Editorial Team

Young Entrepreneurs

Interview with young entrepreneur Tim Fouracre from Clear Books 0

Hi Tim, and welcome on board. Tell us a few things about yourself.
Tim: I founded www.clearbooks.co.uk in July 2008. It’s an online accounting application for small businesses that is revolutionising the accounting software industry. Apart from that, I’m an ordinary guy. I went to university, got a graduate job, and then ventured out with my start-up.

So you have an online business, tell us more about it.
Tim: www.clearbooks.co.uk is online accounting software with a simple goal: to free your time. Businesses are required to maintain accounting records, and www.clearbooks.co.uk helps them do that.

How does it work exactly? What is the workflow?
Tim: Accounting is inherently complicated. Our goal is to make accounting for small businesses clear and simple. You can be creating your first invoice in minutes. Business owners don’t want to waste time on bookkeeping. They want to run their business and generate revenue instead, and that is what we help them do.

Probably it works best for small businesses? What is your target customer?
Tim: Our target market is a small business, and we currently have 1,200 subscribed to the system. They range from one-man bands, startups, freelancers, and sole traders right up to multi-million-pound companies with 20+ employees. The ability to toggle on advanced features, such as Payroll, provides the necessary power required by larger companies.

Can it be used outside the UK?
Tim: Clear Books has customers in the US, Canada, France, Tunisia, India, China, South Africa, and Germany, to name a few. The ability to set custom tax rates and our multi-currency reporting means that businesses around the world are able to use the system.

What are the most important benefits?
Tim: It’s easy to use, saves time, saves money, helps you analyze your business more efficiently, and has a fantastic business community.

Aren’t people afraid to keep their private information online? How secure is the system?
Tim: Security is our top priority. We have a dedicated service center on-site at our partner company, Fubar. This allows us to monitor all aspects of security extremely closely.

And how much does it cost?
Tim: Pricing is very competitive with plans at £5 / £10 / £15 per month depending on the size of your business.

How did you come up with the idea?
Tim: Outside of my day job, I had developed a simple web-based double-entry accounting system to maintain the accounts for a small web development company I ran in my spare time. A good friend of mine, who is a director at Fubra, had developed an invoicing system for his brother’s construction business. When we realised we were working on complementary projects, the idea to merge them was a no-brainer.

What was the exact process from having the idea to say, writing the first line of code?
Tim: At the time, I was still in full-time work. To concentrate fully on merging the two projects Fubra and I decided to form a new joint venture which gave me the opportunity to quit my job and focus my efforts fully on www.clearbooks.co.uk.

Did you make a business plan before, surveyed the market to see if the need for such an online service could have enough potential paying customers to sustain a business?
Tim: We knew that at least 3 businesses would use the application: My small web development company, the construction business, and Fubar. Our goal was to establish an app that worked for these three businesses. If we could do that, then we knew it would work for any small business.

When we first started, we thought we had hit on a fantastic idea that no one else had thought of. We soon noticed a few online accounting competitors; however, as our industry was in its infancy, there have been plenty of room for us to make our mark.

My own experience says that as soon as you have a business idea, you try to get the opinion of the family and close friends to see if it’s holding water. Was it the same in your case, and if it did, how did it go?
Tim: Quitting my job to pursue an idea was a risk. However, the idea was a good one that made the difference. I’ve pursued lots of ideas in the past, but this was the one idea that my (very sensible) partner agreed might actually work. That was the green light to collect my P45.

 A lot of entrepreneurs bootstrap their start-up – don’t have a lot of money to invest and put a lot of personal work in the new business. How do you know when it’s time to hire?
Tim: For the first year and a half, I developed Clear Books from the spare room to keep costs down to a minimum. The reason we moved into our first office was that the need to hire arose and therefore somewhere was needed to accommodate our first employee.

The time was right because we had to pay customers and could afford to hire. That is important.

You know the need to hire someone when your development time is getting impacted by other considerations such as supporting customers and marketing the website.

Coming back to the service, what makes it unique?
Tim: Our service makes us unique. We interact heavily with our users on our customer satisfaction site, which is invaluable for gaining feedback and iterating over the code to improve existing features. We love our customers, and they love us. We set up www.weloveclearbooks.com to show this.

What are the most time-saving features of the platform?
Tim: Compared to dinosaur accounting systems like Sage which are typically installed on only one desktop, the time saving really kicks in due to the flexibility of being online. You have flexible access and can dip in and out of the accounts as you need from anywhere rather than only at one computer.

There are lots of features we have in the system that aim to save time, such as direct VAT filing to HMRC, automatic chasing of late payers, recurring invoices, a super-fast bank import tool, but  most important is the simple layout and design which makes the system easy to navigate.

How did you feel when you got your first customer?
Tim: Knowing that someone is willing to pay for a service you have created is pretty special. In our first month out of beta, we ran a promotion and converted about 50 users into customers. It’s a small number now, but at the time, it felt huge.

A big fear for startups is no one will buy your product. As soon as possible, you should stick a price on your product and see what happens!

You told me you have a very special deal for start-up businesses, what is it?
Tim: It takes time and dedication for startups to establish their business. This is why Clear Books offers completely free accounting software to these businesses for as long as they remain small. Startups will typically process only a few transactions per month, and Clear Books will remain free during this time.

We also offer all businesses a 30 day free trial of www.clearbooks.co.uk. It’s essential for SMEs and start-ups to explore software for their business before they buy. We encourage companies to sign up for a free trial so that they can experience Clear books and make a decision based upon this.

Talking about start-ups, what would you do differently if you were to start all over again?
Tim: We made some mistakes using freelancers on a couple of projects. If you are building an application that is going to need updating and extending, then it makes sense to do it all in-house.

Did you have thoughts about failure along the way? How should an entrepreneur deal with the fear of failure?
Tim: I had always envisaged running my own company, and that is part of the reason I trained as a Chartered Accountant at KPMG. I wanted a backup career I could fall back on (the other reason is I wanted the business grounding). For me, failure wasn’t really on the agenda. I knew we had a good idea, I knew I had the mix of skills to develop the system, and I am a motivated person. I was also in partnership with an established company to which I could always turn for help.

As long as you have a great idea, ability, and desire, then you will succeed.

Was there a tipping point when you realized you are on the right track?
Tim: There have been various rewarding milestones along the way. The first customer, moving into an office, being able to afford and take on your first employee, but reaching 1,000 customers was the milestone that felt like we had traction.

Any advice for start-ups regarding the accounting process?
Tim: If you don’t keep on top of your finances, then accounting can become an administrative nightmare. Start as you mean to go on and get organised with a good accounting application that works for you. With a good system, you can produce smart invoices to look professional, and you can automatically chase late payers who will help your cash flow.

 

Young Entrepreneurs

Interview with Taylor Mingos, founder and CEO of Shoeboxed.com 0

Hi Taylor, and welcome to www.entrepreneurship-interviews.com. Tell us a bit yourself.

Taylor: I’m Taylor Mingos, founder and CEO of Shoeboxed.com. While studying at Duke University, I spent some time in Germany, joining the initial team that started studiVZ.net, which is now one of the most popular social networking websites in Europe. I then founded Shoeboxed, which has been growing rapidly since early 2007.

You’re running an interesting business, what is it about?

Taylor: Shoeboxed digitizes paper documents, extracts data from the page, and organizes everything in a secure online account. From the online account, users can view, print, email, and download their data or export information to other tools that they already use, like Salesforce, QuickBooks, BatchBook, Google Contacts, Outlook, Evernote, Constant Contact, and many others.

So basically, people send you documents, and you make them easily available online?

Taylor: Yes, and then some! The online Shoeboxed account comes with features like automatic categorization, easy export functions and integrations with other platforms, and in general, a level of usability and efficiency unmatched by do-it-yourself document digitization and organization systems like scanners.

The first question when I saw your site was: Aren’t people afraid to send over confidential information?

Taylor: Security is Shoeboxed’s highest priority, and we employ strict industry regulations to protect user data. We use SSL encryption just like online banks and medical record providers. Our operations facility is incredibly locked down, including key card access, 24/7 video surveillance, and highly trained employees who all pass background checks and rigorous interviewing. And in general, Shoeboxed is commonly used for receipts, business cards, and bills, none of which typically contain sensitive personal information (like credit card numbers or social security numbers).

What would be the main benefits of your service?

Taylor: With all of your documents securely organized online, all administrative business tasks, including tax prep, accounting, expense reporting, and contact management, are simplified and streamlined. Bookkeepers and accountants love Shoeboxed because they can take on more clients and serve their customers better by providing Shoeboxed to their clients.

How did you come up with the idea?

Taylor: I have always been an entrepreneur. I owned a video production company in high school and developed some social networking websites during my early college years. Entrepreneurship is exciting and very fulfilling, but my least favorite thing about running a business was dealing with paperwork. I wanted a way to get rid of dealing with paper clutter, and that’s how I came up with the idea of Shoeboxed.

Who is the typical user of your service?

Taylor: Typically, Shoeboxed users are small business owners, business travelers, corporate executives, professional organizers, sales representatives, accountants, bookkeepers, and lawyers.

How are things done, so they don’t mess up? What’s the typical workflow?

Taylor: Shoeboxed is the leading online receipt and business card management service. We are the industry experts at scanning, digitizing, and extracting data accurately and efficiently. And on top of that, we are constantly optimizing and improving our operations to further increase data accuracy and processing time.

You are integrated with a number of related services. Can you name a few?

Taylor: Shoeboxed is integrated with many great companies, including but not limited to Salesforce, FreshBooks, Evernote, Outright.com, Bill.com, BatchBook, Constant Contact, Teaspiller, and others.

You’re doing a lot of online advertising and run sales through affiliates as well. How do these marketing techniques work nowadays?

Taylor: CPC advertising and affiliate marketing are extremely useful and effective tools for targeting and reaching prospective users. We love to build relationships with web advertisers, affiliate publishers, and bloggers to spread the word about Shoeboxed.

How many employees do you have now?

Taylor: I can’t give exact numbers, but we’ve quadrupled our team size in the past year, and the growth in hiring will continue for the foreseeable future. We also have a second office in Sydney, Australia, that provides the same great service to the AU market.

What is important when hiring the first employees?

Taylor: You always want to hire people who complement and expand on your skillsets and are extremely passionate and dedicated. Since my background is heavily in technology, marketing, and development, the first partners I looked to bring to Shoeboxed were skilled in finance, law, HR, and sales. In general, you always want to hire people who believe in your vision. Starting a company is not easy, but it’s nearly impossible to get something off the ground if your teammates don’t share your passion and vision.

How do you find out if a business idea is feasible and get past the “fear of entrepreneurship.”

Taylor: All business ideas need to be tested. It’s important not to be afraid of making mistakes. Just follow your plan through, release an early prototype of your product or service, get some feedback and improve, improve, improve. You’ll quickly learn some extremely valuable lessons that will help you determine which ways to go in your business. I would also encourage all budding entrepreneurs to seek help from successful entrepreneurs. You need to build your contact network and find great advisors. The more people you have on your side, the easier the entrepreneurship route may be for you.

Any thoughts on the crisis and starting a new business?

Taylor: Entrepreneurs and small businesses really are the engine of the economy. The only way the world economy can reach back to productivity levels before the recession is through the alacrity, creativity, and hard work of entrepreneurs.

What can go wrong when starting young?

Taylor: Everything in starting a company is trial and error to a certain extent. It’s a constant learning process. The crucial building blocks are putting together the right team and getting your finances in order. Here’s where some outside help is not a bad option. Shoeboxed has always benefited from great investors, advisors, and attorneys since our early days.

What if everything seems to be done before and there is no idea for something new?

Taylor: As long as there are problems in the world, creative entrepreneurs will continue to come up with new and different solutions.

What are the most important characteristics of a successful entrepreneur?

Taylor: a) Have a vision; b) Surround yourself with smart, dedicated people; c) Always take and listen to feedback; d) and, of course, have a solid business model and revenue plan.

And what are the plans for the future?

Taylor: Shoeboxed will continue to ramp up sales and marketing as well as consider other international expansion opportunities. We just released our Shoeboxed Business Card Reader and Scanner iPhone App and will continue to expand our mobile service offerings.

Local Entrepreneurs

Interview with Aaron Leischke, the entrepreneur who saved money working in the restaurant industry to start his own business 0

Hi Aaron, and welcome to www.entrepreneurship-interviews.com. You’re in the restaurant business; tell us a bit about what it is about? Cousins Subs is a restaurant specializing in East Coast-style submarine sandwiches made with the finest ingredients served on a variety of freshly-baked bread, along with salads, soups, chips, and soft drinks.  We’re a leading quick-service sandwich chain serving larger than average submarine sandwiches — 7.5 inches versus our competitors’ 6-inch offerings – made-to-order and tailored to each customers’ specifications. There are about 150 company- and franchise-owned locations in six states.

You told me that you were lucky enough to start before the crisis but still had your share of troubles to finance your dream business. What was it exactly? I had a problem getting a loan to buy my first business because I was very young and did not have that much a credit history or ownership experience.  But I was very persistent, continued to save money, and finally got my loan.

So you saved money to be able to get a loan from the bank? Yes, I saved as much money as I could and used it towards a down payment for my business which helped me to secure the loan.

And then invested the hard-earned money and the loan in a restaurant that didn’t do well? I invested in a restaurant where I believed I could come in and make some positive changes to improve the operations of the restaurant, which would increase sales.  And that’s exactly what happened.

Most people are afraid to start a business from the ground, not to mention to take over a business that doesn’t go that well. What made you believe you could do better? I had a positive attitude, I was very motivated, and I believed in myself.  The restaurant had been around for a few years and had been underachieving a previous couple of years, but I knew it had a lot of potentials.

Are franchises better than starting from the ground up? Franchises are better because you have a great support system, and you’re working with a proven business model.  Plus, you’re affiliated with a brand name like Cousins Subs, which has been around for over 35 years.

So, ok, you had the money and took over the first restaurant. What were the next steps for, say, the first half a year? Getting new staff? Improving the location? Better marketing? The first steps were to replace the staff, improve guest service and the accuracy of orders, and market the fact that the location is under new ownership to get customers to come back in and try the restaurant again.

What are the things that make a great place to eat? The most important things about a great restaurant are friendly, quick service, quality food, and a pleasant atmosphere. We have all of those at Cousins Subs.

After a while, you bought 2 more locations. I bet that this required even more work, so how did you manage time between the 3 locations? At first, it was difficult to manage my time.  When I take over a new location, I like to spend most of my time there to make sure everything is running smoothly and properly.  But now I have achieved a good balance between the three locations.

And still talking about time, did you still have time for family and social life? The first year I had three locations was a busy year, but after a while, I was able to manage my time better, and I was able to work a little less, making more time for my personal life.

How important is it to keep a good balance between personal life and business? It is very important to have a good balance between your personal life and business.  You need to have some time away from work to regain your focus.  When I took over my third location, I worked too much and started to get drained, so I had to learn to balance my time between business and personal.

By the way, where are the restaurants located? My first restaurant is located in Minnetonka, my second is in Plymouth, and my third is in Minneapolis.

And what is the best thing you could eat? The best thing to eat at Cousins Subs is our Italian Special.  It has cotechino bologna, cappacolla ham, genoa salami, provolone cheese and is prepared with oil dressing, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, and seasoned with salt and oregano.  Cousins Subs motto is “BETTER BREAD. BETTER SUBS.”

How did you overcome the “fear of entrepreneurship”? People are usually afraid to start on their own. I get that question a lot, and I always tell people it was positive thinking and believing in myself.

I bet that the first months you still questioned yourself: will this work? Am I doing the right things? Or not? I was extremely nervous during those first few months.  I tried not to doubt myself and stayed positive.  Each location I acquired posed new doubts, but I just continued to do my best and work hard each day.

What was the turning point when you knew you did it? I don’t believe I’m there yet.  The fear that something could happen and that I could lose everything is still part of my motivation.  Some people start slacking a little bit when they start thinking they’ve made it, so I just keep working hard.

How did the crisis affect the food industry? In the sandwich business, lunch is a huge part of sales, so when people lose their jobs, they aren’t stopping in for lunch breaks.  On the flip side, families aren’t spending as much money going out for fancy dinners or lunches. Instead, they’re taking advantage of the restaurants that offer fresh and healthy meals at an affordable price – just like Cousins Subs.

What could go wrong in this business? What are the most sensible areas? A lot can go wrong with any business, especially the food business.  There is a lot of competition out there, and new restaurants are always opening up, so sales are a major focus.

Any plans for the future that you would like to share? I don’t have any plans yet, but I always stay open to the possibility of expanding.

Entrepreneurs

Interview with the developer of premium branded voices for GPS 0

Hi Chris, tell us a few words about yourself.
Chris: I am the founder and CEO of Locutio, a developer of premium branded voices for GPS. Before setting up Locutio back in 2004, I was a management consultant. Having missed the DotCom boom, I really fancied doing something a bit different. When the GPS market started to take off a few years ago, I saw a market gap for replacement celebrity voice content.

So, you’re running a small business, but the chances are that the results of your work might get to millions of cars on the road today. What is it about exactly?
Chris: It’s about giving people a choice to replace the fairly boring voice that comes with their GPS with an iconic voice they know and love. We’ve launched the original voices of Snoop Dogg, Homer Simpson, C-3PO, Yoda, and Darth Vader, as well as the Looney Tunes voices. It certainly makes the journey more fun, and it’s about to get more interesting, too, now that GPS is being pushed hard on mobile devices.

How did you come up with the idea? I’ve been using a GPS for many years now, and I never even thought there might be a business related to the GPS device itself other than mounting devices.
Chris: You know, it really was the result of a conversation in a pub, one of those “that’s a cool idea. I wonder if it’s already been done” type discussions. To my surprise, it hadn’t. That was back in 2004. It really was an uphill slog for the first five years. We had almost no money, no customers but lots of interest.

In fact, GPS and location-based services are one of the hottest sectors around right now – think about the interest Foursquare and Facebook Places are generating. We are simply trying to provide premium content that, as well as generating revenue in its own right, will also encourage people to use apps like Google Navigation and drive advertising revenues.

I think you could call voices for GPS systems a niche product. How do you evaluate if the niche is big enough to bring enough revenues?
Chris: By 2015, it is estimated that there will be around two hundred million GPS-enabled phones worldwide. By 2020, that number will grow substantially again. So for us, it is a sizeable niche we intend to exploit! Mobile carriers and manufacturers have made big investments into GPS technologies to date. So anything that gets people interested in the navigation experience is going to help sell those tariffs and encourage customers to use their data plans.

When we started, we had no idea how big the market was for these products. This was simply down to the fact that the industry was so new, and there were no data to analyze. I recall doing a crude “how many people in every 100 would be likely to buy a voice” type projection. In truth, I was just really excited about the product. My enthusiasm and interest were enough to motivate me and others to bootstrap and go through the pain of a start-up company. If you aren’t excited about it, don’t do it! I’m also a great believer in the maxim, “build it, and they will come.”

We’ve been cash positive for a while now since we changed our business model in late 2008. We’ve been making celebrity sound-a-like based products before then. Sales were slow, and we realized that unless we got a major voice out there, then we’d never get traction.

What was the first premium celebrity voice you produced for a GPS device?
Chris: It was the original voice of Homer Simpson, launched in June 2009 on TomTom.com. Homer kick-started the industry, in a sense, as he was the first premium animated character to come out on GPS.

And what are the most appreciated or make the most sales?
Chris: Well, Homer sold fantastically well – the bestselling GPS voice ever. We did a deal with Lucasfilm to bring the official voices of Star Wars to GPS, and these are selling very well too. You can get them on the TomTom iPhone app as well in Europe. We also brought the official Looney Tunes voices to TomTom in partnership with Warner Bros. this past September. There’s Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, and Pepe LePew. Adding the original 1940s music scores to work on the Looney Tunes voices was a challenge, but it really sounds like they’ve come straight from your favorite cartoon. Snoop’s voice still gets a lot of attention in places like Australia and Europe.

I have to say, I’ve looked at this Star Wars voice sample, called a good friend that loves Star Wars. He was heading home from the office, and when I told him about the Star Wars GPS, he told me he would buy the GPS the minute he goes home just for this. Did you expect this kind of response from the market?
Chris: When we started the company, I personally thought that the voices would drive sales of GPS. This is starting to happen now that there are some very high-quality, premium voices out there. However, the voices are part of the wider customization trend, where people expect their GPS – just like their mobile phone – to feature various useful services and fun content. After all, most of us want to personalize our consumer electronics devices in some way.

I think it even goes beyond personalization for some people, like your friend, for example. He’s obviously a fan of Star Wars and wants to trigger all those great associations when he’s driving around. If done well, the voices can really be a lot of fun!

Do you have a small business with around 4 people? How can a small business like yours make deals with big companies like TomTom and Warner Bros? What gets you to their table?
Chris: Innovation, mainly. We just stuck to it and continued to improve the product. Licensors love the idea as there are very few products that are unique and that only rely on the aural dimension. TomTom liked the idea because they are pretty advanced in executing their content and services strategy; they have a wide portfolio of cool content, of which branded GPS voices are a key element. We delivered the Star Wars voices to them in four languages, which was important for their overall content portfolio.

I also think it is about passion: the people that license The Simpsons want to work with innovative companies that do something very well with a lot of enthusiasm that will enhance their brand. It also helps that once you’ve signed a major deal with a large licensor, you have a lot of credibility in the marketplace.

What was the most important moment or development that ensured the success of the business? Is there a tipping point when you know you are successful?
Chris: Getting the Fox deal to bring The Simpsons to GPS. It took 39 months from the first meeting until Homer came out on TomTom in June 2009. Fox and Gracie loved the idea, but The Simpsons film and other things got in the way. The delays in getting the product to market were more due to timing and logistics than anything else.

Also, being able to draw a full-time salary was a big moment for me. It took 5 years from inception to the first proper paycheck. That was a good day!

By the way, what is your typical customer?
Chris: Males in their late 30s. But this is changing as the customers who have mobile GPS are getting younger and more diverse demographically.

And how exactly can people get the voices on their devices?
Chris: At the moment, The Simpsons, Star Wars, Snoop, and Looney Tunes voices are only available at www.TomTom.com. If you have TomTom on your iPhone in Europe, you go to ‘change voice,’ and the Star Wars voices will show up in your ‘change voice’ menu. If you have a PND, you know the kind of GPS you stick on your windshield, then you plug your TomTom in and follow the brief instructions. You can get the voices from our own voice portal at www.voiceskins.com, too.

Some advice for people wanting to start a small business during the crisis?
Chris: It’s funny, but our product took off in the recession as it is a low price, fun impulse-based purchase – much cheaper than buying a whole new gadget! So, in a sense, it makes sense to do something recession-friendly. But in terms of the more subtle aspects, I’d say never give up on your vision. Sometimes, it takes people time to catch up. You’ll need faith. By faith, I mean the ability to trust that somehow it will work out. Put your ego and fear to one side; I liken it to climbing a mountain – after a while, it’s as hard to go back down as it is to keep climbing up. All the technical stuff like business planning, cash flow forecasting, and the like comes with time and experience. The soft, less tangible aspects like faith, belief, trust that I found the most challenging.

What would be your words of wisdom for people not finding a business idea?
Chris: You don’t have to come up with something new. In fact, there are good reasons not to follow my path and put everything on the line for a product or market that doesn’t yet exist. Sometimes, just improving something that already exists and executing with a bit more flair and effort is all it takes.

But if you can find something that floats your boat, do it!

Entrepreneurs

Interview with WordPress plug-ins entrepreneur 0

Welcome, Oliver, to www.entrepreneurship-interviews.com. Tell us a few words about yourself.
Oliver: Before getting an MBA, I played bass in a rock band and produced music videos for bands such as Helmet and GWAR, all pretty heavy stuff. For the past year and a couple of months, I have been with nrelate, working on everything but the coding itself. I have always had a start-up-type mentality. I love bringing something from the ground up to a place where people are interacting and being positively affected by the creation, whether that be a piece of music or a piece of software.

You have a WordPress “related content plug-in” business. What is that all about?
Oliver: We saw the current plug-ins that were available out there, and we thought we could improve upon them, so we developed the related posts plug-in. We are currently on WordPress but are also working on getting the plug-in out on Blogger/Blogspot and Drupal as well.

WordPress s really popular these days, but most people are used to getting everything for free when it comes to plugins and tools. So can you actually make money with WordPress plugins?
Oliver: Some companies definitely make money with plugins. The clearest way to make money is by charging a one-time or recurring fee to use the plugins. Other people use the “Donate” button method, but I am not sure how well that works (someone probably has an amazing stat on this). At the end of the day, if your plug-in doesn’t provide unique value to the user, money is really out of the question.

What is your main plug-in doing?
Oliver: On a high level, it is providing related links to a site’s own archive. We do this by indexing all of the content on the site and then use our algorithm to determine the best posts to link to for a given article. Many of the sites we are on see click-through rates of 6-12%, which translates directly into more page views and ad revenue.

How is it different from other “related content” plugins?
Oliver: There are a couple of things that differentiate nrelate.

1. We allow users to show related content links from sites they have listed on their blogroll. This is especially useful for a person who owns a few sites and wants to automatically send traffic between them.

2. We allow users to pick thumbnail size. This may seem like a pretty simple thing, and maybe technically it is, but with all the different sizes a blog may be, giving the users a choice to fit the perfect amount of thumbnails on their page has made a world of difference for how the plug-in looks.

3. We allow any size site to sign up to display ads and receive a revenue share. It doesn’t matter what your traffic level is; if you want to use the ad network, we will sign you up, and even if the amount you make is just enough to cover hosting fees, that is fine with us; we just want as much coverage as possible, and to grow with the next group of up and coming bloggers.

Who is your typical user?
Oliver: We don’t really have a typical user. Sites using our plug-in range from large sports sites with tons of visitors and tens of thousands of posts to do it yourself craft sites, celebrity gossip sites, news, politics; I mean, just think of all the different things that bloggers write about at this point, we have at least 10 to 20 blogs in each category that is out there.

And how does the revenue model work?
Oliver: We sell ad space on the plug-in and share this ad revenue back with the blogger based on performance (clicks). This is all opt-in, and any blogger can still get the same full-featured plug-in without showing advertising.

What are the benefits for the publishers?
Oliver: If a more traditional publisher is using WordPress, they can certainly install the plug-in, however, generally, much larger sites also have a lot of moving parts, so they would talk to us for a more custom install of our software. The benefits, however, remain the same, increased clickthroughs, increased ad revenue, and greater visibility of all available content for a given site.

And for the bloggers?
Oliver: Bloggers using WordPress are getting a free plug-in that is going to start driving more page views on their site from day one. It looks good on just about any site, and if there is a problem with the plug-in, we are pretty much on the clock 24/7 with customer service. For the majority of sites, the plug-in is installed and starts working within an hour or two. A blogger will immediately see an increase in page views on their site.

How did you come up with the idea?
Oliver: I’ve always been a fan of WordPress. Mainly because I am by no means a technically gifted individual, and WordPress has allowed guys like me to hack together a site in a couple of hours. They are not always pretty, but they function, so I think that is pretty cool. When we were looking for different ways to showcase our underlying language processing software, we put our heads together and thought that WordPress would be a great springboard for us. We knew we could add some value to this community of active and passionate users and then use that feedback to improve the product.
But going further back, the main idea behind the company, which was actually Neil’s (Founder), was to create a way to see what bloggers were writing about the current events at any given moment. Basically, the Op-Ed section of the paper has somewhat moved into the blogosphere, and there is a lot of great content out there that is being missed by an audience that would love to read it. From there, we ended up building a bunch of products for publishers and are now coming around to release those products to blogging communities.

Most entrepreneurs are afraid to start a business in a domain where you can get stuff for free. What is your advice?
Oliver: If everything out there is free, make sure you build a product that addresses a need not being currently met in the market and scramble like hell to get as many users as you can, as fast as you can. Also, try to differentiate on things like customer service or other places you think you can compete with.

How do you fill a need that is not currently covered?
Oliver: We started by releasing a plug-in that had thumbnails and could link to other content of a person’s choosing, not too revolutionary, but it was a start. We are now discovering tons of needs that people have. Many plugins don’t work with people’s sites, slow them down, or just don’t look good; people have let us know this, and we work to make the changes to make ours work for them. We also wanted to give the average blogger the chance to make a little extra money from their blog, so we allow any size site to show ads and share in the revenue.

Coming back to the product, what type of advertisers can be displayed in the related content area?
Oliver: Right now, we are using a daily deal advertiser, but as we continue to expand, we will be offering all types of different ads; basically, we will need to cover as many ad categories as we have blogs that are appropriate.

I must say I gave the plug-in a try before the interview, and I found it very accurate in providing the exact related content to the current post. What is the secret?
Oliver: Neil and a few other tech guys spent about a year working on the main software engine that makes nrelate run. Now, we have a person dedicated to improving how well we relate to the content. That is pretty much it, a ton of hard work over time by some really smart people.

Do you need to be a technical guy to start a business like yours?
Oliver: You don’t have to be a technical guy, but you better have a very solid one on the founding team; you also need to have a decent grasp of how the software you are building functions, because if you are a small team, no matter what your previous experience, you will end up working on the tech in any way you can.

What would you differently if you were to start all over again?
Oliver: We would release the WordPress plug-in from day one. We spent a lot of time working with publishers, and it just wasn’t as rewarding as it is to be dealing with bloggers every day, to see the plug-in going up on more and more sites.

You told me you are continually working to improve the product. How do you gather user feedback?
Oliver: Right now, anyone can email me or drop us a line via a contact form, and I will write back and document any suggestions that are made. When we get enough suggestions for a new feature or change, and it is something we can feasibly do given our other development queue, we will add those enhancements. The whole thing has been awesome; I get to talk with around 20 bloggers a day and love hearing new ideas and helping fix problems that come up.

And talking about improvements, what are the next milestones for the product?
Oliver: We are working on a new plug-in, Most Popular, so getting that out will be the next big milestone for the company. As for the related content widget, the next real big milestone will be integrating it more into the WordPress structure, so our main algorithm can feed off of WordPress-specific items such as Categories and tags.

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