It’s been a roller-coaster of emotions; ups and downs that make you feel alive and sometimes wish you were dead.

I’ve made a lot of bad decisions, most of which I like to think I’ve learned from, and I’ve gotten lucky a couple of times.

More than anything, I’ve learned that the people you choose to work with, whether it be partners, employees, advisers, vendors, or clients, have such a profound impact on your success – that I decided to write this post.

If you’ve already taken the plunge and gone out on your own, you already know how terrifying it is to scale your client base, make payroll, pay rent (both for your home and work space), and the uneasy feeling when you know it’s time to fire a client.

Nothing really gets easier over time, you just get better at predicting outcomes, and hence not making as many poor decisions.

Where It All Started

It was the summer of 2008 and I was running web operations at a wonderful little non-profit.

The husband of the lady I was working for was someone I looked up to and came to consider one of my first mentors, his name is Will Bast and he had been running his own successful businesses for over a decade.

Over the course of the year or so I was at the NFCA, Will and I became friends and I began to do some SEO consulting for his company. As the volume of consulting work continued to grow, I had some tough decisions to make…

I was 23 years old, had a great job with great people, and my biggest financial risk was some credit card debt (and I’m proud to say, not very much).

After some frank discussions over a series of lunches with Will (and some arduous conversations with my father), I decided I would tap a couple of my friends for input on starting a company.

Through mutual friends I found a PHP developer and a very talented Software Engineer. After weeks of conversations and a 5 day off-site for planning, we decided to start a web marketing agency.

We formed the LLC, got business cards printed, and took office space in Ambler, PA in the same building as Will’s company.

The Evolution of an Agency

One year in we were not the same company we started out as. Our customers had shifted to be far more design-centric and our digital marketing engagements ballooned to require my full attention.

On top of all of this we had grown from 3 to 5 people, and were starting to land more clients in the Philadelphia area, which at the time was roughly 40 minutes away from our office.

We rode out our lease in Ambler and in the spring of 2010 bit the bullet for some shiny new space over-looking City Hall.

We were pretty excited.

Revenues continued to double and triple and we were landing bigger and bigger clients, and started to bring in some top tier talent.

By the beginning of 2011 we had a solid design, development, and marketing team, and were the agency of record for a handful of large companies.

Then something changed.

An Opportunity Arose

I was getting burned out on client work.

The thrill of working on new projects and landing new clients was all well and good, but I had an itch to build something of my own – something that would put my skills to the test and allow me to reap the benefits; I wanted to sell products.

It wasn’t about being selfish, it was about recognizing opportunity and a need for change.

I’m of the mind that if you don’t like doing something anymore, you shouldn’t do it. Call me cold, but this is why I don’t feel bad for people when they whine about not liking their job… get another one.

And really, I just fucking hate excuses.

So I met a guy with an idea.

It was an idea I very much liked and thought would be the perfect opportunity for me to put both my marketing and management skills to a real test, and take the biggest risk I had faced in my professional career.

I was terrified… I had never built something like this before, let alone had a large sum of someone else’s money to do it with.

This was to be my first funded venture, where I was the technical founder and the CEO, and so Factor Media was born.

The Road to Product Development

Project planning commenced in July 2011 and we launched the project January 1st 2012.

By the beginning of Q2 I had to begin scaling a content team and we quickly grew to 32 employees.

We saw massive growth and within 12 months managed to break the 500,000 visitors per month threshold, capturing over 2 million visitors in 2012.

During a board meeting late in the 2nd quarter our monthly burn rate came up in discussion, after all scaling to a team of 30+ people is not cheap, and this wasn’t my money…

Taking a close look at how our traffic was growing, I was forced to take a hard look at our production, and make some rough decisions.

It seems that not many people really talk about the dark sides of being an entrepreneur, which seems to be even darker when the project is funded by outside sources.

I had to slow the burn. I had to fire people.

For anyone reading this who has ever had to fire anyone (especially a friend or someone who has become a friend) it sucks. It really, really sucks.

We had designed and built a very popular website that was continuing to grow in the double digits month over month, so why were we scaling back?

Analysis showed that the site’s architecture and content support system didn’t require all of the resources we had. We had, to some extent, built a system that could sustain and thrive on it’s own… where in some backwards vacuum the bigger and better the website did, the less people it required to run it.

Not Skynet… but close.

Even I became a line-item that was no longer necessary.

In June 2012 we re-structured the company and by July I was no longer the CEO, taking a board role and overseeing operations via emails and meetings.

Leaving Something You Started

The real kicker here is neither of my 2 founding projects resulted in an exit, well not yet. So it’s pretty weird to talk about jumping ship when it’s not based on the 2 most common outcomes:

1. An exit, or
2. The Ship is Sinking

But that’s what I did.

Leaving my first company was a decision of passion and validation, but leaving my second company was out of entrepreneurial responsibility; the company outgrew it’s need for me.

Ultimately, the latter situation has been going very well – which if you had asked me about in July of last year, I would have been explained differently.

It’s humbling to realize your child has out-grown you.

The Progression Over Time

I’m freaking lucky.

I was presented an opportunity to become a partner at a company doing some big things and working with people that I am continually learning from.

Furthermore, I’ve found that being part of a community is something very important to me, and the joy that comes from working in the company of brilliant people adds more quality to my life than anything I could hope for.

Here’s to the next 5 years!

As I’m sure almost anyone reading this blog already knows, 2009 marks a major benchmark in search engine technology advancement. As of 2009 google (other major search providers of course following suit) has begun to display search results differently then it has in the past. After insight from a test group, behavioral search is already in the works.  

Google is making another change, so what?

 They constantly refine their search algorithm to make the most “relevant” search results display for each query, so what’s the big deal if they simply make ANOTHER change?

This change impacts all the work that many companies, teams, and individuals have poured blood, sweat, and tears into; SEO the way it has come to exist up until this point. I know what you’re thinking, “what is he talking about – when I search for something I am still finding what I can, reasonably perceive, is the most relevant results.” Yes, but… Those results are going to become increasingly altered to fit into what the search engine believes is the most relevant search result for YOU!

Great right? Sure, but…

What does this mean for companies who have grinded their teeth and pulled out hair (not to mention probably spent a butt load of money) to make sure their website comes up in the top results when you, Joe Shmoe, searches for diamonds…

It means they may not be there. Behavioral search is intuitive to it’s name, it is based on user behavior. Huh? How does the search engine know my behavior? Simple. Cookies, web cache, and actions taken when logged in (in this case to one of the largest user networks on the planet; Google™). You know that Google™ account you log into everyday to check your email, read news, go through your iGoogle™ widgets… Well, that’s ALL tracked!

A little scary, but the truth. Not only are all of your actions tracked and stored but they are done so in such great volume that Google™ is going to make a decision for you and decide what it is that YOU, most likely, are looking for. Practical application: you, Joe Shmoe, is looking for a diamond necklace for your beautiful soon-to-be doctor girlfriend. Now usually you’re a pretty cheap bastard, but in this case you want to really go over the top and get something exquisite… Well too bad.

Because you are such a cheap bastard on the regular, usually utilizing keywords in your search queries like cheap, low cost, and discount, Google™ is going to refine it’s search results to fit your usual pattern of search behavior. This shift in technology, in my opinion, is to combat the SEO industry (which has made almost as much money selling services that did not exist prior to Google™ as Google™ has on trying to combat it). What this means for SEO’s and major brand players is that sites are going to have to be much “thicker;” going above and beyond in the volume and quality of their content. Also, google and other search engines will be taking a deeper weighted look at website’s “neighborhoods,” or the sites within a particular websites link or content network.

The idea of the SEO neighborhood means that sites are going to have to re-evaluate who they link to, and who links to them. Overall the concept of an SEO neighborhood could be very beneficial, but we will wait and see…

Behavioral search isn’t the only new search engine technology effecting your search results – there is also blended search, which is used, but not for every query. Have you searched something recently on Google™ more than once, in a relatively short period of time, and were dealt a different hand of results then just a short while before? This is thanks to blended search, which does just that – blends a variety of search results from different sources; local, paid, directory, video, etc. Blended search seems to be running rampant in local search results in particular. In some of my recent searches with a geographic focus (philadelphia, conshohocken, etc.) the local search results will display next to an interactive google map, just the same as if you had clicked the local option from the google navigation. In some cases, and this is where I’ve seen inconsistencies, google will display results it deems to have a greater relevance/authority (who knows which) above the local results. I bet you have also noticed (if you’ve done some searching in ’09) that mixed media will also be displayed sometimes. I’m not talking about the offers and promotions that show up just under, or in some cases above, the sponsored results – I mean the books, videos, interviews, and biographies that show up on the top and bottom of the results page.

So what does this all mean? Well, if you’re an SEO or you offer managed SEO solutions – I hope you have something else up your sleeve, if you’re a cheapskate by tradition – have fun searching for expensive items, and if you’re at work for ABC Paint Company searching for paint stripper on your laptop while at work (on the companies network)but happen to enjoy pornography while logged into a google (at some point) - hopefully you have an office with a door:)

The trick is to create the content first – get your ideas across as clearly as you can. This can often times be the hardest part, writing succinct content that is understandable and comprehensible. Once you have conveyed your point and edited edited edited, then go back and work in some keywords that are relevant to the context at hand.

For example, if you are writing a post about laying out office space for maximum useable space and aesthetic appeal – work in keywords such as space planning, interior design, efficient utilization, etc. The idea is not to keyword stuff, but to explain in more literal obvious terms what it is you’re referring to.

SEO is a tricky bastard, the rules are relatively simple:

1. Maintain relevancy across title-tags-H1 through h3-content.
2. Make sure your keyword density is no more or less than your competitors
3. Build valuable, fresh content every day (yes, every day)
4. And last but certainly not least, build quality links (not from link farms and not purchased)

The trick for creating Search Engine Optimized content is applying variations of these rules but maintaining a white hat approach, i.e. do not stuff keywords in awkward places (it drives down your Flesch Reading Ease Score), do not purchase links or post links on link farms, do not vote for your own content on social bookmarking sites, do not syndicate content from other sources unless you quote it (duplicate content is looked down upon by the Search Engine crawlers), Keep your titles relevant to the content that is presented, and lastly title your sections if necessary – break them out with bigger bolder text titles.

Also keep in mind that copywriting for SEO on a blog is much different then doing so on a more traditional website – after all a blog is comprised of posts that you can individually optimize, where as copy optimization for a static page requires modification of the title tags, meta tags, description, and then you need to sync up the H tags and the content so that it is all complimentary but not over stuffed…

Trouser syndrome is a malicious spiral that starts once you start slacking… it is a term I’ve given to the perpetual nature of procrastination. I myself have experienced this tragic ailment just this past month. If you look at the post before this one, it is dated three weeks ago…

There is just no excuse for this.

All of the typical lame responses immediately come to mind:

1. I’ve been too busy
2. I have not had anything useful/insightful to write about
3. I keep forgetting
4. I’ve been meaning to
5. I’ll do it later… (this could be the worst sign of the syndrome)

The very first item on this list is the only conceivable good excuse, except let us not forget – it is still just that, an excuse. I apologize for not writing any fresh content for 3 weeks. I even have some great topics that I’m excited to post about; Long-tailed keywords, baby-steps to small business success, timely invoicing, and when-needed small business outsourcing. These posts are coming, and soon I promise!

So…

Why haven’t I posted in 3 weeks? I have had some personal issues to deal with to be honest (moving, situation changes, and other projects that have required more than the usual amount of my time) the real truth of the matter is that the truly influential factor that has affected my recent activity here at 23Run is me.

When elements of your life outside of work take your mind (and worse spirit) out of your day-to-day successes (daily goals, i.e. posting to your informational blog) this is when it is in-fact most important that you stick to your guns…

You simply cannot let the slack build up. When you build up enough slack it is just like wearing pants that are getting continuously longer – you are forced to drag more weight around, not to mention there is now more surface area for more problems. In the literal sense more slack dragging on the ground gathers more unwanted items – you can see how I can relate this to life problems that build up when you procrastinate.

How do you get out of this funk? Some would say to take some time off – self reflect…

NO! Bad idea. You have already been taking time-off, that’s why you are in your current situation. Instead, try this – start doing something…

That’s right, start something – Put your head down and Do Work!

Do you have an idea/concept you have wanted to kick-start for a while? Or have you thought about re-vamping an existing project? A website? A blog? A customer relationship? Business cards? That client you engaged and never followed up with? The client you lost?

If you want to start (or at least look into) any of the above mentioned thoughts, this is what I am willing to offer…

-If it is a website or a blog (either new or existing) I will have my graphic artist design you a new piece of header artwork. (send along dimensions)

-If it is a customer relationship, I will provide free consulting advice on how to re-kindle and retain the relationship (send me the level of the contact, ie executive vs. manager and the B2C relationship you had)

-If it is your business cards, I will pass along your design requirements to my pals at Lafo Mozy

-If it is a client you lost, I will help you analyze the situation as to whether or not it is a client you should have (send me the details of the vendor termination, contributing factors, competitors engaged – if known)

If you would like to help me help you – simply comment on this post with the necessary information described above as well as your email address. Please allow 48 hours for response.

This is a limited time offer only, I would love to help all of you defeat your trouser syndrome, but I myself must get back to defeating mine. You will be surprised at the sense of empowerment and surge of energy you get from taking off your trousers.

This one is really solid too, which is of course expected since Aaron Wall had a hand in it. The guide stresses that SEO isn’t some crazy technical process – and that any motivated individual can accomplish their SEO goals (maybe not right away – but eventually)

I stumbled onto the guide during my daily visit to Aaron Wall’s blog while reading “How Much is a #1 Google Ranking Worth?“

-SIDEBAR- Aaron’s post about google has so much research in it (as expected) that I was immediately motivated to write this post. The information is available out there – just like you can find instructions on how to fly a helicopter – the reason i make the comparison is the similarity on the kind of information. You  can find theory and instruction, but until you start putting it into practice you don’t truly learn what works and what doesn’t, and having a guiding hand certainly helps (especially with Helicopters).

Change in Search Marketing Spending Planned for this year by U.S. Search Marketing Executives

No Change = 28%
Increase = 65%
Decrease = 7%

Viewing Email
64% of key decision-makers view e-mail on their Blackberrys or other mobile devices
69% of at-work users usually use their e-mail in preview panes
59% of online consumers routinely block images

Time-of-day Trends
The highest open rates during Q2 2007 were Wednesday (27%), Monday (26%), and Thursday (26%). The highest click-through rates were both Wednesday and Thursday (5%).
11a.m. and 4p.m. scored the highest marks for business-hour open rates (30%) and click-through rates (5%)
Click-through rates were between 4% and 5% during the workday, peaking at 7% at both 9 p.m. and 4 a.m.

SPAM Trends
79% of e-mail recipients said that if they don’t recognize a sender, they sometimes mark messages as spam.
20% of e-mail recipients said they use a spam button as a way to unsubscribe from messages or newsletters they’ve signed up for in the past.

Market Share Trends
Paid search is expected to total $15.5 billion in 2008, up 31.9% over last year
Source: eMarketer, January 2007More than 10 billion searches were conducted in the U.S. in January. Here is the breakdown of market share:
Google: 58.5%
Yahoo: 22.2%
Microsoft: 9.8%
AOL: 4.9%
Ask: 4.5%

Search Revenue
Worldwide search revenue will reach $30.5 billion this year, up from $26.2 billion last year
Search revenue will grow at an annual rate of 28% over the next four years, reaching $60.0 billion by 2011
Source: JPMorgan Chase Outlook Report, January 2008

Search is here to stay – and is growing by leaps and bounds; learn as much as possible!

Every time a new contractor would come in to do something he would ask them to also do something else (without charging any extra). Since he was willing to do this we were able to get a lot of things done for nothing that would have added up to a lot of additional money out of our pockets.

What you need to keep in mind whether it be dealing with contractors, sales people or other entrepreneurs is that you need to know what you want before you talk to them. Have a game plan ready, know where you are going to start and what compromises you are willing to make.

For our investment property, we mapped out a timeline and budget. The problem was to fix up the house the way we wanted, we would have to spend well over our budget or do the work ourselves but sacrifice our timeline.

To solve this dilemma, John talked a little with each contractor that walked through our door and got to know a little about them.

For example, he discovered the mold removal contractor had a spray texture gun he used whenever he had to patch holes in walls he tore through to get to mold.

By asking this contractor to spray a few extra areas while he had the gun out we saved a couple hundred dollars.

Lindsey reiterates one of the pillars of success that I have been stressing for a long time now, ask and you shall receive. It is absolutely unbelievable how may things you can get cheaper or a better deal on, simply by asking. Do you realize that you can go into a Best Buy, and after only maybe 30 minutes of online research and a phone call or two, save potentially $500+. How?

Easy. Let’s say you’re in the market for a new High Definition Tele. You go to Best Buy first and see that they’re charging $3,800 for the one you want.  You get a sales man to print out the invoice and take it to Circuit City, where you proceed to see if they can do a better job, have the new lower invoice printed and leave. Now hit the phone for a half hour calling a few other electronic stores (maybe 1 or 2) then hit amazon and eBay for the same model (it helps if you’re looking at a popular model) Do not use eBay auctions that have not ended, you must use empirical information that has been set as a transaction.

Now head back to Best Buy with your invoice from Circuit City and your online quotes, shoot for a price a few hundred dollars under where you feel comfortable and a few hundred dollars under the lowest invoice. Be prepared to come up to where you are comfortable – at the end of this process you should be at least $500 under where you started.

Fact:I went to an electronics outlet (Boscov’s – I’m not telling the location) with $800 in my pocket. I walked around for a while, found a television I like (which happened to be on sale for $1,200) and asked, simply, what the best the salesman could do. He replied with $1,049. I said I had seen the same one (not entirely true) for $899, and inquired if he could do any better…

He thought for a moment, and said he would match $899, but it was the best he could do. I said that was very generous, but that I only had $750 on me, and I was going to buy a television today. He was a little put off, but still interested that he had a motivated buyer on the hook. He began talking about some of the other, “more moderately priced,” models. I expressed that I had no interest, and asked again if there was anything he could do.

He said he was sorry but the absolute bottom was $849, and that’s all there was to it. So I did the polite thing, thanked him for his time, and made my way to the door. He let me make it maybe ten steps, then said “I’ll do $800, there’s a cash machine across the street.”

At point he was mine. I took out my money, $800, and said this is what I got – make sure with the $45 dollars in tax you keep under $800.

They started packaging my new television.

• You sign up
• Submit your site to be emailed to other users
• Receive emails promoting other users sites
• Visit those sites
• The other users visit your site

Everyone Wins.  Take a look

“But apart from that first 2004 investment in Weblogs, Inc., there haven’t been any sales or liquidity events to suggest these investments will be a success. And back then blogging was a cake walk. Most bloggers linked to each other constantly in a state of brotherly or sisterly love. No one was making any money or getting much attention, so for the most part people got along (with notable exceptions like engadget/gizmodo, who play to win).Those salad days are long gone. Writers suddenly want to be paid market wages, far above the $5 per post that they received two years ago. No, we’re talking a big salary, with benefits, and stock options. There went half your margins at least.”

And writing good content is only half the battle. You have to figure out the complex, dynamic web of politics between bloggers and mainstream media before you post to know where to get support. And you’ll need support in the form of links from other prominent bloggers. An early push can take a post and make it a headline on TechMeme, which leads to page views and notice by sponsors. But since blogging is almost by definition a conversation between bloggers, fights tend to break out over emotional issues. Cliques develop. Can you count on them to support you down the road?”

I think this is a brilliant account of how competitive the savvy side of the blogosphere has become –> and even more-so what it is moving towards; a hierarchy of investment criteria and valuation

How will non-professional bloggers (those of us who do not do this for a living) stay afloat? Ingenuity?

I am going to focus strictly on residential real estate  for right now (properties with 4 or less units) since that’s what I assume most of you will be looking into. Before you can even think about prospecting for properties you need to prospect for a geography. The best way, traditionally, to do this is to check out market trends for certain cities. Forbes published a good article in September 2007 about The Best Rental markets in the U.S. The idea of investing in a far off city is not a good one, at least not initially… You need to be around to manage and micro-manage your tenant base, as well as the property(s) .

An ideal market is one where single family homes aren’t too expensive ($100k-$180k), assuming for that price you can pick up at least a mild three bedroom. Conversely, you need to make sure that the current area receiving rents supplement more than just the mortgage! I tend to use a 2 to 1 debt ration when evaluating potential properties for acquisition. This means that the gross monthly rent needs to be twice what the monthly expenses are (mortgage, insurance, taxes) this way you have a nest egg to stick in a capital reserve account. Your capital reserve account will serve as a safety net for your portfolio should a boiler/heating unit or roof decide to need repair. Let me tell you right now roof’s are expensive!

General rule of thumb is DO NOT TOUCH your capital reserve account for 6 months! Should you need something for a property, i.e. light switch, some shingles, etc. reach in your pocket. This is just best practice – if you start deteriorating your capital reserve account prior to 6 months you will simply continue to do so.  Even after 6 months… that’s not profit, that’s not how it works; you now have liquid capital to use for growth.  Leverage your current equity position (it will be small) by taking a lien against your current property and go find another – preferably close by.

When looking for an area make sure it still has some mom and pop shops floating around – the retail saturation of your market has great influence over rents, and not just commercial. If you can get in on an area where the big box retailers (Home Depot, Target, Wal-Mart) are just starting to build – then you’re in the right spot. Actually, you may be too close to the right spot… given the growth rate of the area (population, per capita income) and the annual % rental increase, you may want to step just outside the immediate circle of influence and invest on the fringe – you may get less rent in the beginning – but you will get the property drastically cheaper and build equity faster – not to mention if the swell continues you will realize great appreciation.

*NOTE: you’re pro forma is only as good as your comps!

stay tuned for Part III