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IttyBiz

Starting a home business? Legitimate home based business advice, tips, and ways to work from home.

7 Lessons From A Big LaunchYesterday

First, I’ll tell you a story. Then I’ll tell you why you care.

When we launched Online Business School, some things went wrong. There was a plan, and some things decided that they didn’t like that plan. The details of this would bore you senseless so I won’t get into them, but we can basically sum it up by saying we had distribution problems.

We had a good product but had problems delivering it the way we wanted and distributing it the way we wanted.

The Short, Less Boring Version

Suprise! File is massive. Zipping it doesn’t help. Decided to host it for download on own server. Didn’t realize how long it would take to upload. Lots of people waiting. Lots of affiliates telling lots more people that something is coming.

Finally got it uploaded. Didn’t realize how many people had slow internet connections. Cue numerous emails saying downloading will take 40 hours. Realize one of the bonuses didn’t make it into the zipped file. Couldn’t get it to people in timely manner.

Fulfillment provider’s customer service takes too long to get back. Nanny quits. No childcare. Moving to England.

(While we’re on the topic, for people who have been wondering, the Rolodex is up on the download page and we’re reshooting the video with the audio gap as soon as we have our recording equipment back from Canada. Sorry dudes, and thank you for your patience.)

That p

How To Kick Features And Benefits AssJanuary 5

So Jamie and I have taken it upon ourselves to host a dinner party. This is not something we would normally be inclined to do, but we’re in extenuating circumstances.

One, there’s a birthday, and that causes people to do crazy things like have parties.

Two, every month we write a cheque for the equivalent of a years’ worth of Canadian college tuition and then we call it our rent. This allows us to be comfortably certain that we will be impoverished in our golden years, but it also affords us a fairly sexy house. And as everybody knows, you don’t get a nice house for yourself. You get a nice house to make your neighbours jealous.

Anyway, the party. We decided to have one. But we left most of our clothes in Canada and the clothes here are way better anyway, so we had to buy party clothes. We work from home and neither of us owns anything that could be accurately described as even business casual, let alone Christmas season party wear.

So we’re in Marks and Spencer and we’re buying shoes for Jamie. There are a lot of options because the English take their shoes pretty fucking seriously. (They can do that because they don’t have snow. Except, um, today. When it snowed. For what it’s worth, I want my money back.)

Anyway, I don’t know about men’s shoes and Jamie sort of knows but doesn’t care. Therefore, we have to trust what the tags are telling us and make our decisions based on that. Which leads us, after much ado, to o

The Eight Dollar Sandwich With No Chips Or Nuthin’January 2

Question: What three words let you double your prices?

Answer: It doesn’t matter, as long as they’re adjectives.

Recently, some total genius — um, me — decided that it would be a good idea to go into London to do some Christmas shopping. (Note: Never do this.) We got to Euston Station and decided we’d try to grab something to eat before facing the throngs of vicious Londoners itching for a deal.

In Euston Station, there is a slightly nicer looking version of what we in North America would call a food court. Burger King, fish and chips, sandwiches, paninis, that sort of thing. (UK residents, can you please explain this country’s obsession with paninis? I mean, seriously. I like paninis as much as the next girl but this is over the top.)

We decide to get sandwiches. We both get pork. As we are starving, we pay no attention to the price because it will be too depressing to contemplate anyway.

As we’re eating, though, I realize I’m in full view of the menu for that particular establishment. I notice two things. One, the prices are exorbitant, but that’s hardly unusual in this country. Two is the alarming profusion of adjectives.

I only had a little scrap of paper with me so I wrote down the two shortest examples:

Wiltshire Ham and Taw Valley Cheddar Cheese, £3.85

Free Range Egg and Country Tomato, £2.75

WILTSHIRE ham. TAW VALLEY cheddar cheese. FREE RANGE egg. COUNTRY tomato.

“Hmm. I wa

A Bloody Poor Excuse For A TitleDecember 21 2008

Well now. This HAS been exciting.

First of all, I moved to England. Hurray! If you’re ever looking for something really fun to do, I recommend crossing the Atlantic with a 2-year-old. I also recommend you try to co-ordinate it so that said 2-year-old does not sleep for a second during the entire overnight flight. And if you can swing it so that they close the airport you’re supposed to land at and you have to hang around for 3 hours in a locked airplane at Heathrow instead, well, so much the better.

The good news is, I now live in an idyllic little town called Cheddington which has all of 1103 people. (When you think of a pastoral English town, this is what you’re thinking, folks. Remember The Holiday? I think I live in Kate Winslet’s house. Except is warmer, which is a plus.)

The bad news is, I live four houses down from the 15th century pub. Now, I don’t know about you, but I simply cannot be expected to walk AN ENTIRE FOUR HOUSES just to get a fucking glass of mulled wine. I thought of writing to the mayor to complain and then I realized we didn’t have one.

Let’s move on, shall we?

I wrote another book. Well, Dave and I did. But then I wrote this post and Dave’s like, dude, it hasn’t even launched yet. And I didn’t want to change the post. So anyway, we did this thing and it hasn’t officially launched yet so all the requisite bonuses and BUY RIGHT FUCKING NOW isn’t there yet because Dave’s busy making a tota

It’s Time To Rally The TroopsDecember 4 2008

Every person who was abused as a child has a choice to make. They can beat their own kids, or they can spend the rest of their life doing everything they can to make sure it doesn’t happen to other kids.

I choose the latter, and sometimes it’s a hard choice to make. I’m a Pisces which means I have the tendency to burst into tears when I watch the evening news, and hearing about suffering makes me want to curl up into a ball and listen to Enya and pretend like it’s not happening.

But when someone is in trouble or danger, the Enya option isn’t an option.

Children are forced to watch Daddy beat Mummy and we can’t ignore it.

One of your fellow IttyBiz owners is being stalked by her very violent ex-husband. Business isn’t exactly great — she’s got other stuff on her mind — and she needs to get out of there, pronto.

She wanted to have a sale to drum up a bunch of money so she could move across the country and get away from this fucker, but I’m going to and veto that. She doesn’t have the audience and a sale will result in a whole lot of screwing around that she doesn’t have time for with very little extra money at the end.

So I’m taking shit into my own hands and asking for donations on her behalf.

I’d love to put a picture up with a nice, heartbreaking shot of her son but that would be a.) cheesy as shit and b.) a security risk. I’d like to create a killer call to action and make a big fuss, but