There has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur, especially when it comes to online business. The Internet has become the great equalizer, allowing anyone with a business plan to equally prosper, so long as they are willing to do the hard work and learn those essential lessons that only an online living can teach.

Technology and innovation go hand in hand, so it makes perfect sense that the online world would be the first to experience a steady stream of sharper and sharper tools, continuously being developed with the online entrepreneur first and foremost in mind.

Here are 5 areas the online entrepreneur must always keep their focus and 5 ways to stay at the bleeding edge.

Content Creation

Drafting compelling copy is an absolute must for the serious online entrepreneur. Business online requires sales letters, marketing and email auto-responders, at the very least. In other words: copy, copy and more copy. While it used to be enough to use Microsoft Word, Open Office or Apple’s pages, these days online entrepreneurs can collaborate with cutting edge online tools such as Google docs, allowing us to use spreadsheets presentations and forms. Google Docs have been around a couple of years now, but they keep on adding features, the best of which is still the first — seamless sharing without any risk to loss of data.

Communication

Remember when cell phones were about as big as the yellow side of the phone book? These days the cell phone is more than just a phone, it is an all-in-one communication device. Skype, text messaging and Twitter are only the beginning. By this time next year, Google Voice will also be available to the general public, ushering in a full integration of services such as voice-to-text, and all of it available from a single phone number.

Online Office

Because it has never been more possible for the entrepreneur to have colleagues spread across the planet, it has also never been more important to establish the most effective ways of sharing information. Physical office space is going the way of the t-rex. New tools such as Dropbox allow online collaborators to easily exchange files by dropping them into an online server shared by multiple users. Accounts are free with 2 gigs of storage, but for just $10 a month, users can multiply it 25 times and go all the way to 50 gigs.

Project Management

An online office is important, an online project management system is even more so. Basecamp is one of the best friends of many a modern day entrepreneur. The online application is subscription based, can be tailored to fit the needs or budget of any user and can be shared with anyone at any time. Basecamp allows for online communication that is both powerful and fluid. With everything the modern day entrepreneur must juggle, setting an efficient project management system in place is essential to the bottom line.

A PC in Your Pocket.

Phones have been slowly transforming into magic wallets, allowing users to carry anything from their entire address books to each to-do for every project on their plate. The iPhone is only the first in a giant wave to crash on the shore. With tens of thousands of applications instantly available that can make your entrepreneurial life instantly accessible, it has never been easier to fit your desktop, or your entire office, directly in your wallet.

There has never been more opportunity for entrepreneurs, nor has there been more quality tools to help make it possible. The above are just a few, but the smart entrepreneur also knows to keep their eyes on what’s just past the horizon.

What are some of the tools in your “Entrepreneurial Toolkit?”

-Adam Toren

Step off the train in London during rush hour and you will see a swarm of be-suited business people mounting odd little fold-up bicycles.

While the average person may not have considered it, a folding bicycle is an impressive feat of engineering. It needs to be easily collapsible yet maintain alignment to offer a comfortable and speedy ride – it’s a daunting task for any entrepreneur. Such was the conundrum that Andrew Ritchie wrestled with in the mid-70s. Ritchie, trained as an engineer, but working as a landscape gardener, was intrigued by the idea of designing a bike so small “it could fit in your pocket”. He began working on his own prototypes and by 1976 had formed a company, Brompton, named after the Brompton Oratory church opposite his home. Despite the bicycle’s ingenuity and Ritchie’s enthusiasm, bike manufacturers showed little interest, forcing him to go into production for himself. He had no problems selling his bikes, but between Ritchie and his single employee, he couldn’t build more than 300 a year from his little workshop in London. Now the company has a turnover of £10million and is growing about 25% a year. About 70% of the bikes are sold abroad, particularly to the Netherlands, Germany, the USA and Japan. Amazingly, manufacturing still takes place in London.

Nearly half a million journeys are made by bicycle in London each day, and the number of cyclists has nearly doubled since 2000. The Mayor of London wants growth to quadruple by 2025, creating more demand for Brompton bikes.

The existing factory has the capacity for Brompton to double its output, and with another 15 years on its lease, there is no reason to doubt that Brompton will remain the best of British, made in the heart of London.

Combine the current recession, the government’s attempt to spur recovery, and the potential onslaught of new laws and the result is a changing landscape for small business.

Learn the Top 5 things you need to know about these changes including how to protect your business and how to take advantage of short term opportunities… some may end as soon as Oct 31.

1) Securing a Government Subsidized Loan
If you need capital, now may be the perfect time to get funding backed by the government. The Recovery Act, signed earlier this year, reduced (or eliminated) fees for getting an SBA Loan as well as increased the guarantee up to 90%. These changes make an SBA loan a very attractive option for small businesses seeking capital.

In addition, the SBA created a loan program called “America`s Recovery Capital” (ARC Loans) that makes zero interest short term loans.

These attractive options won’t last forever. Combine that with a potential upcoming inflationary period that may increase rates on any loans and now may be a great time to secure additional financing for your business.

2) Health Care
With so much uncertainty revolving around this topic it is hard to predict the outcome, but significant changes for small businesses are likely to occur.

A hot topic for entrepreneurs is the proposed legislation that requires small business owners to provide health insurance for their workers. This may place an additional burden on small businesses with either added expenses or penalties.

The bill could benefit small businesses in some ways such as forcing insurers to accept all applicants, which is often an issue for companies who do not have a large workforce. Also, some claim the proposed legislation could save small businesses “$855 billion nationwide over the next decade.”

3) Government Grants
Some grants, such as the NIH’s SBIR and STTR grants are only on short term extensions. Right now they are extended until Oct 31 and there is no word yet on whether they will renew or in what form.

There is no long term assurance that any grants or programs, such as many SBA programs, will continue once there is a push for budget cuts.

4) New Requirements for Small Businesses
A big result of the financial meltdown was that companies were going out of business and investors, customers, vendors, and eventually the US government got stuck with losses or debt.

Now, many states are requiring businesses, from hair salons to travel agents to mortgage brokers, to have surety bonds to do business in that state. You should find out if your state requires a surety bond for you to do business. Even if it was not the case before, new regulations may change that.

Also, companies with federal contracts over $100,000 must comply with the new E-Verify system. More companies may be required to comply in the near future. Even if you are not required to comply it may be beneficial to voluntarily implement the system to protect your company against fines.

5) Patent Law
The Patent Reform Act of 2009 plans to convert the US patent system from a first-to-invest structure to one that is based on first-to-file. Several large companies including IBM and Microsoft are backing this proposal. This is not applicable to all companies, but in to some it may be a significant change.

This is a Guest Post by Brant Bukowsky from AngelInvestmentJournal.com

What’s necessary to become a truly successful young entrepreneur? The Brothers Adam and Matthew Toren, co-founders of YoungEntrepreneur.com, have stayed the course and prevailed in numerous business ventures throughout their lives. Together, they’ve consistently taken key steps leading to increasingly profitable paths in their highly successful careers, but surprisingly enough, it’s actually their early years of business which have inspired their most recent project: an entirely unexpected book on entrepreneurship written expressly for children! In this new book, the Toren brothers bring a candid, yet illuminative perspective to doing business in this remarkably original piece, Kidpreneurs.

There’s no need to be an adult to be driven towards an entrepreneurial dream, and there’s certainly no reason to wait until becoming an adult to learn – or at the very least to try out, the fundamental principles of business. It’s never too early to get started! Adam and Matthew invariably give their families the credit for continually encouraging all their business ideas from a very early age, and because of this incredible support they’ve received, they’re pursuing a means by which they can give back not only to their community, but to the youth around the world – the entrepreneurs of the future, this life-changing encouragement along with the practical knowledge to begin, expand, and succeed beyond their wildest dreams in their future business enterprises.

These two brothers have each invested several years of their lives researching and collating the very best practices in modern business, with the sole aim of teaching these valuable techniques and insights to others while nurturing their own ever-expanding empire of successful businesses. One of their favorite on-going accomplishments has been to assist struggling businesses by generously giving some of their own personal time to share pertinent details of their accumulated understanding. This entrepreneurial know-how, combined with a truly astounding altruistic nature, put the Torens on the path to found YoungEntrepreneur.com, the largest and most comprehensive social networking forum for young entrepreneurs anywhere.

The day Adam and Matthew decided to find a means for effectively passing on their collective savvy to their own children, the idea for Kidpreneurs began to take form. This book encourages a child’s desire to become involved with business early on by stoking their curiosity in uncomplicated, interesting and creative ways. It distills the complex concepts into the practical, creative, and ethical aspects of today’s business world; and with clear and expressive language, it conveys the crucial facts of modern business by using bright colorful illustrations, thought-provoking facts, exciting quizzes, and a variety of easy-to-understand sample business plans.

The fundamental philosophy that runs like a red thread throughout this book is simple: The future of our children, and all future generations for that matter, begins with us! Children of all walks of life have the right to have access to the skills and tools by which they might someday – through their own hard work and perseverance, obtain financial freedom.

If you’d like to begin an exhilarating business journey with your young children, order a copy of Kidpreneurs today!

We look forward to your orders, and if for any reason you’d like a particular copy signed or dedicated, please use the contact form located here http://www.kidpreneurs.org/contact/ and just let Adam & Matthew know!

If you personally know anybody with children 6-12 years old, Kidpreneurs would make an excellent gift – one which just keeps on giving! Please help us to tell others (via Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Your Blog etc) as now is the time to provide the leaders of tomorrow with the Entrepreneurial skills and know-how that’s available today!

The more that we learn about the ubiquitous click through rate the more we should realize that it is not a good measurement tool for our marketing efforts. Since the Internet emerged as a serious marketing medium, we have been bombarded with reports about click through rates and how we should pay attention to them as a symbol to quantify the effectiveness of our approach.

More and more studies are pointing to the fact that a high click through rate is not necessarily a harbinger of great conversions to come. Mobile analytics firm Amethon released a study which focused on sites that exist only to host a specific advertising campaign. CTR was high, but the target pages did not hold attention for long and the bounce rate was very disconcerting. Why is it that a large number of online marketers rely on this metric in the decision-making process as opposed to any other metrics, such as brand awareness?

Online brand marketers seem to be somewhat blinded by this measure and this appears to be largely a hangover from the early days of the net when the pure novelty and the potentially serious ramifications of the “click through” first dawned upon us.

In the world of direct response marketing, it seems that more tangible measurements have greater importance. Instead of merely paying attention to clicks and impressions, it is far better to quantify the number of leads generated, especially if these are qualified.

As the consumer is blinded by an ever-increasing assault from the marketing media encountered on a daily basis, so it seems that the click through is losing even more of its meaning. Could it be that the click through is becoming just a natural physical reaction for some people?

With the emergence of social media marketing the waters are even more muddied, as studies by Forrester Research and by Marketing Sherpa show that many top online marketers are very naive about social media measurement. The MS study, Social Media Marketing and PR: Benchmarks and Best Practices showed that the factors that presented the most effective barriers to social media marketing amongst organizations or clients were: a lack of knowledgeable staff (46%) and an inability to measure return on investment (43%). Digital branding and branding specific metrics will become increasingly more important and it falls to system designers to come up with some robust and readily available analytic technologies. As this happens less emphasis will be placed on the pure analysis of click through rates as a measure of success within the marketing environment. Just as the click through has endured a significant decline in response rates since its introduction, so its elevated status in the online marketing business will recede.

Do you click out of habit?

Adam Toren

We might have known that it would only be a matter of time before the ubiquitous Google AdSense machine started to tie in to the mobile applications market. There has been a predictable explosion in interest for smartphone applications and it would seem that the sky is the limit. Downloadable applications proliferate for Apple iPhone and Android platforms.

Google is now moving into the mobile ad market following the testing of text and graphical ads in private beta. The web-behemoth has expanded its field testing and is playing with contextual ads for both platforms. According to Google the ads can be targeted by “applications, locations, categories or keywords.”

Program developers can insert a snippet of code within their applications, allowing iPhone and Android powered handsets to display ads. This effectively synchronizes the application with the Google ad network and opens up significant earning opportunities down the road.

One of the challenges associated with the approach is, as always, to get past the typical consumer “ad resistance”. Harold Steinberg, director of business development for Urbanspoon (one of Google’s startup development partners in the venture) concurs. “What we are looking for… is to allow the user to look at the whole application as one and not say, “oh, that’s an ad, I’m not going to pay attention to it.”” If the ad is successfully integrated within the application there is more chance that the consumer will interact with it thus allowing the app developer and Google to make money and the advertiser to gain traffic.

It does appear that the banner style of ad will likely be utilized, rather than the text ad we are all so familiar with. The traditional desktop style webpage rendition does not convert very well for the iPhone screen, as we know and it appears that Google is well aware of the potential difficulties associated with trying to first “expand” and then click on tiny text ads. They maintain that the AdSense ads will all be “above the fold” and will thus be instantly viewable as soon as you surf to the relevant page, just ready for the click, or touch in this case.

For the marketer, “pay per click” is one of the primary traffic-driving platforms available online. Google markets this opportunity as “AdWords” for the advertiser (you pay Google and they display your ads) and “AdSense” for the webmaster, or in this case the application developer (Google displays your ads and they pay you if somebody clicks). While many people are highly successful using Google’s AdWords, the concept must be approached with a lot of caution. You can wipe through an advertising budget very quickly if you are not sufficiently prepared and/or very sure of your keyword choices, composition and landing page relevance. As far as the new AdSense for iPhone potential is concerned, the same cautions apply. While it may be tempting to jump all over anything that has to do with the mobile Internet revolution, marketers should exercise additional caution here. It remains to be seen how accepting consumers are to the idea of “in your face” advertising on the phone screen, as this is only just rolling out. We must also see how much it will cost to specify that your ad appears on this platform and whether it can be sufficiently integrated (see Steinberg’s comments above).

While Google is keeping things small right now and only working in beta with a small number of highly qualified partners, it has (as usual) a clear advantage in this marketplace. When Google opens up and allows marketers to select mobile applications as part of their overall AdSense campaigns, bidding will increase significantly and ad rates will go up.

As the smart phone market experiences unprecedented growth and the future looks equally as rosy, expect there to be significant interest in this platform and who would bet against good earnings potential. Mobile application usage is expected to quadruple in five years and Google is perhaps banking on the fact that those eyeballs will be drawn to mobile AdSense, especially as the mobile advertising market is touted to grow to almost $5.7 billion within that period of time.

Have you started to use AdSense Applications on your iPhone? We would love to hear your feedback.

Matthew Toren

In today’s challenging economy you might think you really can’t afford to start a business. The reality is you can – and one smart way to do that is by bootstrapping your startup. This means starting on a shoestring and putting all the money you make back into the business. Bootstrapping will keep you out of debt as long as you remember that any profit you make goes toward growing the company. This has always been a smart way to start a business with less financial risk – and in today’s economic climate, it’s smarter than ever. Here are 10 tips for bootstrapping your business:

1. Start a low-cost business.

It might be nice to open the first of a chain of retail clothing boutiques or a hamburger joint, but most brick-and-mortar businesses require lots of cash. Service businesses or e-commerce businesses, on the other hand, are typically lower-investment. Find a middle ground between your entrepreneurial dreams and the reality of startup costs.

2. Count your cash.

Look around you for money you can tap into. Do you have savings or CDs you could cash in? Do you own any collectibles you could sell for quick cash? How about a “toy” like a motorcycle or sailboat?

3. Keep your day job.

If you want to bootstrap your business, you won’t be paying yourself a salary – at least, not for a while. So if at all possible, consider keeping your day job (or at least working part-time) so you have enough to live on while you build your business.

4. Live at home.

As a young person, maybe you can persuade Mom and Dad to let you live at home for a while so you can save even more money to put toward your business. (And the desire to get out of their house will probably motivate you even more to succeed!)

5. Don’t spend more than you need to.

Buy the bare minimum you need to get your business going. Strike a balance here: You don’t want to go so cheap that you buy a computer without the power you need. But you don’t need to waste money on unnecessary bells and whistles, either. Similarly, spend what you need to make a good impression on clients. But if clients will never see your office, does it matter if your desk is secondhand?

6. Save money on what you do need.

Register to get special offers from retailers you use often. For even more deals, check out Bank of America’s Add It Up, an online shopping portal which allows small business owners to earn up to 20 percent cash back from more than 270 retailers when they shop online with their Bank of America check card through the Add it Up Web site.” The program is free for Bank of America’s Online Banking customers; for more details, go to www.bankofamerica.com/additup.

7. Keep on top of cash flow.

A simple accounting program combined with online business banking can give you access to daily reports that show you exactly how much is coming in and going out.

8. Watch your receivables.

Today, many customers are going longer before paying. Don’t let them. If an invoice isn’t paid on time, follow up (politely) to see what’s going on. Often, a gentle reminder is all it takes to get your money. Or offer a discount if a client pays early.

9. Barter.

Bartering means trading your products and services for someone else’s instead of paying cash. For instance, your Web design company could design a marketing company’s site in exchange for their handling your ad campaign. You can join an official barter exchange (search for them online), or use informal barter with other business owners. Just be sure you put an agreement in writing so everyone knows what they’re getting.

10. Go for the low-hanging fruit.

Get more cash in your coffers by focusing first on the projects or products that are easiest (and least expensive) for you to handle. When you’ve got more money in the bank, you can tackle those longer-term projects that require a bigger investment.

This is a guest blog by Rieva Lesonsky, CEO, Journalist and Author.

Rieva Lesonsky is CEO of GrowBiz Media, a content and consulting company that helps entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses. She recently conducted an expert forum on Bank of America’s Small Business Online Community, where she answered questions about navigating a small business through the current economy. You can also ask her questions at www.askRieva.com or follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/rieva

We recently received a question posed to us by an accountant in a small town location. His business relied heavily on local directory advertising and he wanted to know how he might be more effective in using the Internet to draw in potential clients. He had some experience of using pay per click as a marketing method but little else and we gave him some suggestions to help him learn how to reach people in his local area using the Internet.

To start off with we reminded him that he sold a specific set of services targeting a given audience – in other words bookkeeping and accounting services designed to assist other local businesses, clubs, associations and the like. As such, he should use the power of the Internet tailored specifically to his local area.

We noticed that his website did not contain much “meat,” and reminded that content is still king. We suggested that he needed to create articles directly related to his services and the need for good accounting practices. The articles should be optimized and specific, rather than generalized. In this way he could target specific words that were being searched for by potential clients. We noted that would-be clients are always looking for a company that is experienced in handling their particular problem and evidence of this ability should be displayed prominently within the site.

When it comes to the “social proof” that everyone is searching for, we recommended that there should be plenty of prominent opportunities for people to comment on the site and leave testimonials. These have a significant effect when it comes to search engine rankings and can help to elevate a site in front of potential clients.

The structure of the site was not particularly well thought out and we recommended that he sit down with a clean sheet of paper and map out how a person would more logically follow the information trail within the site. Make sure that the visitor has an easy time surfing through the site and should not be put off by broken links, which are also counter-productive when it comes to an analysis of the site by the all important search engines.

We suggested to him that the process of building an article bank of information within the site would help to establish him and his operation as experts in the field. As visitors read his articles and find them useful and informative this will also elevate his status within their minds as the “go to guy” to help them in the future.

As by its very nature accounting must be detail oriented, we reminded this gentleman that his website should be really well presented, comprehensive and should not appear to have any stones left unturned. This includes the need to fix or purge incomplete references, bad links, missing bios or any dated material, such as comments, some of which were obviously out of date and gathering cyber dust.

To help him corner the local market we suggested that he include the name of his town and nearest metro area within the keywords and title tags of his pages. This will help the major search engines to enhance his site visibility when someone searches, on a geographical basis, for an accountant in his area. It is, astonishingly, quite easy to rank highly for a geo-targeted keyword – in his case incorporating his town and the word “accountant” – by just following some fundamentals. It should be perfectly possible for him to elevate his practice to a high position on the first page of Google results within a fairly short space of time.

Sit down and plan out your site and make sure that it projects you and your organization professionally and as niche experts. Optimize your site from a geographical point of view and ensure that your content is always fresh and interesting. You will soon have an open door to your local market.

Tell us about your local internet marketing success?

Matthew Toren

In a recent conversation with a Canadian venture fund about bootstrapping one’s startup, I was asked whether I preferred a ‘push’ or ‘pull’ model when vetting or building new businesses. Although I had heard these terms before, this was the first time I actually considered my own partiality for a particular genre of business model. Let’s begin with some definitions. A ‘push’ model relates to entrepreneurs who launch their startup because they believe that they can develop a product or service that combines market appeal with a competitive advantage over competition; as such it is eventually pushed to the customer via sales. Alternatively, the ‘pull’ model is based on some certain knowledge that a customer, whether current or potential, is interested in buying a particular ‘widget,’ and the entrepreneur develops it with that specific buyer in mind, and essentially the product is ‘pulled to market’ by the customer.

The advantages of the ‘pull’ model are fairly obvious, because as soon as the development or beta phase is complete, sales by the client who ‘pulled it’ are inevitable and forthcoming. However the drawback of this style is that the initial interested ‘puller’ may be the only client who needs such a product/service or is willing to pay for it. Conversely, by developing a business using the ‘push’ model, the startup has the opportunity to sell their widget to as wide a market as they wish, and products can be produced with extensive potential applications. Although the push startup may not have a concrete buyer in place prior to launch, as in the case of the pull model, the push-type startup does not encounter the same risks associated with exclusively having only one client.

My revelation in contemplating my own predilection for one model over the other got me thinking about which is most optimal given differing environments. The aforementioned VC tended to fund businesses in the telecommunications sector, and the reason for this was that the fund was backed by a leading phone company. Their methodology was simple: ask their current clients what they were in need of, or what was lacking in the market, and then invest in businesses which produce that exact need. This allowed the fund to enjoy a tangible payback period, which could be easily predicted, as they had the benefit of knowing precise future cash flows and margins before even investing in the pulled product or company. Imagine that you could invest a certain amount in a business today and know with certainty (often backed by quasi-binding letters of interest to purchase) to whom and how much of those products would be sold next month—not a bad way to invest.

The flip side of this is the push method, and what I now understand to be my own modus operandi, whereby the product comes first and the customer base is then filled subsequent to going to market. This model allows an entrepreneur to build a product or service in almost any sector, assuming a certain propensity to operate in an industry where the founder has some experience, and sell to a variety of customers. The snag here is that from an investment perspective there is a higher risk associated with backing or launching a business that doesn’t secure customers in advance of its launch.

While a pull method uses supply as the initial impetus for growth, and a push strategy uses demand as its catalyst, in contemplating your own strategies for launch consider not only your own risk tolerance, competitive strengths or experiences, but also deliberate whether you have the network to create a pull model and build your startup around a particular need from a particular customer. If you are like me when I got my start, chances are your network is still in its preliminary stages, and as such you may want to consider buying or developing a product or service that fills a void that is felt by a multitude of customers, not just one, through a push model. For me, that was the printed T-shirt business.

This is a guest post by Harley Finkelstein, LL.B. (JD), MBA (cand.). Harley is a serial entrepreneur who has launched a number of successful tech startups, and he is the founder of one of Canada’s leading apparel companies, Fink, Inc. Additionally, Harley serves as a mentor to the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI), and sits on the financing committee for the Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF). In 2007, Harley founded Innoventure Capital, a unique seed financing firm that provides funding and strong mentorship to early-stage startups. Innoventure’s latest startup is Smoofer.com, which purports to be Canada’s leading online T-shirt shop. Harley recently received his law degree from the University of Ottawa, and will be completing his MBA at the school’s management faculty in summer 2009. In 2005, he graduated with distinction from Concordia University, where he received his degree in Economics. Harley may be reached at Harley@Finkinc.ca.