Today Dave and I are exploring the world of ‘offline’ business.  We’re looking at technologies, niches, and customers who are a bit different than the world many of us live in each day in the online business world.

With this change is both a spectrum of new opportunities and challenges.  There are several big upsides to this business area, but also a few things that could potentially be quite difficult.

Big thanks to Bryan Marbles of Amazelaw for his insights into how he’s been able to tap in the legal niche, a great example of one of these offline focused niches.

Also a big shoutout to friends of the show Harry and Ted from Moraware.

Here are what we believe are the Pros and Cons of approaching an industry that typically has offline based customers:

Pros

Cons

Would be really interested to hear more examples from listeners about how they’ve tackled these types of industries.  Shoot us a message at [email protected] and we’ll share your stories and lessons on the next episode.

This week Dave and I are tossing around the idea of using WordPress to power your SaaS app. Whether this means just an easier, potentially quicker way to get an MVP up, or maybe even running the entire app long term.

There are numerous examples of this being done successfully, and I think many people would tell you that getting a site Live in WordPress is one of the simplest ways to do things like user management, create content, restrict some content to logged in users, accept payments, etc.

Bryce Adams – NomadSMS

WPSimplePay

Hello Bar

Content Marketing. Ah, the long game of blogging and getting your word out to your audience.  While this can seem like a magical unicorn and something that can’t easily be achieved, it in fact is within any of our reach.  Dave and I have both had immense success with our content marketing due in large part to the good folks at AudienceOps who make doing content marketing the right way a piece of cake.

And for those of us who are selling digital goods Dave has found a bunch of good data from the Sales Metrics for Easy Digital Downloads plugin.  More metrics around how your content marketing is translating to actual sales performance is always helpful in determining the ROI of those efforts.

A recent article from Matthew Barby, head of Growth at Hubspot, has gotten our wheels turning not just about how to create great content, but also about how to measure the effect of that content on your business.

When it comes to marketing there is one consistent theme:  measure, measure, measure.  How else can you ensure that your marketing efforts are truly paying off?

A recent post from the Rhodium Community that Dave and I are both a part of spurred the latter part of this discussion.  How can you simply and effectively measure the impact of your content on the overall business?

Turns out there are a handful of key metrics in Google Analytics that will give you a good barometer of effectiveness of your content and overall site performance.

● Landing pages 

So, how do you have your content marketing organized, and how are you measuring its effectiveness on your business?  Drop us a comment below or shoot us a message at [email protected] or hit us up on Twitter @RogueStartups.

The P word.  Many startup founders fear this and in fact many of us avoid looking in depth at whether our businesses ACTUALLY make money.  Forget that our coveted Monthly Recurring Revenue is high. what about money in the bank?

Today Dave and Craig took a good, hard look at not just profitability in general but our own businesses to see what real profitability looks like.  The definition we’re using for whether a business is actually profitable is not just Revenue – Expenses but rather:

“Revenue – Expenses – Founder Salary = Profitability”

Far too often we neglect to pay ourselves first, and that is something that should become commonplace in business practices.  Neglecting our own financial wellbeing is a surefire way to burn out and quit the game of entrepreneurship too early.

So, is your business profitable?  How are you monitoring and managing profitability in your business?

Drop a comment in below or email us at [email protected].

Are you an original product creator or a copycat?  The line is blurry sometimes and there are definitely advantages to both positions on this argument.  But maybe there are things to learn from each of these approaches to content, product, and business.

In his podcast, Chris Ducker discusses how Originality definitely creates a competitive advantage and sets your business up for a better chance of long term success.  Being original as a barrier to entry and a distinction that sets you apart from your peers is a definite leg up on the competition.

Conversely in a blog post this week Hiten Shah talks about how Copycatting is a path you can take to earlier adoption, more likely to achieve Product/Market Fit, and automatically ensures that you’re building something that people actually want.

Since recording the episode Dave and I came across another great article on the topic that discusses how, if you choose to veer more towards the copycatting path, you can help ensure success in following in someone else’s footsteps.

In the end it’s probably not an ‘either/or’ decision to make.  Finding a well proven, validated idea and market solution is a good way to help ensure that your product will succeed, while at the same time finding a unique way to enter and differentiate yourself from the market is a good way to build a long term, sustainable business.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Feel free to drop us an email at [email protected] or hit us up on Twitter @RogueStartups

Welcome to Episode 58 of the Rogue Startups podcast with Craig Hewitt and Dave Rodenbaugh.  Today we’re talking about how we both analyze and evaluate potential business opportunities.

So often in business it’s not just the what or how of a prospective deal that matters, but the timing and terms of that deal.  If you focus too much on one aspect of a partnership, acquisition, or sale then you may be losing the perspective required to properly vet that opportunity.

Dave and Craig have very different approaches when it comes to this, which should offer a healthy perspective towards how you can think about evaluating, and quickly processing, potential opportunities in your business.

Have you ever been interested in a product or company but been scared off by their impractical website? Simple mistakes in user interface can cost a startup thousands in lost business from disgruntled customers. This week we chat with Jane Portman, UI/UX expert and creator of UI Breakfast, about what common UX mistakes to avoid and how SaaS founders can make the most of their web apps.

UX is so far away from creativity and design, it’s purely functional. @uibreakfast
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Jane Portman began her career as a designer and creative director before becoming a UI/UX consultant. When she’s not recording podcasts or writing blogs for UI Breakfast, Jane is busy being a mom to her two sons.

Episode Highlights:

Resources:

Jane’s Podcast – UI Breakfast

Jane’s free UI course – The 1-Hour UI Audit

Jane’s blog post on Data Tables & Tabs

Dave had the UI of his site audited by Jane. Check out her blog post on the process

Listen in to the UI Breakfast Podcast to hear Jane and guests discuss UI design

*Exclusive for Rogue Startup listeners! Get $20 off any UI Audit ebook package by entering the code ROGUESTARTUPS20 at checkout. *

While the Bacon Biz 2016 conference has come and gone, the website has videos of past talks!

Amy Hoy’s Sales Safari

Have a question for Jane or the Rogue Podcasting hosts? Email podcast@roguest

Updates and releases are a part of life when you manage any type of software.  Whether it’s a WordPress plugin like Dave owns or a SaaS app you’re constantly working on new features and updates.  How to release those well, and minimize any customer issues is core to the upkeep of any software.

After Dave just issued a major release to Business Directory Plugin he’s reflecting on a few things that went well, and a few that didn’t, as he just went through this process.  A lot of things went well, but a couple didn’t, which brings into light really nailing the testing and planning of this process.

Craig’s settling into life on the road as he enters his third week of the European trip.  Finding the work/life balance, managing expectations of the team and time zone differences are rounding themselves out pretty nicely.  The key is ‘slow travel’, which allows you to not be literally On The Road all the time, but living more like a local when in these different places.

What’s your process like for planning and implementing software releases?  How far out do you start planning, what are your testing process like, and how to you implement the rollouts successfully?  Drop in a note below and tell us about it.

This week we catch up after Dave has spent the week in Portugal and Craig is getting into his second week of his European trip.  Keeping up to date with things on the road can be tough, so both Craig and Dave share some notes on how they’re keeping the business going while being away from home.

One thing that we realize when we travel is how we really ‘can’ and probably should do more with less, and enjoy what is going on in our lives without always having our proverbial ‘foot on the pedal’ and looking for more.  True contentment comes from within and no amount of money, achievement, or possessions can really achieve that for you.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on what you do to stay up with your business while traveling and what sorts of things you do to check yourself and stay content with what you have.  Feel free to drop us an email at [email protected] or hit us up on Twitter @RogueStartups

On today’s episode, Craig talks to fellow cofounder Christopher Gimmer, the co-founder of both Snappa and BootStrapBay. They receive some keen insight on what it takes to build a two-sided marketplace and how to plan for the future of a startup.

Christopher Gimmer has a financial background and has previously worked for the Canadian government. He co-founded Snappa, a graphic design tool whose aim is to help build better websites,  and BootstrapBay, which is a marketplace for Bootstrap themes. Listeners are sure to find Christopher’s experience, not only informative, but enlightening.

Today’s Topics:

Resources and Links:

BootstrapBay

Snappa

Colourlovers

Cooler WordPress Themes

Stocksnap

Unsplash

Death to the Stock Photos

Pixabay

Contact Information:

Christopher Gimmer on Twitter