25 Entrepreneurs and Businesses You Should Be Following on Twitter

	@guykawasaki (Guy Kawasaki): Besides being managing director of Garage Technology Venturesand a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine, he has 130,000 followers. Why we follow him: He has a worthwhile blog: How to Change the World. If that’s not reason enough, check out his archive of marketing posts. He knows what he’s doing.
	@davesnyder (Dave Snyder): He’s the co-founder of Search & Social, an internet marketing company that has done extremely well. Why we follow him: Though he sometimes veers into the realm of personal chatter, when he talks business and marketing, he’s worth it.
	@smallbiztrends (Anita Campbell): She is not only the editor in chief of Small Business Trends, she is an entrepreneur herself and consistent tweeter. Why we follow her: In short–and as her business suggests–she’s on the cutting edge of trends and her tweets are always on point, never off topic.
	@bizzia (Bizzia): Of course, these are the tweets from the Bizzia website, which strives to bring news, strategy and business thought to entrepreneurs everywhere. Why we follow them: Simply put, you won’t have to go looking for the latest business news stories. Let the business news come to you.
	@thebizguy (Adam Toren): As the co-founder of business networking siteYoungEntrepreneur.com, Adam has a lot to say about success in the marketplace. Why we follow him: He sticks to the basics and offers interesting articles. But if you already haveYoungEntrepreneur Blog’s RSS feed, this would be overkill.
	@ev (Evan Williams): We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the co-founder of Twitter, Evan Williams. Why we follow him: Sure he gives shout outs to celebrities, but he shares his wisdom sometimes and has over 800,000 followers. Genius entrepreneur.
	@techcrunch (Michael Arrington and More): The man behind the technology news titanTechCrunch is worth your time–even if you’re often hearing from someone else. Why we follow them: TechCrunch give you real-time valuable tech/business information–such as go get your vanity Facebook URL right this minute.
	@fredwilson (Fred Wilson): He is the highly successful managing partner of Union Square Ventures and you can check out his blog too. Why we follow him: Sure, sometimes he’ll tell you what Broadway musical he’s at, but when he dishes out advice or tidbits of business, you’ll be glad you hung in there.
	@missusp (Christine Perkett): She is the founder and CEO of Perkett PR, and received the PR Executive of the Year award in 2008. Why we follow her: Because by watching her style, you’ll know how you can benefit from Twitter, and because even Business Week follows her, that’s why.
	@eugenelee (Eugene Lee): He is the CEO of SocialText, which gave birth to Enterprise 2.0 and the first enterprise wiki. Why we follow him: He’s low on personal chatter and heavy on business and tech talk. What’s more, he’s not just promoting himself.
	@sundaycosmetics (Bev Davis): This inspiring entrepreneur and founder of Sunday Cosmetics, shares her innovative thoughts and sometimes gets spiritual. Why we follow her: She shares links to entrepreneur success stories more than she gives shout outs, and she has built her own future–why not pay attention?
	@rickm (Rick Myers): In a time of unemployment, his job search site Talent Zoo has been a huge success. Why we follow him: This is not your ordinary tweeter. He tends to stick to business–international news, economic trends, etc. Read his tweets and you’ll know.
	@beckymccray (Becky McCray): She’s one of the authors at Small Biz Survival, and speaks from the experience of her own retail liquor store and cattle ranch. Why we follow her: Now and then she’ll tell you what beer she’s drinking, but she’s savvy and has business insights that make her a worthy guru.
	@garyswart (Gary Swart): He’s the CEO of oDesk and an innovative businessman with a history at Pure Software and IBM. Why we follow him: Sure, he’s the boss, but he also keeps his eye on offshoring trends and the changing face of business. He’s fairly new to Twitter, but give him time.
	@richardbranson (Richard Branson): Well, he hardly needs an introduction, but if you haven’t heard of the various Virgin brands you can check out Branson’s bio here. Why we follow him: He’s fascinating–we’ll say it. But he tweets quite often with fellow (albeit less wealthy) entrepreneurs in mind.
	@zappos (Tony Hsieh): He’s the brilliant entrepreneur (millionaire) CEO behind Zappos.com. Why we follow him: Though he enters a lot of personal tweets, following him will be a masterclass on how use tweets to strengthen a team.
	@sunceoblog (Jonathan Schwartz): To understand this Sun Microsystems CEO, you can check out his blog. Why we follow him: If your business is software, Schwartz is one to watch. Plus, he worked his way to the top–is there anything more inspiring than that?
	@loic (Loic Le Meur): To learn more from Frenchman Le Meur, who is CEO of Seesmic, you can check out his blog. Why we follow him: He’s into innovation and uses his tweets to provoke and gain feedback for business purposes. It’s a smart move.
	@mcuban (Mark Cuban): His Blog Maverick was voted one of Business Punditt’s 50 Best Business Blogs of 2008. Why we follow him: Some days he’s all about personal chatter, but on others he tweets like an insightful businessman who knows he has a following.
	@tpentrepreneur (Michael Michalowicz): Known as the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, Michalowicz’sblog and book have given him a mighty platform. Why we follow him: To be sure, his mission is to make you, a fellow entrepreneur, successful, and his tweets are composed with that in mind. Enough said.
	@randfish (Rand Fishkin): The SEOMoz CEO is a young Seattle entrepreneur who speaks internationally on the subject of SEO. Why we follow him: Amid some personal chatter, followers will find the rhythm and lifestyle that make a successful entrepreneur tick–and gain wisdom along the way.
	@sumaya (Sumaya Kazi): Kazi is one of the youngest entrepreneurs on this list. She works for Sun Microsystems and founded The Cultural Connect. Why we follow her: At a glance, you might miss the buzz and get stuck on her age, but her tweets are like a mini blow-by-blow reality show on entrepreneurial gumption.
	@stevecase (Steve Case): Case co-founded AOL–do we really need to say more–and startedRevolution. Why we follow him: Case is still on the cutting edge of business, and even if you believe this is his assistant tweeting, the links and news are invaluable.
	@upbeatnow (Rajesh Setty): He blogs at Life Beyond Code and he has founded several companies. Why we follow him: He dances the twitter line between personal rants, chatter and business. We like the business end the best.
	@communispaceceo (Diane Hessen): She’s the CEO of Communispace, which manages over 300 online communities. Why we follow her: She sticks to business most of the time and keeps us well-informed. You can’t ask for much more from this savvy businesswoman.

And, if you’re still not following @odesk on Twitter, what are you waiting for?  Don’t have time to Twitter?  oDesk has 528 Twitter Professionals to help you manage your business’s presence on Twitter.  Twitter is one of oDesk’s fastest growing skills, as we reported last month.

Nido Qubein: Why Immigrants Become Millionaires

8 Ways to Make Your WordPress Perform Much Better

WordPress is one of the most celebrated platform for developing web applications and blogs etc. It is user friendly, search engine friendly and is such a power packed development framework that it hardly comes as a surprise to find out that it is the most popular and frequently downloaded system for powering web applications.

However, if you feel stuck with this application, for the pages are taking longer than usual to load and there isn’t anything that you can do about it, you have stumbled upon the right place. Below we shall discuss 8 amazing ways with which you can greatly improve the performance of your WP application. Kindly read ahead to discover more:

8 Great Ways to Boost up WP’s Performance

First up, Update your System 

We go to the ends of the world in order to optimize our WordPress based web applications, and yet we are the ones causing the leaks in its performance, by still using the older and stagnant versions of the platform and its various plugins. In order to boost up the performance, ensure that you have employed only the latest version of the platform, and all the plugins and other functionalities that have you deployed, are running in their latest and most advanced version.

Updating the WP blog or website is not only a better practice, but also ensures higher and much advanced functioning and security of the application. And there is no reason why you should decide against keeping the backend architecture well updated.

Now, Get a WP Caching Plugin 

If you have not gotten a Caching plugin in the backend of your WordPress, we really doubt whether you are serious at all regarding boosting the performance of the website or not. For any WordPress user, the sure shot way to significantly improve the performance of the website is by getting a caching mechanism right in the backend structure. W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache are two widely used plugins which you can utilize to leverage from the same.

Also, optimize the images for better results 

Images play a key role in both – bringing more and newer visitors to your website, and boosting up the performance as well, if only you don’t fail to capitalize upon the same. Firstly, it completely fails us to understand why bloggers and WP site owners would not use IMG ALT tag to optimize the images with proper keywords and make the images appear meaningful for the search engine crawlers.

Furthermore, you must resize and filter the images prior to uploading them, and do not rely on the browser to that for you. Use image manipulation software and adequately resize them prior to uploading them on the website. This way, not only would the images attract newer visitors from myriad sources, but would also not make the website clumsy in loading etc.

Replace PHP queries with HTML, wherever possible 

The browser takes an irritatingly long span of time to load and work around with PHP queries. What you can do instead is to replace these queries with static HTML, wherever you deem perfect. HTML is easily read and accessed by the web browsers, and hence more the HTML, better is going to be loading speed, and hence the performance.

Update the database at regular intervals 

When you keep the database optimized time to time, you save yourself hefty amount of data which otherwise would have been wasted to optimize the database and the site, after the damage had already begun to happen. The plugin which you may want to use for this step is ‘myPhpAdmin.’ This plugin updates the database before you may even drop your hat and makes it look perfectly seamless.

Kick out all the plugins that you don’t require 

At times we download various plugins in jiffy, perhaps as an act of impulse, but we make no bones about it when we tell you that extra plugins are only going to make the web page heavy and hence lethargic. These plugins are not any old fond memories which you would cherish. If you do not use them, kick them out of the system RIGHT NOW! Most of the plugins are free anyway, and so you may install and utilize them again, as and when you require. Likewise you may consider opting for offshore WordPress development, and hire well learnt and skilled offshore experts to customize the plugins, and get them to completely meet your requirement set.

Rethink the choice of your web hosting service provider 

If you have taken almost every major step that we or someone else mentioned, then probably it is time to break the ties with your web hosting service provider, and hire a new one, or perhaps revise the hosting plans for now. Whether you confront the current hosting services provider to own up to the lack of performance, and provide a better deal, or you get in touch with some other services provide, that is your call, but if you wish to boost up the performance, this is a step you are eventually going to have to take.

Finally, keep a regular tab on the performance of the website 

We all understand that performance optimization is not a onetime affair and you probably would have to be at the top of your game at all times, in order to check any anomalies and weed them out of the architecture. We shall leave you with a code which you may include in the backend of the website, and it will let you know as and when the optimization work is needed to be carried out next with your WP website.

Just mention – ‘ queries in   seconds’ in the backend of the template and you would get all the required insights regarding the performance of the website.

This brings us to the end of this post. We hope that these tips would help you enhance the performance of your WordPress website. For superior quality results, please hire WordPress developers from an offshore center. And do not forget to share with us your opinions about everything that we just discussed above in the article. We shall await your comments and feedbacks.

Author Bio: 

Jason Roiz is an eminent online marketer, who researches on search engine optimization efficiencies of WordPress Development websites. He is associated with OSSMedia Ltd as an online marketing consultant. Notably, OSSMedia Ltd is a leading opensource software development company . Hire WordPress developer for custom WordPress development services.

Taking on the dreaded expense report

Expensify

Expense reports that don't suck!

Lost receipts, misplaced corporate cards, arcane expense report software. The dreaded expense report is the bane of so many business travelers and freelancers. But a few high tech services have an answer, albeit with a dash of low tech too.
The mobile applications Expensify, Shoeboxed, and Lemon Wallet, all released over the past two years scan receipts, automatically turn them into spreadsheet files—and also automatically generate expense reports and even sophisticated financial analysis tools.
These time-saving receipt tools work thanks to top-notch scanner recognition. And the low-tech surprise of many of the receipt scanning apps: The use of human labor to verify auto-scanned receipts for expense reports.
Shoeboxed is open about human eyes looking at your receipts—promotional materials boast about "human-verified data extraction" of receipts at facilities in North Carolina and Australia. Both Expensify and Lemon Wallet also have verification of receipt data by human employees, although both use them to differing degrees. Lemon Wallet's co-founder Wences Casares said that the company initially used employees to input receipts, but switched to automatic scanning because of the cost and because too many errors were being made.
Alex Fitzpatrick, a political journalist at the website Mashable, swears by Expensify. "Expensify connects my credit and debit cards so I automatically submit expense reports, similar to how Mint works. But some expenses—especially cabs in Washington, D.C.--are still paid with cash. If I ask a cabbie for a paper receipt, Expensify's scanner does a great job of reading the handwriting on it," Fitzpatrick said.
When a user photographs a receipt, the receipt then undergoes a scanning process which transforms the image of a receipt into usable text which can be plugged into expense reports. This takes anywhere from five minutes to an hour, since receipts are typically photographed under a variety of lighting conditions (the technology used is nearly identical to depositing a check through a mobile phone).
"The scanned receipt is uploaded to our server and then goes thru a number of processes. Our imaging system cuts the receipt into a lot of little rectangles and uses these to identify the merchant name, phone number, and other important information." Caesares said. "Then this information goes through scanning for every small rectangle; we apply an algorithm confidence level to this and pass it if it is more than 50 percent."
Expensify, Shoeboxed, and Lemon Wallet then all verify data against a customer's previous records to make sure it hasn't been entered yet. Because the scanner process is resource-intensive for these service providers, users are typically limited in the number of free entries they can make monthly: All three charge for premium accounts with unlimited receipt uploads.
Shoeboxed's Corey Post said that the occasional mistakes made by OCR readers justified manual entry. Employees working in shifts at Shoeboxed's North Carolina headquarters manually proofread OCRed receipts. However, this takes longer than Lemon Wallet or Expensify: While most receipts take an hour or two to process, they can take up to 24 hours. "We try to balance instant gratification with keeping all employees in-house in the United States," says Post.
One of the largest target markets for expense report-generating apps is the freelancer community. According to a 2010 Bureau of Labor Statistics report, there are approximately 10.3 million independent contractors in the United States. Many of these independent contractors work for multiple clients, all of whom typically require separate invoices. All three companies target their products at independent contractors and employees on business trips.
Ultimately, each service has distinct advantages and disadvantages. Lemon Wallet is by far the easiest to use, but has limited functionality. Shoeboxed offers an array of options and integration with Evernote, Quickbooks, Freshbooks, and a host of other external services, but takes much longer to process receipts and has more of a learning curve. Expensify, meanwhile, shares the service integration of Shoeboxed but has prices that could add up for small businesses with more than a handful of employees.
So should users feel secure with the use of human labor during the input process of their receipts?
Expensify's own website warns users not to upload sensitive information, or "a picture of anything you wouldn't be willing to throw into the trash."
(The author is a Reuters contributor) (Editing by John Peabody, Ryan McCarthy and Brian Tracey)http://expensify.com

10 Reasons To Form A Strategic Business Alliance

Below are 10 good reasons to create a strategic alliance.

1. You could offer your customers a larger variety of products or services. This will allow you to spend less time and money developing new products to sell.

2. Your number of sales people will increase because you are combining with other business. You won’t have to spend time and money hiring new employees.

3. Your marketing and advertising budget will increase. When you form a strategic alliancewith other businesses you both will share the advertising and marketing costs.

4. You can now offer your existing customers more back-end and up-sell products. This will increase your sales and profits.

5. Your business will gain a larger number of skilled people working on the same project. You will gain the knowledge of the other businesses employees.

6. You will be able to beat your competition by selling to a larger target audience. You will also increase the total number of existing customers you can sell your products and services to.

7. You can exchange endorsements with your alliance partners. You’ll add more credibility to your business and gain your potential customers trust to buy.

8. You can expand your business more rapidly. You can develop new products and services faster with a larger work force.

9. You will be able to solve your customer’s problems faster with a larger base of customer service people. You will also learn new ways to improve your customer service from youralliance partners.

10. You will have a larger number of “strategic thinking” people. This will allow both businesses to come up with profitable business ideas quicker than before.

To your successful Business Alliance!

The 10 Biggest Mistakes Freelancers Make, and How to Avoid Them

No freelancer is perfect — not me, not you, not even the best of us. We all make mistakes, all the time, and if we’re smart, we learn from them.

Some mistakes, however, are more crucial than others, and if we can correct or avoid those mistakes, we’ll survive. We’ll still make other mistakes, but they won’t hurt as much.

Let’s take a look at some of the most essential mistakes that freelancers, new and old, often make, and how to avoid them.

Missing deadlines. I wrote more on this topic in this post, but basically, your ability to put out quality work and meet deadlines is what makes your reputation. And as a freelancer, your reputation is all you have. If you miss deadlines too often, you will soon see your clients going elsewhere. How to avoid: Make deadlines one of your top two priorities (along with putting out great work), overestimate how long it will take you, break the project into smaller steps, and be accountable every step of the way.

Charging too little. New freelancers, especially, undervalue themselves and charge less than they’re worth. That’s OK if you’re just breaking into the business, and don’t have any previous work or reputation to point to. But once you’ve got some stellar work under your belt, don’t be afraid to ask what you’re worth, otherwise you are selling yourself short. And you’ll be working too much just to pay the bills. (See this article for more.) How to avoid: It’s good to find out what the market avergage is, and charge a little more. This tells clients that you’re good. A good way to do the math is to figure out how much you want to make, and how many hours you realistically plan to work. Then charge based on those numbers.

Lack of preliminary research. This is research before making your pitch, not before completing the assignment. Often a freelancer will contact a potential client and make a pitch, without really understanding the client or his needs, and without knowing how this project will add value to the client. This approach will get you very little business. How to avoid: Research the client thoroughly before making contact. The Internet is a great way to do that, of course. Know what the client does, the client’s market, what the client’s goals are (in general), and figure out how you can help the client meet those goals. How will you add value? Direct your pitch at those issues.

Choosing the wrong clients. The client-freelancer relationship is an important one, and there are many issues that can make a client the wrong client, or the right client, for you. Those include the market they’re in, they’re working style, how difficult they are, how likely they are to pay your rate, how much work they require, their ability to pay on time without hassle, and more. If you choose the wrong client, you will make less money, be unhappy, and work more. How to avoid: Select clients carefully. Again, research them, talk to other freelancers who’ve worked for them. When contacting a client, think of it as a two-way interview — they are trying to decide if you’re right for them, but you should also be trying to decide if they are right for you. Do your first assignment or three on a trial basis, to see how things work out. Every now and then, evaluate your clients to see if they’re worth the trouble.

Getting too personal. It’s good to be friendly with a client, but keep it professional. You don’t want to be best friends. You shouldn’t be too formal, either, but if you become personal, two things could happen: 1) one of you could get hurt or angry at the other based on a business decision; or 2) the client might think you’re unprofessional. Either one is bad for business. How to avoid: Start any correspondence on a formal basis, and then get friendlier depending on how the client handles communication. Don’t be afraid to be friendly, but at the same time, don’t go beyond business, and don’t cross the line into unprofessionalism.

Letting off steam. If there is a problem with a client, some freelancers have a tendency to vent their frustration — at the client. For example, if an editor decides not to run my article, I might show my frustration and displeasure in a very angry way. This is bad. It will harm your professional reputation, both with this client and with future clients. And it will lead to decreased business over time, if you continue this mistake. How to avoid: If there is a problem with a client, and you are angry or frustrated, do not communicate right away. Let your steam off some other way, through talking to a friend, through exercise, through eating a carton of ice cream. But don’t do it at your client, or anyone else in your professional world. Bite your tongue. Then, when you’ve calmed down, communicate with your client in a non-emotional, professional manner — preferably in a positive way, but clearly, so that future problems can be avoided.

Not proposing a follow-up idea. Often a freelancer will complete an assignment, and then move on to an assignment with another client. Perhaps the freelancer hopes that the assignment that he completed was so amazing, the client will be knocking down his door the next day. Unfortunately, that often doesn’t happen. If you don’t provide the basis of future business, you might not see it. How to avoid: when you complete an assignment, propose a follow-up idea for future work. If you don’t hear back, follow up.

Not having multiple income streams. Relying on one or two clients is always a bad idea. If your main client drops you, or reduces his freelancer budget, or goes out of business, you’re out of luck. And now you can’t pay your bills. How to avoid: Always have multiple income streams. You might start with one freelance client (we all do in the beginning), but don’t rely on that as your primary source of income until you’ve added more clients. And if you can get other sources of income streams (a full- or part-time job, another business, your spouse’s income, advertising on a blog, selling a product, Amway), you should work hard to do so. It will make your income much more stable and reliable.

Allowing yourself to slack. Let’s face it: some days, we don’t feel like working. And that’s fine, if we plan for that flexibility, and make up for it on other days. But too many days of slacking, and soon you aren’t getting any income. And you’re missing deadlines. Not good. How to avoid: It’s fine to give yourself flexibility, so that you can work when you feel productive, but if you have deadlines to meet, don’t let yourself slack off. Push yourself to meet the deadline, and work in bursts to motivate yourself.

Failing to be yourself. Often we take work because we need the income, but it doesn’t align with who we are. And we feel awful about it, and slowly we begin to hate ourselves. Until we no longer want to do the work. How to avoid: Seek, from the beginning, to find work that aligns with your values, that allows you to be who you are. Being fake and dishonest, to others and to yourself, gets you nowhere. Be sincere in your interactions with others, and don’t be afraid to say no to stuff that doesn’t fit who you are. Always strive to find work you love.

How post-industrial St. Louis made itself a startup hotbed

St. Louis has become a startup mecca, and a good place for recent college graduates to find work, or even follow their dream and create their own venture. There are tons of support resources, a favorable business climate, lots of shared spaces to choose from, and a positive vibe from many quarters. Having been a resident of the city for the last seven years, I have personally seen this evolution and am indeed part of the action myself. So why St. Louis and why now? It has to do with money, middle management, mentoring, brains and bandwidth.

Let's look at the stats. Earlier this year, Dice named St. Louis the fastest growing city when it comes to technology jobs posted on Dice. Job postings grew 25% and the average tech salaries were up 13% to $81,245. And according to Dice, Missouri's tech employment beat out Texas, New York and Washington. St. Louis Community College's annual workforce report is also noteworthy in its praise for IT jobs.

First there is money. Over the past several years, entrepreneurs have seen multiple ways to get grants or investments in their companies. Jay DeLong, the Vice President for New Venture & Capital Formation for the Regional Chamber in St. Louis has this video showing the 10 ways to raise $50k for your startup, including links to venture capitalists and business plan competitions. His video is nicely outdated, and new VC firms are being added to that list. Last month, Jim McKelvey, who was one of the co-founders of mobile payments company Square, put together the new VC firm SixThirty.

Matt Menietti is a Venture Partner with SixThirty (the name refers to the height and width of the iconic Gateway Arch.) and he told me, "We are another organization to the rich ecosystem in St. Louis but we are just focused on financial service tech startups." Their first program starts next month and will provide $100,000 investments, requiring each beneficiary to move to St. Louis for a four month program.

Some of these organizations such as Arch Angels have stepped up their game. When I first came to town, the Angels made one or two yearly equity investments and had a few dozen partners. Now they have merged with another venture capital group that was known as FinServe Tech Angels and award dozens of grants per year. Kyle Welborn, who ran FinServe and is now a partner at Cultivation Capital, another St. Louis-based VC firm, told me "With accelerators, business plan competitions, venture funds and angel groups, local companies are raising enough money to get started and grow."

I mentioned middle management for a reason, but not why you think. Over the past decade, St. Louis has been losing headquarters of Fortune 100 companies to other locations. Our iconic Budweiser is now part of an international beer company as one notable merger or acquisition. These moves involve shedding a lot of middle management, who in turn go into startup mode. Many of them have created new ventures and have been early recipients of Arch Grants and other funding sources.

Some ventures have gotten big enough to require their own middle managers. McKelvey's Square continues to have a small development group in town, and Riot Games development team has more than 30 people in the region.

Mentoring is another big factor. If you are going to start up a company from scratch, it helps to have folks you can call and get guidance from. And in St. Louis, there are now so many IT-related mentoring opportunities it is hard to keep track of all of them. The longest-running IT-specific program is the IT Entrepreneur Network (ITEN), which was founded in 2008 and now has 70 mentors advising more than 200 startup companies. ITEN has various programs including its Mock Angel preparatory session for those ventures that are ready to pitch to VCs and another program to help hone business plans. All of its mentors volunteer their time and take no equity position in the ventures. ITEN has more than a dozen job openings on their website, and you can see some of them below here. (Disclosure: I am a mentor at ITEN.)

UW tech startup hopes to make online shopping easier

University of Washington alumni and Decide.com co-founders Brian Ma, Hsu Han Ooi, Ian Ma and Hsu Ken Ooi spell out "UW" in their West Mercer Street headquarters. Decide is a company that helps consumers to shop smarter with science and technology.

Share on twitter

Share on redditShare on emailMore Sharing Services

August 14, 2012 at 8:11 PM | Garrett Black

(Left) Ryter von Difloe, Ian Ma, and Hsu Han Ooi take a break from work at Decide with a set of Pingpong in their office.

Four UW alumni are trying to give students what they want.

Brian and Ian Ma, along with Han Hsu and Ken Hsu, all UW alumni, started Decide.com after dreaming up an idea several years ago in between their day jobs at Google, Zillow, Microsoft, and Zaaz, respectively.

“I noticed my girlfriend went back dozens of times a day to check prices on websites,” Brian Ma said. “I thought that was such a waste, so why not build something that could help the consumer out?”

With that kernel of an idea, the four went to Oren Etzioni, professor of computer science at the UW and noted Internet entrepreneur, who had recently sold Farecast, an air-ticket search service. Etzioni’s enthusiasm and the shaping of a plan for a startup resulted in all four quitting their jobs.

“I called up my parents and told them I had good news,” Ken Hsu said. “And when we met, I told them I had quit my job; my parents were like, ‘Well your brother still has a good job.’ … And I told them, ‘Well, he has some good news too.’”

From there, it was a marathon of coding in Ken Hsu’s basement, eating only pizza until they had a viable product. Months of research followed, with numerous trips to Costco and countless boxes of ramen noodles.

“People get worked up and think you have to have some genius idea,” Ken Hsu said. “It’s almost paralyzing, I think. When you’re young, you have to take some risks.”

On the wall of the West Mercer Street headquarters, two clocks show times at Decide locations and one clock is left permanently at 2:30 p.m. for group coffee time.

It took terabytes of data to construct the algorithms that track prices. Eventually, the set of brothers discovered cycles in product prices. For example, new TVs generally hit the market in March, so the prices of most TVs drop in February.

“Certain TVs even go up in price,” Brian Ma said. “Prices are incredibly volatile; they change 20, even 30 times a day.”

With that discovery, the team had something concrete to present to investors, as well as a viable business opportunity. Overall, they have raised $8.5 million and now have an office in Queen Anne.

“Having an office is a real milestone … a status symbol,” Ken Hsu said. “It’s a legit thing.”

They also hired new team members, upping the total staff to 29, including CEO Mike Fridgen, an industry veteran who most recently worked with Bing at Microsoft.

“What’s interesting is, we’re a company where people can decide what they work on,” Brian Ma said. “Everyone chips in their own special way.”

Decide.com also expanded its range of consumer services by using not just price cycles, but also user and expert reviews, forecasts, and type of product in its data mining. Decide.com informs consumers on every aspect of a purchase and recently unveiled its Decide Score, a feature that rates products on a scale of one to 100.

“Frankly, the biggest challenge is accuracy,” Brian Ma said. “We have people still working on accuracy.”

Within the range of 77 percent accuracy and with the average consumer saving $101, team members are still tweaking the formula, constantly updating it with real-time data. Decide also receives advice from industry veterans and other mentors, as well as a network of consultants built up over the years.

“It’s a social-media community of roughly 500 people,” said Shauna Causey, vice president of marketing. “They advise us externally. … We essentially found Decide.com’s biggest fans, and ask them for their advice.”

The collaborative nature of the team is apparent; the office space is equipped with rows of long desks, each person’s space adjacent to another team member. A ping-pong table, a Zen room, a kitchen, and multiple open conference rooms encourage an easygoing atmosphere.

“I joined because I don’t know of another startup team in Seattle that is as humble, talented, [and] collaborative,” Causey said.

Both Brian Ma and Ken Hsu cited the computer-science department at the UW as a major factor in their success. Decide has more than 10 UW alumni on its staff.

“The CS department is simply amazing,” Brian Ma said. “Oren [Etzioni] is the smartest, most intelligent guy.”

Decide members’ next steps will include continual tinkering with their models as well as expansion of the Decide score figure.

“What to buy, and when to buy,” Brian Ma said. “We’re the consumer reports of our generation.”

How to Get Free Money – These 17 Companies Will Give You $1,820.25

1. Look at Your Budget on PersonalCapital.com – FREE $10.00 PersonalCapital.com, a portfolio management site, will give you $10 just to open a free account! For those of you who aren’t familiar with PC, their site reminds me a lot of Mint.com. Basically, you input your account information and then their website helps you track your investments, credit card balances and changes to your checking/savings accounts. 

The layout is pretty cool too – a number of full-color charts & graphs lets you easily visualize all of your financial accounts at once. Here’s how to grab the $10… 1. Sign up for PersonalCapital.com using my referral link. The bonus is paid out via Paypal, so my advice is to signup for Personal Capital using your Paypal email address. 3. Add your financial account(s) to your Personal Capital dashboard. You must link at least one account in order to get the bonus. 4. Wait 30 days. Unfortunately, this bonus takes up to a month to pay out, but it’s free money so can I really complain? **You must be a legal resident of the 50 U.S. states or the District of Columbia and 18 years or older in order to claim the bonus** Read more about it here: “Free $10 for Signing Up at Personal Capital”   

  2.  Trade Stocks at MotifInvesting.com – FREE $100.25 Motif Investing is unique among online brokers, because instead of picking individual stocks, you invest in a cluster of stocks (usually 20 to 30) from a similar field.  Sort of like a mutual fund, but the motifs range from Clean Energy, to Republican Companies, to Healthy and Tasty, to Obamacare.  Basically any interest you have or trend you’d like to invest in can be found on Motif… Even, better they’re giving away a ton of cash right now. If you open a new account and make one trade, you’ll earn $50. Make 3 trades, and you’ll earn $75. Make 5 trades, and you’ll earn $150! Now Motif charges $9.95 for each trade you make, so after making 5 trades, you’ll still be netting $100.25 in extra cash.  That’s like getting all of your transaction fees free AND earning $100 extra.  Sweet! Signup here - Free $150 Motif Promotion. Read more about it here: “How to Make $100 This Week with Motif Investing”  

 3. Download the Mobile Expressions App on Your Smartphone – FREE $15.00 MobileXpression is a research company that studies internet trends and reports to their clients about the popularity of different mobile phone websites. They are currently looking for a few thousand cell phone users to share some of the websites they are browsing on their mobile devices. All of the sharing is done with a special software that is installed on your phone and it doesn’t require any real work from you. Plus, they’ll give you a free $15 just to give it a try. Even better, you can also uninstall the software at any time if you decide you no longer want to participate. How it works… 1. Sign up at MobileXpressions here – You’ll need to share a little bit of information about your demographic which is similar to signing up as a Nielsen household. You’ll also need to tell them what kind of cell phone you have, because their software is only compatible with certain types of phones. 2. Download their software – It seems to be pretty easy and it runs in the background of your phone just like any other cell phone app. The site says it will have no affect on your mobile phone performance. 3. Send your data – This step doesn’t really require any work from you as the software automatically send the relevant data to MobileXpression. They don’t monitor your phone calls or personal information but they do check out the web pages you view, the links you access, and the usage times for certain device activities (e.g., text messaging, call lengths, and web browsing). 4. Collect your rewards – MobileXpressions will send you a $15 Visa gift card just for signing up and downloading the software. They also reward members with weekly contests and will have a drawing for $100,000 jackpot at the end of the year. Read more about it here: “Get Paid $15 to Share Your Favorite Website”  

 4. Try Banking at Capital One 360 – FREE $50.00 About a year ago, Capital One took over ING Direct and started offering free online checking accounts. What’s even cooler is that they’ll give you $50 just to open one. I’ve already got a checking account that I’m pretty happy with, but I don’t mind opening a second one for some free cash. Here’s how to do it: 1. Open a free checking account with Capital One 360. 2. There’s no minimum deposit with this account, but you’ve got to make at least 3 purchases with your Capital One 360 debit card during the first 45 days of opening the account. 3. On the 50th day, Capital One 360 will deposit a free $50 in your account. Sweet! For those of you who aren’t familiar with Capital One 360, they are a pretty popular virtual bank that gives spectacular interest rates. It’s completely free to open and maintain an account with Capital One 360. Go claim your $50 and take yourself out to lunch. Read more about it here: “Free Money Alert: Get $50 from Capital One 360” 

 5. Open a Netspend.com Account – FREE $20.00 This is another easy $20 just for requesting a prepaid, reloadable card from Netspend. I’ve tested this one and over 200 hundred readers have cashed in on this, so you know it’s a good one. 1. Click HERE and ”Open a NetSpend account” for FREE. 2. You will receive your NetSpend “Visa” Debit card within 10 business days. Mine made it here in 4 days. 3. Once you receive the card, simply log into NetSpend and activate it. 4. In order to get the FREE $20, you’ll need to load the card with a minimum of $40.00 using PayPal, a bank account or one of the other many options. 5. Once you load the $40.00, NetSpend will add $20.00 to your available balance on the card. I confirmed this myself with my own card. 6. Go to the ATM and withdraw the $60.00 total from your card or spend the funds at your local store, online, or wherever you can use a credit card. Yes, if you withdraw the money via ATM or cash back, you’ll be hit with the $2.00 fee for a PIN transaction or a $2.50 ATM Fee (would only be $17.50 – $18.00 bonus in this case). But, you can avoid the fee by ACH transferring it for free back to your bank Read more it here: “Free $20 Cash for Signing Up at Netspend”  

 6. Do Your Shopping via Ebates.com – FREE $10.00 The folks over at Ebates.com, the cash-back shopping site, are giving away $10 gift cards when you sign-up as a new member. You can choose either a $10 Target, Walmart, Macy’s, or Kohl’s gift card. You need to make a $25 purchase at any of the stores on their shopping list in order to qualify for the free gift card. I certainly don’t recommend spending $25 just to get a $10 gift card, but if you have plans to buy something online anyway, I would definitely cash in on this… Especially if you’ve got a gift card from a birthday or Christmas that needs to be spent. Look at this as a way to get a little bit extra back on your purchase. Some of the cash-back offers I use frequently include the 3% back on iTunes purchases, 1% back on Apple store purchases, and 3% back on Target purchases. But there are a ton of stores to pick from as well. Read more about it here: “Get a FREE $10 Target Gift Card from Ebates.com”  

 7. Open a Free Account at Plink.com – FREE $10.00 Plink.com is a new cash-back site that lets you collect rewards just by shopping at the places you already do. Right now they’re offering a sweet promotion that will pay you to $10 signup at Plink and then make a purchase a Mcdonalds. Since you do have to buy something, your actually profit might be a couple of dollars less, but my advice is just to buy an iced tea or an ice cream so you can keep most of the $10. One of the cool thing about Plink is that you earn rewards without having to carry any extra rewards card, coupons or special codes. Simply pay with your credit or debit card that you link to your Plink account. Your rewards will automatically be credited – it’s pretty cool! 1. Sign up with Plink.com – It’s FREE! To qualify for the FREE $10 Gift Card, you must be a new user of Plink. 2. Register your debit or credit card with Plink. 3. Make a purchase at Mcdonalds before 11:59 P.M. on Sunday, September 9, 2013. There’s no minimum purchase amount. 4. Wait for the 1,000 bonus points to apply to your Plink account (can take up to 7 business days). Finally, click the “Rewards” button and pick which gift card you want. That’s it! Enjoy. Read more about it here: “Get a Free $5 Gift Card to Amazon When You Join Plink.com” 

 8. Open an Account at Serve.com – FREE $50.00 Serve is American Express’s version of a prepaid, reloadable card and they are offering $50 when you open a free account, sign up for direct deposit and have two direct deposits put in your account. That’s a FREE $50 for about 5 minutes of work. Sweet! And here’s a tip: You can direct deposit a number of things besides your regular paycheck. I like to keep my paycheck going to my primary bank account, but for bank bonuses, I use other sources of income to fund it. Try to think of another place that you get monthly income from. Do you get a social security check? Insurance check? Second job income? Mystery shopping payouts?  A number of the “paid-to-email” sites also offer direct deposit. I know that Fusion Cash does, because I get a nice cash-out from them on the 20th of every month. Here’s a link to the promo page:     Serve.com $50 Bonus Read more about Serve.com here: “How to Get a Free $50 from Serve.com” 

  9. Take 5 Minutes and Open a Betterment.com Account – FREE $25.00 Betterment is a simple, online tool that allows anyone to invest in stocks & bonds without incurring transaction fees. It’s become pretty popular with small investors who want to start saving, but can’t afford the expensive fees you find at places like Etrade.com and Merrill Lynch. Plus, they’ll give you a free $25 just to signup! 1.) Open a free account at Betterment.com. The form takes about 90 seconds to fill out, so can literally do this while sitting in the doctor’s office or while watching television. 2.) You need to make an opening deposit of $250 or more within 60 days of opening your account. If you’re not ready to make a deposit right now, my advice is that you go ahead and fill out the Betterment promotion form today. You can always make the deposit later, but this way you’ll have the promotion locked in, just in case the promotion ends. 3.) Once you’ve deposited $250 (and waited 60 days), Betterment.com will deposit a FREE $25 bonus into your account. How easy is that? You can then withdraw your entire account balance or you can keep the $275 invested and earning interest with Betterment. Right now this is USA only. Read more about it here: “How to Make $25 While Sitting in a Waiting Room”  

10. Transfer Your Prescription to a New Pharmacy- FREE $25.00 If you’re one of the 70% of Americans with a monthly prescription from your doctor, I’ve got an easy way for you to make $25 bucks. Several of the national grocery and drug store chains have been know to run promotions where they will give you free cash or a gift card when you transfer a prescription to their store. For example, this month Walgreens is running a promotion where they will give you a $25 gift card for transferring a prescription to your local Walgreens. You can usually find these coupons in your Sunday newspaper circulars or on coupon blogs like DealSeekingMom.com and MoneySavingMom.com. You can even repeat this deal every month with a different pharmacy. Read more about it here: “Here’s a Neat Trick to Make $25/month if You Have a Prescription” 

 11. Sign Up an Account at OptionsExpress – FREE $100.00 Here’s another great way to make some free cash. This one is through OptionsXpress, a Charles Schwab affiliated brokerage house where you can trade stocks and options. From now until December 31, 2013, OptionsXpress is offering new US customers a $100 bonus when you open an Individual or Joint account and fund it with at least $500. 1. Open a new Individual or Joint account (IRAs, other tax-exempt, linked, or shared accounts are excluded from this offer). 2. Fund your new account with at least $500 cash or securities transferred from a brokerage firm other than OptionsXpress. 3. Make at least 3 trades within 12 months of account opening. 4. The $100 bonus will be deposited into your account within one month of meeting the terms and conditions of this offer. 5. Maintain at least $500 in your account for 6 months (excluding trading losses), if not, the $100 bonus will be deducted from your account. Read more about it here: “Look! OptionsExpress is Giving Away a Free $100 to New Account Holders”  

12 – 16. Sign Up for a New Credit Card – FREE $1,375.00 One of the best ways for a Penny Hoarder to make some serious extra cash is to take advantage of credit card sign up bonuses.  Of course, to get the most benefit, you should have excellent credit, and you should routinely pay off your credit card in full each month so you’re not paying interest.  (After all, every time you pay interest, you’re losing some of the positive effects of the bonuses.) Just recently I received over $1,300+ in credit card bonuses by selectively choosing new cards to apply for and use.  All I had to do was put my regular spending on the credit card over the course of a few months. US Bank FlexPerks Card –  $175 Signup Bonus Chase Sapphire Preferred Card – $400 Signup Bonus Barclaycard Arrival – $400 Signup Bonus Citi ThankYou Preferred Card – $200 Signup Bonus American Express Gold – $200 Signup Bonus For those of you wondering, here’s a great article on how to do this without hurting your credit score: How Opening and Closing Credit Cards Affects Your Credit Score Read more about it here: “5 Credit Card Promotions That Made me $1,375”   

17. Get Paid to Complete Tasks at InboxDollars.com – FREE $30.00 There are a number of sites on the web that will pay you to read advertiser’s emails, sign up for offers, and take surveys. I’ve tried about a million of them, but there are only a few of them that I would recommend. Inbox Dollars is one of those companies and I want to show you how I made $30 in a little over an hour completing offers on their site. It’s free to join Inbox Dollars and best of all, they give you $5 just for signing up! Inbox Dollars just requires that you accumulate $30 in earnings before you can “cash-out” and they pay you by sending a check. Some sample offers include one that asks you to sign up for a email newsletter from AMF Bowling. That pays 50 cents and takes about 15 seconds. Another offer asks you to sign up for a free account at Turbotax.com to earn $3.50. These are simple and there are nearly a hundred of them to choose from. One way to get to $30 in earnings in only a few minutes is by taking advantage of the book club offers. There are a half a dozen book clubs that are offering $10 if you try out their club. Signing up for a book club does require you to put some money forward which is why I suggest this method for more advanced users. If you don’t want to continue your membership in the book club, you will need to simply mark “Cancel- Return to Sender” on the outside of your first package and return it to the postman. The book club will give you a full refund and you get to keep your $10 for trying it out. If you are interested in giving Inbox dollars a try, visit the sign-up page here to get started.

WHO ARE THE ENTREPRENEURS?