scouts of America strictly prohibits any sales method of the cookies that does not involve face-to-face interaction, citing the importance of that particular experience in the development of a young lady.  And that’s when it hit me:

What about those organizations that do not have those rules?  What about the organizations that are still relying on door-to-door sales?  Is door-to-door even really that safe anymore? Is door-to-door even scalable?  These questions, along with a hundred others, flooded my mind.  Despite this epiphany, though, I went back to my computer, the news rolled on, and like so many times before, I stored away these thoughts and forgot about them…that is, until about six months ago.

After graduating from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, with concentrations in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, I accepted a position at a boutique marketing strategy consulting firm.  It was here that I met a very important person: my business partner.

Next to my office was a guy by the name of David Adams.  David had graduated from Babson College after a rigorous curriculum of entrepreneurship and strategy consulting.  Full of energy, enthusiasm, and always big dreams, we immediately hit it off.  We’d hang out, grab a beer, listen to music, and probably most importantly, discuss business ideas.  David was one of those classic entrepreneurial inventors.  In addition to all of his early, successful endeavors while at Babson College, David had entrepreneurship in his blood.  His dad: a successful online floral retailer.  His aunt and uncle: the owner of a wildly popular coffee roasting operation that retails coffee in major grocery chains.

One day, David had casually mentioned that he was excited about an idea he had regarding the selling of artisan products from around the globe, with an overall goal of boosting the standards of living in many of the third world countries from which these products would be sourced.  To me, it sounded quite familiar:  the selling of goods online to raise money and benefit good people.  Conjuring up that Girl Scouts story two years ago, I immediately relayed to him the need that schools, organizations, and non-profits had for an online fundraising solution.  Suddenly it clicked for us at the same exact moment: “What about an online fundraising platform for worthy causes and non-profits?”  And thus, our start up, CauseShare.com, was born.

Since that day, CauseShare has evolved into a robust platform that not only allows people to raise money for a good cause through direct donations, but also through the sale of popular products, including chocolates, flowers, and many others.  With complete social media integration, and easy sharing capabilities, CauseShare empowers users to rally the support of their friends across their social networks. As we like to describe it, CauseShare is the first “people-powered fundraising tool.”  And what’s better, it exists completely online.  The reason for this? Well, with the ever-increasing number of people using the internet, and the increased role that the internet has in our day to day activities, the need for fundraising to adapt to this behavioral pattern is real.  But even more importantly, with more than 1.8 million non-profits (not including “worthy causes” as we like to call them here at CauseShare), the need for an affordable (CauseShare is free to use!), yet powerful, online fundraising tool is of the essence.  Few non-profits have the budget to afford the overly priced, overly fancy services that companies like Blackbaud offer.  The ones that cannot afford these services are part of the massive long-tail of non-profits and good causes that need a friend and partner in the constant struggle to raise money.  But yet, the big guys like Blackbaud ignore them.  One look at their product offering for smaller organizations, and you will see that Blackbaud has no interest in spending money on developing effective tools for the little guys.  Is that fair? Do the small non-profits’ causes matter less because they have a smaller budget?  We certainly don’t think so.

CauseShare is 110% committed to the little guys; to the small non-profits, the small causes, the 5k race in a town of 1,000 that benefits breast cancer, and the scholarship foundation set up in a boy’s name who was killed in a tragic car accident.  We aren’t for the big budgets, the fat wallets, or the big wigs.  We are for the everyday person, the head of fundraising for a small-town chapter of the SPCA, and the young girl raising money for her mom’s masectomy.

We fully intend to transform the way people raise money for causes that matter to them, and we are not afraid to say it.  CauseShare is the number one champion for small non-profits and independent causes, and we will never stop striving to provide good people with exceptional tools that help them reach their fundraising goals.  It’s time the little guys are given access to a tool that was custom built entirely for them.  And that tool is CauseShare.com.

And to all of our small friends out there: Consider the playing field leveled.

To learn more about CauseShare, we encourage you to explore the following sites:

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/CauseShare

Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/CauseShare

Website:  http://www.CauseShare.com

Founders:

David Adams (@dmadams2)

Mike Kiser (@michaelkiser)

For many Entrepreneurs, it’s inevitable, that day when you stand before someone that could very much change your life in an instant. Pitching investors could be rough, torrid but could also be very fulfilling. In my case, I am certainly keeping an eye out potential investors since I am gradually closing in on the “closed beta” launch of my startup. In my case, I will need a good number of servers, need to bring in two or three people to join the team and as such will be seeking Angel Investment. I will be inviting beta testers in December and in January, making it public. The goal is to have as many brands, individuals etc… connecting with fans/customers via video with real time features. This will obviously require manpower and Investor funds.

Over the past 3 weeks, I have been preparing myself for the inevitable, and thought I should share what I have decided to be the key elements to preparing an Investor pitch. It will be my second time pitching investors and so I sort of have an idea of the kind of questions to look out for, the way they want to be approached and what they want the pitch to contain.

First let’s understand two things, these days you could either get an investor to give you money in exchange for Equity (a percent of you dear company) or convertible debt (borrow money to be paid back -most times with interest- and can be converted into equity under the right terms). It’s up to you as an Entrepreneur to determine which route is best for you. Personally I wouldn’t take $1million in convertible debt, that’s way too much debt on you in only your first few months of being live. I have decided that for my startup, I will be giving away some equity in exchange for the funding I will be getting.

I paid close attention to TechCrunch 5o some weeks back and saw a lot of Entrepreneurs talk about their startups. They were pretty much mass pitching, to not only the investors in the room, but investors following on TV, twitter, livestreams and so forth, so it was essential to be on their game. I particularly liked RedBeacon’s pitch and if you are looking to pitch an investor someday, you should watch events like these. You learn the key elements of a pitch, what should be in and what shouldn’t be. Here are a few ideas for you. Before going in to pitch an investor,

1.) Make sure you can explain you startup’s service in a sentence or two. Ofcourse there’s more to your startup than you can convey in 2 sentences but believe it or not, you need a punchline or should I say punch-sentence, that concisely describes you. It’s attractive to investors, and even to other Entrepreneurs.

2.) Make sure you are pitching the right person. Take for example, say I am an investor and I am all about tech, web 2.0 and real time data stuff. Say my last 4 investments have been in Twitter, Gaucho, Loopt, MeetUp. Won’t it be ridiculous of you to come up to me with a pitch about a new bio company you are looking to build? I think it just makes you the Entrepreneur look lazy, ill prepared and lacking focus…all traits of people Investors never want to do business with. So study the Investor, find out what they like to invest in, does your company fit well in his/her portfolio?

3.) Make sure you have a demo handy. It’s not enough to walk up to an Investor with just a biz plan and executive summary. Take a leaf out of Aaron Patzer’s book, carry you written pitch handy as well as your laptop to do a demo for every Investor you run into. Investors are easier to convince when you show them images and how things work than just a theory.

4.) Go prepared! There are those few questions that EVERY investor asks. Before you go in, make sure you’ve come up with a good answer for each. You don’t want to be stumbling on words or staring at the ceiling when they ask you a question, it shows lack of confidence and poor preparation. Maybe you need to watch sharktank a bit more to understand the workings of Investors if you are new to it, but they always want to know about the founders, the team behind the company, how do you intend to market the product? who is your competition? how will you keep your competition beneath you? how will you be making money? etc etc…

Finally, remember that investors are in business to make money too, so they will only invest in what they believe will benefit them. Does your company have a strategy that lets you and your financial backer make some profit in the end? This tremendously improves your chances, especially if you are already making money with that strategy. I will keep you up to date as things move along at Videfy. In the meantime I want to give special mention the the Gen Y startup of the week: CauseShare, a social fundraising platform built by Michael Kiser and Dave Adams. Thumbs up guys! keep it up.

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Ideas are the center of all the growth we have been able to achieve since making fire and the wheel all the way to iPhones and SUV’s. Someone had an idea to improve their lifestyle or the life of others and then put that idea into motion. More often than not we are seeing young entrepreneurs start to talk to each other, in classes, networking events, dorms and bars about ideas. What starts as chatter is starting to become reality with the way Gen-Y has taken an interest to entrepreneurship.

Our latest endeavor, the Rock Star Business Series, started as a conversation I had on the phone with Matt from Under30CEO. We were chatting about college students and how many of them are not as keen on the whole personal branding, social media thing that we are accustomed to with the outspoken group over at Brazen or 20 Something Bloggers. For how many people are using these new tools to find great opportunities, network and form business relationships, there are that many more that are job board hopping and hoping that something falls in their lap.

This conversation led to a business idea that was put together over 2 weeks. We plopped up a site, leveraged our networks and had sales coming in seconds after the sales page went live. Nice conversation, right?

The key here is that we spoke up. Many times people keep their ideas bottled in, thinking they are not good enough, or people won’t “get it.” They will.

They will because deep down we all want to be part of the conversation. We want to be in the loop and use our own connections or ideas to help out. This is evident in many businesses that are starting at colleges and universities across the world right now. Kids are using strength in numbers to kick start their business and most times do not look at it as a business, but as a project. Something fun to pass the time with friends and make some happy hour cash.

Gen-Y is an extremely collaborative group. We team up for sports, book reports, science fairs and our parents combined with genius marketing developed the “buddy system” for going to the mall or parks. Now that we are evolving and getting into situations where we can use our talents and ideas to make changes in business, we are looking to friends and other like minded Gen-Y’s to start companies with.

But, how do we get the conversation started?

The first step is to be proactive with your idea. You do not need all the answers as to how it will work to start talking about it. You only need a concept and an approach to bring it up. Getting the idea out in the open will allow others to give feedback, direction and to see if its realistic or not.

The way to take your idea to the next level is to know who you want to tell. If you are a marketing guy with a software idea, you need to start chatting with programmers, IT pros and others that can give you feedback and ideas. You can meet these people online, at networking events or in the classroom. When I needed a team of developers for an idea I had, I stalked the Computer Science building for a few hours with fliers and handed them out after every class. I organized a quick meetup at the sandwich shop on campus and got a few people to really weigh in on the idea. It was a great success and helped us solidify our startup concept.

Use online collaborative tools. For the new Rock Star course we have sent surveys to people we think are potential customers to get feedback and ask questions about the material. We have opened up the doors to previous customers and partners to test drive the platform and used things like Google Docs and forums to get people involved and testing out the concepts. There are tons of tools from communication platforms like Yammer to Basecamp to mind mapping software like MindMeister that can get others involved in the process without having to bend over backwards to give their input.

Once you have the conversation started, be sure to capitalize on the excitement and put your words into action. The best time to get active is when there is a spark about the project. Keep the good vibes and motivation going in order to blast off and start testing the idea, the product and the startup. In today’s economy, you can afford to get things to market quickly, test, test so more and then deal with the business end.

So, what’s your idea and how can we get you started? I’d love to help out in the comments.

This guest post was written by Greg Rollet, a Gen-Y Entrepreneur and Internet Marketer. His new course, the Rock Star Business Series, helps Gen-Y build their brand and their business with online tools and resources. You can also follow him on Twitter, @g_ro.

Photo by darek.zon

This brilliant post was written by Donna Fenn, I highly encourage you to pick up her book Upstarts!

Small business owners are typically an optimistic lot, even in the face of dismal economic conditions. But a recent American Express OPEN Small Business Monitor survey found that GenY entrepreneurs are more optimistic than most. “More than three-quarters (80%) of these entrepreneurs have a significantly more positive outlook on business prospects versus GenX and business owners overall (each 55%), and Baby Boomers (52%),” the survey noted. GenY business owners were most  likely to be hiring and making capital investments, and least likely to have cash flow issues and to be “stressed out” about the economy.

Those findings didn’t surprise me in the least. Last spring, as I was wrapping up my book, Upstarts!: How GenY Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business (McGraw-Hill, 2009), I decided to do a short survey of the 150 young entrepreneurs I had interviewed. Among other things, I wanted to know how they were surviving the recession. Here’s what I found among the respondents: 20% said the recession had actually been good for their companies; 32% said they had felt very little impact; 44% said revenues would be lower in 2009 but that their companies were stable; and only 5% said they had taken a big hit and were barely hanging on.

When I followed up with some of them directly, it became clear that many entrepreneurs in this generation actually welcomed tough economic times. They said that the recession was teaching them the art of laser-like focus, and compelling them to make better decisions, to become more frugal, and to initiate systems and procedures that would help position them for economic recovery. Here are a few recession-trouncing strategies from Upstarts! that you can apply to your own company:

Pursue repeat business. It’s far less expensive to nail down repeat business from your existing customers than it is to land new ones. Now is the time to reap the benefits of those good customer relationships

that you’ve been cultivating over the past few months. At Undercurrent, a Manhattan-based digital marketing firm, co-founders Aaron Dignan and Josh Spear offer their young employees three levels of quarterly perks, depending on how many repeat business deals they manage to rustle up as a team. Three deals might earn everyone a Friday afternoon at the movies; six or nine deals could mean massages for all or a shopping spree at nearby Whole Foods. New rewards are offered every quarter to keep things interesting. The program keeps employees motivated and Undercurrent on the radar screens of important clients.

Focus on your core competency. Robert Weber’s company, W3i in Sartell, MN, markets third party computer applications and has been growing 53% a year. W3i continues to post significant gains this year because, Weber says, he had the foresight to eliminate divisions of the company that were hogging resources without generating significant revenue. He shut down a lead generation business and sold a mobile applications business “we never really figured out how to integrate into our main company.” With a single point of focus — “to be market leader in applications distribution” — Weber says the company is well positioned for growth this year.

Snap up top talent. Layoffs at big companies mean that there’s a surplus of great employees on the market now. Recently, Joel Holland, the CEO of Footage Firm, a Reston, VA company that sells stock video footage, put out the word that he wanted to hire a new head of web development and a top sales person. “I was shocked to get applications from executives who, in a better economic time, never would have taken my call, let alone responded to a job posting,” he says. “I hired a rock star web developer, and I’m in talks with a former hot shot at a major online media company to take the sales lead.” He’s also hired a part-time CFO, and picked up numerous talented freelancers — people

who would have been inaccessible in a better economy.

Respond rapidly to market shifts. The economy is almost certainly having a profound impact on you customers: they may have altered their purchasing habit, or found themselves with entirely different needs. It’s your job to respond to those shifts. Adelaide Lancaster and Amy Abrams, co-founders of Manhattan-based In Good Company Workplaces (IGC), run a membership organization that provides women business owners with shared office space. Previously, their clients were mostly mature, established business owners. But Lancaster notes that the recession has created more “entrepreneurs of necessity” and she’s seeing more opportunity for IGC among startups. So the company, which also offers consulting and educational programs to its members, has “begun to offer more start up oriented programs and an accountability group for folks that were more used to working in a structured environment and need help adjusting to working on their own,” says Lancaster. She and Abrams are also partnering with professional organizations that have traditionally catered to corporate women, but are now filled with people who have lost jobs and are considering starting companies.

Look for hidden sources of revenue. Sometimes your best source of new revenue is right under your nose. That’s what Talia Mashiach, the CEO ofEved Services in Chicago, has discovered. Mashiach’s company partners with hotels to provide their corporate clients with access to all the outside independent vendors they need to organize an event (such as florists, videographers, entertainment, transportation, etc.). Her competitive edge is the proprietary technology she developed to manage those vendors efficiently. The system works so well that Mashiach is now marketing it to other companies. “They’ll use our technology platform and pay us a transaction fee,” she explains. Also included in the package is access to an award-winning corporate university that Mashiach created for her own staff called Eved University. It’s not the revenue model what she had in mind when she first developed the technology, but it’s one that she now expects will spur significant growth for her company.

Author Bio:

Donna Fenn, author of Upstarts!: How GenY Entrepreneurs Are Rocking the World of Business and 8 Ways You CanProfit from Their Success and Alpha Dogs: How Your Small Business Can Become a Leader of the Pack, is a contributing writer at Inc. magazine. An expert on small business trends and entrepreneurship for more than 20 years, she is also a community leader on Work.com, a featured expert on SBTV.com, and a blogger on Inc.com. She lives in Pelham, NY, with her husband, Guian Heintzen, and is the proud mom of two GenYers.

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I read a book some years back while in college. At the time I couldn’t understand why my professor ( Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer, Chemical Engineering) would ask us to read it and write a paper about it. It seemed very strange and unnecessary to say the least. Today, 3 years later, I am glad I read this brilliantly written book called “The World is Flat” by a certain Thomas Friedman. The book focuses on how the world’s work dynamic was changing and how companies were starting to seek/use the best talent from around the world rather than in their home state or country.

If you ever wondered why your HP customer service rep or Jet Blue customer rep (mistakenly) says “hello good morning” when it’s still 7p.m. your time and seems to have a rather exotic accent, it’s because the World is flat! Companies are starting to seek out people who are just as competent, if not more competent, to do the same task at a much cheaper rate. I mean come on, some guy says he’ll charge you $15/hour to be your assistant, while another steps up to the plate and offers to carry out the same services for $7/hour and do it just as well, won’t you be fascinated? even if you will probably never see this person? even if the only way you’ll send out tasks and receive answers is via email or skype?

I remember when I was looking to build a social networking site for my fellow chemical engineers around the country to keep in touch, I walked into a web services company office in Maryland where I was going to school at the time and pitched my idea. I am not a programmer, neither am I a designer who will deliver the results I was interested in. I am decent at best and that doesn’t cut it, so I needed someone else to do it for me. They told me it would cost $6,000. I thought they were taking the mickey out of me, but they weren’t pissing around. That’s how much they wanted. Then I checked out ODesk, having read about it on Techcrunch. To cut the long story short, I found a guy who did a good job for $1000. While the site did well, I had bigger dreams for it. I am working on making it more than just one major. I want a Biology major to sign on in UCLA and open his chat box on the site, find a fellow Biology major at the University of Maryland (who he has added, because they are the same major, or are in the same Sigma Alpha Lambda Frat) and ask him for help with a question he has about chromosomes. That’s what I want for the site. By the way, If you are interested in being a part of the (re)building process of this project, you are welcome to email me : tolu at genystartup dot com and we will see what we can do. Back to my story before I drifted, I basically saved $6k by outsourcing!

If you are a new Entrepreneur, you will have a hard time getting people to fund you, you will have a hard time convincing quality potential employees to come on board and make history with you, this is why you must outsource. I have a friend who owns his own small design company. He works out of his mom’s basement in Towson, MD. He makes about $9k every month and has two employees. He has never met any of them. Nirali is his personal asst./secretary/blogger/utility player, she’s based in Bangalore, India and according to him ” she kicks serious butt”. When he needs something done, he emails her the tasks, and when he’s up in the morning the completed tasks are waiting in his inbox…thanks to the big time difference between both countries. While he’s sleeping, it’s day time  for Nirali and she’s hard at work. How effective. His other employee, Jon, is a freelance web designer based in Shanghai, China. Whenever my mate has projects he can’t finish in the time allocated, he calls on Jon and together they complete the task. Both employees asked for $10/hour and do a great job. Sometimes I wonder that he’s taking advantage of them, but he mentioned how he never put a limit on their rate. He said he simply asked them what their rate was and they said $10/hour. The other good thing about outsourcing is you are not limiting your productivity or quality of results. You are not using the “best” talent in your home country of Australia (if you are Aussie) or England if that’s where you are from. You are looking for the best talent around the world and taking advantage of it. Crowdsourcing anyone?!

Starting out as an Entrepreneur could be rough, I experienced this first hand, you might have limited management experience, limited funds etc… Outsourcing is perhaps the way to go. It’s less expensive, less demanding and very productive if done right. Eventually as your company moves along and starts growing, you can start thinking of renting office space, hiring full time employees and expanding. But it’s a long hard journey before you get there, so in the meantime, Outsource!

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I have read many posts and heard alot of casts where people talk about quitting their day jobs or dropping off school to build their start-ups, that’s cool and all but make sure you take a minute or several minutes to rethink that decision. With the present state of the economy, I can see why anyone would give up on searching for a job and focus fully on their start-up. We’ve all read those fairytale stories of how Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to found Facebook, how Tim Ferriss quit his corporate job to build a successful business etc… but we never read those stories about how Joe dropped out of college to build a start-up but ended up homeless and hungry. The world we live in glorifies those success stories but forget the failures, not realizing how important it could be in teaching young Entrepreneurs to make the right decision.

If you feel as a young Entrepreneur that you have enough money to last you through your entire start-up process, then by all means follow your heart. The thing people don’t realize is that the money is not the only element of gain about having a job while chasing a start-up dream. If you know that your current job consumes too much of your time and you need to have a less demanding schedule, here’s a thought: find a part time job, a consulting gig at a start-up and keep a cashflow rather than giving it up all together. I always encourage Entrepreneurs to try associating themselves with other start-ups. If you can get a job at a start-up, try your best to! It’s a learning process that will prove immensely valuable. If you can’t get a full-time job there, truth is that a lot of start-ups outsource some aspects of their jobs – cease this opportunity, be active on their blogs and community, study their moves and make sure you learn something. It will come in handy. Here are some reasons why having a job helps your pursuit of start-up success:

1.) It keeps the money coming in. There’s always money floating around silicon valley and Investors are always looking for promising Entrepreneurs to invest in, BUT they are now very very careful with how much they spend. It’s more difficult to get money from investors these days if you are a first time Entrepreneur and the state of the economy can be blamed for that. Most Entrepreneurs have now turned to bootstrapping as the way of funding their business. How can you afford to bootstrap if you don’t have cashflow? even if you have money saved up somewhere, do you know how long that will last before you need more?

2.) It offers the opportunity to gain some useful experience. If you have a job whether in a start-up or not, you are bound to learn a thing or two that would be useful later on in your career as an Entrepreneur. You might find yourself learning how to manage other people, how to make the right business decisions, marketing and so forth. The possibilities are many. Now imagine if you were working at a start-up, you will see first hand what it takes to build/run a start-up. You are bound to learn important lessons, lessons like how to pitch investors, how to find the right work force, effective marketing strategy, carrying out customer tests etc..

3.) Having a job means Networking Opportunities. A lot of people associate Networking with having time to travel from event to event. On the job networking might be over-looked but there are many stories of people building relationships with co-workers, bosses or even clients and have gone on to build successful businesses with the help of these people. I can’t count how many ex-google employees, ex-paypal employees that have gone on to build start-ups that are performing better than okay at the moment. These people took advatage of the people they met while working at their old jobs and the results are obvious. So if you are a recent grad, it helps to atleast try looking for a job, rather than just focus fully on starting up a business.

4.) Having a Job means something to fall back on. Whether you like to hear this or not, most start-ups fail within the first year. I know every Entrepreneur believe it can’t be them, we all expect to succeed! After all we are the optimists and those investors are pessimists. But what if you do fail? what then? Having a job means something you can fall back on in this tough recession period where it’s more difficult to find a new job than it is for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle.

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