Posts Tagged ‘Small Business’

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting an art gallery here in New York City. The artist’s exhibit was a group of beautifully done photographs that he took of wild life on a remote island. They were extraordinary, breathtaking even. But they were also VERY expensive.

The photographs ranged from $6,000 – $75,000 or more. The price blew me away! $6,000 for a picture?? So, my friend and I proceeded to question the gallery worker as to how the artist sets his prices. The worker, an extremely well informed young lady, explained to us the process that the artist goes through to make the prints. It is painstakingly hard, and takes a great amount of effort, time and cost. After the explanation, the prices that were set seemed very fair and made a ton of sense. That’s the sign of someone who is really good at what they do after all – making your output look effortless even though it is of high quality. That is how I look at myself as a User Experience Designer.

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Thanks to the web there are a myriad of options available to small business entrepreneurs to connect, network and market their business.

Professional networking sites such as Linkedin and personal networking sites such as Facebook are helping small business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals connect and network with colleagues, customers and friends.  However, as a small business entrepreneur one of the most effective means of marketing has always been in person connecting and networking.

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As a second follow-up to my original piece two weeks back on “Funding for the Rest of Us Entrepreneurs”, I would like to discuss a second area of alternative funding, that being the Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI).  CDFIs provide financial product and services to people and communities underserved by traditional financial institutions.  They normally work in low wealth areas and can take many forms (ex. banks, credit unions, micro-lenders, etc.).

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Ever since having the opportunity to work with a startup back in the early fall, I’ve jumped on any chance I’ve had to do so again. I loved the atmosphere and the people, but most of all I loved the freedom with which to try and adapt the User Experience practices that I’ve been learning for so long.

Many of the people in my field migrate towards full-time work with established companies, because they desire the security that that type of work brings them. That is all well and good until the complaints about not being respected and not having the opportunity to be innovative and to learn begin. Very slowly, but surely, a change is beginning in the user experience world, and it is one that you as an entrepreneur or small business owner should not only be aware of, but should take advantage of.

User experience professionals are starting to talk about the joys of working with smaller companies and startups… and a very, very early migration has started towards that direction.

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I received a comment to last week’s blog, “Funding for the Rest of Us Entrepreneurs”, asking for specific alternative lending sources that start-ups could access.  I had mentioned peer-to-peer financing as a potential funding growth area.  Peer-to-peer financing or crowd financing are financial transactions between individuals without the intermediation or participation of a traditional financial institution. Peer-to-peer financing can take the form of debt, equity or grants.

Peer-to-peer lending sites registered with the SEC, such as Prosper and Lending Club, have become viable funding sources for debt capital, with $196 million and $113 million funded loans to date. This past week’s announcement that Diaspora.com, a proposed Facebook alternative, had raised more than $100K in pledges in less than 12 days on Kickstarter.com increased awareness and greater hope for peer-to-peer pledged capital.

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