These last few weeks haven’t exactly been the smoothest in small business land for my wife and I. For starters, our business computer died a horrible death which caused all sorts of mayhem. Ironically, I wasn’t that upset about the computer itself. After all, we bought it a good 4 years ago for a few hundred bucks off of Craigslist and it had served us well.

The big pain was in reinstalling all of the software that was on the old computer. Now with regular programs like Windows and Microsoft Office, reinstalling the software is not that big of a deal because I keep all of my original install CDs.

Most programs don’t require you to jump through hoops during installation. But our business relies on several “sewing” programs that are sold by companies who are terrified of piracy.

So I get it. These sewing programs …

When I was a kid, one of my favorite fables was “The Tortoise and The Hare”. But even though I loved this story growing up, I never had any respect for the tortoise because the way he won the race just wasn’t that sexy. So what if he beat the hare this one time? As far as I was concerned, the tortoise’s win was just a big fluke. What do you think would happen if they came out with the sequel “The Hare Strikes Back”? Who do you think would win the second time around?

The problem with the tortoise is that no one wants to be known as the slow and steady guy. Human nature dictates it’s infinitely more appealing to be quick and speedy rather than slow and steady which is why most people are impatient and expect fast results when they …

Every time I publish an article on entrepreneurship that encourages my readers to start their own business, I find myself tiptoeing across a very fine line. On one hand, starting an online business is simple, relatively risk free and doesn’t require a lot of start up capital. But on the other hand, running a successful business requires a ton of hard work, perseverance and a little bit of luck.

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The problem is that when I emphasize the enormous amount of work that is required to launch a company, I tend to turn people away from starting a business.

However when I emphasize the simplicity, people tend to harbor unrealistic expectations and expect a quick path to riches.

It’s unfortunate, but many would be entrepreneurs choose what business model to pursue based on how “easy” it is to start as opposed to considering the actual probability of success. …

This is a guest post from Sunil. Sunil owns over a dozen profitable niche websites and is the author of “How to Go from $0 to $1,000 a month in Passive and Residual Income in Under 180 Days All in Your Spare Time”, a FREE report you can download instantly from his Extra Money Blog, where he discusses how to create multiple streams of passive and residual income, entrepreneurship, internet marketing, blogging and personal finance.

In 2007, he sold his ecommerce website for $250,000 to a top Ebay Power Seller and since then has sold several niche sites for five figures each. You can read more about him and his work on his blog.

I first heard of Steve and his wife’s project through a webinar link that was relayed to me by a fellow blogger. I was immediately interested because this is a road that I have been on before. …

It has been almost eight months since my wife and I signed up my little daughter for her first swimming lesson. And even though I’ve witnessed her triumphs and her struggles every step of the way, I’m still shocked and amazed that my baby girl is now practically swimming on her own. After all, she’s only 3 years old and it’s crazy how far she has come in just a short period of time.

If you saw her in a swimming pool today, you would think that she always loved the water and that swimming came naturally to her, but it was actually the complete opposite.

I still remember the first time I stepped into the swimming pool with her when she was scared to death and shivering with fright. Every splash of water that touched her caused her to scream as if acid was burning her skin. …

As part of my weekly regimen, I like to read and participate in various small business forums and one of my favorites is the Etsy forum. For all of you who have never heard of Etsy, Etsy is a marketplace for do it yourself and handmade goods. Similar to Ebay, Etsy provides an easy way for talented crafters and artists to sell the fruits of their labor.

The reason I like reading the Etsy forums is because most if not all Etsy users are casual shopowners who have a strong desire to make some extra money on the side.

Many Etsy users would eventually like to quit their day jobs. Many Etsy users have the desire to launch their own full blown online stores but are afraid of the technical and marketing challenges in doing so.

Anyways, I was reading the forums the other day and noticed more complaints …

Last week, I received an email from Amazon.com informing me that they just cancelled their affiliate program in California effective immediately. They provided very little notice and in just one day, my Amazon affiliate account became worthless. Now I make a decent amount money with affiliate marketing for various business services, but what if I relied entirely on Amazon.com as my primary income source? I’d be screwed.

After running MyWifeQuitHerJob.com for several years now, I’ve fielded many questions about how to open an online store and how to put up niche affiliate sites. And whenever someone asks me for advice, I almost always advocate creating an online store as opposed to going down the path of making a pure affiliate website.

The problem is that most people are attracted to the prospect of creating a niche affiliate site due to the passive nature of the …

I watched a very interesting video on Tech Crunch TV the other day where venture capitalists David Lee and Ron Conway discuss some of the key attributes of their most successful portfolio company investments. The video is definitely worth a watch if you have a spare 15 minutes or so. You can find the video here as well as my own take below.

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While the businesses that I encourage readers to start on MyWifeQuitHerJob.com are not crazy startups where you’re working 16 hour days, trying to hit a home run and earn millions and billions of dollars, there are many parallels between a lifestyle business and a venture backed startup.

In other words, many of the same traits that make a venture backed startup more likely to succeed apply to small businesses as well. Here’s my take on David and Ron’s findings.
Get A Partner
According to Ron …

I don’t know what’s been going on lately, but I’ve been receiving an unusually large number of depressing emails this past month. People have been asking me questions like…

How do I know when to shut down my business?
It’s been over 8 months now and I’m not still not making that much with my website yet. Should I change my niche?
Why is my site not getting any traffic? Should I start over?

After taking a closer look at a few of these websites, I noticed one glaring commonality between all of these online businesses. They’ve all been around for less than a year!!!

While my wife and I were able to make a six figure salary in a short period of time, making significant money with your business can often take longer depending on your niche and your ability to adapt to the market. In …

Once upon a time, there was a man who lived in a 300 square foot house with his wife and 3 kids. Because he did not have a college degree, one of the few jobs he could get was a sales associate position at a local electronics store. While he felt lucky to have a job in a poor economy, the pay was not that great and the cost of living was so high where he lived that he had to work long hours and even on nights and weekends to make ends meet and provide for his family.

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Because he was a hard worker and extremely focused, his discipline and dedication to his day job at the electronics store eventually paid off and he was promoted to manager of the car stereo installation department. While this promotion carried with it a decent raise, he still …

After starting several businesses on the side, helping others with their own online stores and running this blog for a couple of years now, I’ve come to recognize certain patterns and character traits that define success and failure. Running a successful business isn’t just about luck. It’s not just about taking the leap of faith. It’s not about having the perfect plan or finding the perfect niche. It’s about how you deal with problems as they arise. It’s about how you adapt to certain situations when things don’t go your way.

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The problem most new entrepreneurs face is that it’s hard to distinguish between good and bad investments of your time. It’s difficult to know when to go cheap and when to splurge. And for control freaks like myself, it’s overwhelming when you first realize that there are a bunch of …

The other day, a friend of mine called to let me know that after a year of dragging her feet, she finally decided to take action on launching an online store. And I was ecstatic! One of the reasons I was so excited was that her story was so similar to ours when my wife and I first started out with our online business. Her goal was to start a family, quit her job and stay at home with her child without sacrificing her income. An online business would be perfect!

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As we spoke on the phone, I became completely engulfed by her enthusiasm and her energy. And after about 5 minutes, she made me genuinely excited about her products which she wants to sell to the baby boomer market.
Oh Steve!! The best part is that I’ve made sooo …

I receive many questions about how to open an online store every single day. But lately, I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend. It seems that several of you are looking for the easiest and cheapest solution possible and making detrimental business decisions along the way. You are searching for a single magic bullet that will solve all of your problems, a bullet that doesn’t exist. Now I can understand being risk averse and not wanting to invest a large sum of money into a business before you know it will make money, but at some point you need to realize that it takes some amount of monetary risk to succeed.

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For example, the other day I received an email from a young man who just graduated from college wanting to learn how to find products to sell online. And he prefaced his question …

I’ve been writing this blog and helping would be entrepreneurs for nearly two years now and one thing I’ve discovered is that you can’t really push someone to take the entrepreneurial plunge. Either you have the desire to start your own business or you don’t and most people can’t get over the uncertainty that’s involved with being your own boss.

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Recently, I went through each and every email that I’ve ever received on MyWifeQuitHerJob.com and found that the majority of people get stuck on 2 main things when starting their business. One, they can’t come up with a good business idea and two, they aren’t confident that they can succeed.
I Can’t Come Up With An Idea
I’ve found that most people who have problems coming up with good business ideas are self-deprecating.

“I’m not that creative. How am I going to come up with …

When most people think about entrepreneurship or starting their own business, the first thing that comes to mind is the risk that is associated with being your own boss. Perhaps that is why entrepreneurship is such an exhilarating and sexy term. It takes guts to go out on your own.

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But the funny thing is that most of the successful entrepreneurs I know are very conservative and don’t like taking risks at all. Ironically, my entrepreneur friends are some of most risk averse people I know! I happen to fall into this same camp as well. Sure, I would risk a good amount of money to start my own business but would I ever bet the entire bank or stake my livelihood on a business idea? Hell no!

Managing Risk
One of key aspects of entrepreneurship is knowing how to mitigate risk. …

Whenever I think of duct tape, I think of my favorite television superhero MacGyver. What?!? There’s a ticking time bomb set to explode in 10 seconds? Take that stick of chewing gum, some duct tape and disarm that bad boy. It wasn’t always pretty, but MacGyver always got the job done no matter what the situation. He was never concerned with how elegant the solution was, he just did what was necessary to help his client.

If Macgyver was a real person, who wouldn’t want him on your team? The truth is that every small business needs a duct tape guy. Because the duct tape guy is the guy who will make sure you launch your business on time. He’s the one thinking about and developing concrete ways to market your business. He’s the one getting things done while others …

Starting and running a successful small business does not require intellect so much as it requires common sense and perseverance. Don’t get me wrong, starting a business is hard but the reason most people fail is not because they aren’t smart enough but because they don’t follow through or they get distracted and give up when they don’t see immediate results. We live in a world of instant gratification but starting a business online is almost never instantly gratifying from a monetary perspective.

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The truth is that the mentality of starting and running an online business is a lot like going on a diet. It’s tempting to go after the latest fad with the promise of quick results with very little effort. If you stop and think about it, there’s always some new fangled weight loss scheme floating around.

“Don’t eat carbs!”
“Drink 6 …

The other day, I came across a heated forum discussion that went back and forth debating over the definition of a “true” entrepreneur versus just a regular small business owner. The thread was over 5 pages long and participating in this discussion were a wide variety of different business owners. Some of them ran brick and mortar retail stores. Some of them ran small-medium sized internet consulting or software companies. And some of them were freelancers looking to eventually start their own firms.

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The main crux of the debate was whether a person opening a brick and mortar business like an ice cream store or a freelancer with no employees could be considered a true entrepreneur. Where do you draw the line between true entrepreneurship and just running a small business?

As the two sides argued back and forth, I couldn’t help but think…who …

Ever since my wife and I bought our new home, we’ve been using a variety of contractors to help change a few things around the house. For example, we had new tile and carpets put in, changed the layout of the house a little bit and had the outside of the house painted as well. While everything we remodeled turned out okay, overall our experiences were a mixed bag and it had nothing to do with the quality of the work that was done.

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In fact, every one of my contractors did a fantastic job at whatever was assigned to them, yet I would probably not recommend at least 2 of the 3 contractors to friends or use them ever again. Why? It’s because it takes more than a good job to leave a lasting good impression on a customer. Sometimes even a small …

Many would be entrepreneurs don’t start their own venture because they are afraid of failure. And quite frankly, they have every right to be afraid. After all, we are constantly bombarded by vague sayings like “9 out of every 10 startups fail” or “chalk up your first startup as a learning experience”, or my favorite, “most relationships and marriages can’t survive a startup”. After you hear enough of these cliches, you soon start believing them.

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The problem is that these ideals are further reinforced by the various entrepreneurship blogs out there that are telling everyone to fail early and fail hard because that is how you learn. Everywhere we turn, we are constantly reminded that statistically speaking, there is an extremely high probability that your first startup is going to die so it’s better to get that first failure out of the way.

Seriously folks…If …