The Tin Shingle Blog - #EntrepreneurshipNews

Sabina, my amazing business partner here at Tin Shingle, forwarded to me a PR Lead for an article being written for TheStreet.com covering this question - what the Starbucks/Square deal means for small business. I was balancing about three things at once and knew that I couldn't think of a non-fluff answer fast enough, so I passed on submitting any ideas to the writer, Laurie Kulikowski (who may have written the article by now). Now that it's the weekend, which found me hand-washing dishes because our dishwasher broke, I had more time to think about Square and Starbucks. I was also finally able to watch the CBS This Morning interview with Jack Dorsey and Howard Schultz. It was during this time that the partnership meant more to me as a serial small business owner.

So what does it mean for small business?

Local and super small businesses remain ahead of the curve
Ever since I moved out of Manhattan and into a small (but darn cool) mountain/river town called Beacon 60 miles north of the city, I noticed that several shops on our Main Street were using Square on their iPhones or iPads to accept sales (Crumb Bakery, Dream in Plastic, Gourmetibles, Paws and Mittens, Ella's Bellas, and more). And then it spread like wildfire to other businesses on the street. The other group who has been using Square for a while are those 'prenuers who sell at markets because they need to take payments while vending in the middle of the street. These small businesses experimented with and embraced the technology long before big business did.

Local Businesses Should Stop Putting Off Square
Some local businesses have their reservations about moving from their traditional, and very expensive, non-customer-support-friendly credit card companies because they fear change, or I'm not sure really what the reason is. For example: any business who does not accept American Express because the transaction fee is higher, can just use Square for a universal fee - no favorites or exceptions (I also love this about PayPal). Just accept the plastic and move on to the next customer.  

Small Businesses Change The Face of Commerce and Our Lives
Howard Schultz predicted in his interview with Charlie Rose and Gale King on CBS This Morning that cash will soon be extinct. Rather than wait for a mandate or law that says how cash will be used or printed, businesses react to how people are using currency now, and move quickly to keep collecting it. The federal government will move to keep up (hence the CyberSecurity bill that is tied up in whatever ties things up in Washington).

Schultz declared during his CBS interview: "Washington is not doing much, and companies have a bigger responsibility today than they have before, because I think the rules of engagement have changed, where cooperate CEOs and businesses have to step up and do more for the communities we serve."

A Founder Can Be a Founder More Than Once at the Same Time
Jack Dorsey is a co-founder of Twitter (established in 2006), and a co-founder of Square (established in 2009...granted, Dorsey had stopped being CEO at Twitter in 2008, so maybe had more focus available to push through Square...he has since returned to Twitter as executive chairman focusing on product development). This is a rather large indication that a business owner who is committed to more than one idea can execute. Warning: this takes an enormous amount of dedication and compartmentalization.

The keys are focus, team, and an understanding of your product (product being a physical product, or a service you are providing). If you understand your product inside and out, then I think you can handle running another one - assuming you will quickly come to understand it inside and out as you build it. And, you must have a team of support in place to make things happen. It's just like having more than one kid! No big deal. ;)

Small Businesses Need to Consider Mobile for Their Websites
I'm with you - it's yet another thing that we don't want to think about right now because there is so much to think about. But we have to face the reality. We're all checking things on the Internet from the car, while walking, while watching TV, while in bed. Our websites better be able to easily deliver to these readers/clickers.

Watch the interview. It covers a lot of ground quickly that will get you thinking about your business:

As of the writing of this article, SOPA and PIPA have been put on hold by the U.S. Congress (here's a good description of SOPA happenings before today and here is a dated timeline of SOPA and PIPAs evolution). The timeline of events leading to its demise is startling, swift, and efficient. Even though it is frightening to think how easily these bills could have gone through, which could lead to a slipperly slope of wrangling in the Internet, and the freedom of expression and commerce with which we enjoy within the Internet, let's not miss the opportunity to think about a real problem that is going on - free downloading or lifting of creations by hard working people - Americans and those in all countries producing music, film, books, and any other form of entertainment we enjoy and now take for granted.

The intent of the SOPA bill was this, as stated on the bill H.R. 3261  - "Stop Online Piracy Act" on OpenCongress.org, a website that posts bills for you to view in full text, and track the progress of: "To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes."

This statement is valid, worth fighting for, and you play a direct role in protecting it - with your dollar. In order to protect intellectual property, which can lead to commerce in any form, be it sold online, at a street fair, or in a movie theatre, people must buy it. They must shell out the cash. The cash comes back to you in many ways, especially in your local community, by making your immediate surroundings a better place. If you don't buy it, if you download free music at a cool website, if you download a free Droid app that streams free movies, or if you grab a DVD that is just released in the theatres from a street vendor (not good local support), you are hurting the global economy. Yes, global. The whole world goes down a notch every time you take a free download. The people involved in making your entertainment are working together from all over the world. Tax incentives might make it better to film a movie in Romania, than in New York City. Musicians band together from anywhere, and tour anywhere that will take them - and pay them. YOU MUST PAY THESE PEOPLE, or the music will stop.

Creators who do not get compensated for their creations won't be able to make your entertainment anymore. You may be upset that a movie costs $13.50, or that a small popcorn costs $11. And that a night at the movies may cost you $70 if you have children who need a babysitter (which is actually one more local person benefiting from the movie industry). This price anger does not entitle anyone to a free movie download for their viewing pleasure. If no one is paid, movies won't get made. Plain and simple. 1 + 1 = 2. And that's it. You have to:

1 (buy the ticket), + 1 (create the piece of entertainment) = 2 (happy viewer/listener/reader)

We at Tin Shingle called our Congressman to stop the bills. We agree wtih Marc Zuckerburg's and then Facebook's official statement about thinking carefully about how legislation for the Internet is created. I personally am directly impacted by the economy of the entertainment industry because my husband works in it (despite this great SOPA/PIPA video, where the only flaw is that it dismisses the economic impact of the entertainment industry). We, along with many other film people, suffered with uncertainty during the Writer's Strike of 2007-2008 when writers were fighting "the studios" for compensation for online viewing of their written work. And now "the studios" are fighting "we the people" for compensation for viewing entertainment, and have tried to get the big  guns to make that happen, with legislation and enforcement.

The thing is, there will always be excuses as to why someone isn't getting a piece of the pie. During the Writer's Strike, a producer friend explained to me that "the studios" were holding up paying the writers fairly because they didn't know how to measure views of a show that a writer wrote. However, this friend must not have realized that I know that that isn't true, being that I'm a website producer and am obsessed with tracking traffic on websites. Websites, especially corporate ones with big money, can know exactly how many views their videos get, so this excuse is bull-$hit and an excuse to not pay. See all of these examples of not paying people going around? Irks me.

We should keep a strong focus on Internet piracy. It's a huge problem that directly impacts the household incomes of many Americans. Supporters of the bill who were anti-opposition, like Ex-Senator Chris Dodd (why is he still around?), MPAA' (Motion Pictures of America) chief executive. Folks like him will continue misleading us and missing focus. Early on in the protest, he declared the blackouts at protesting websites an "abuse of power". Abuse of power? To what, taking away a service of at the very least, free content, and at the very most, a service you pay for to help your personal or professional life. Abuse of power would be if the electric company shut down the electricity without asking you. Or if companies who supply servers that supply millions of websites with actual electrical power shut down their servers without asking their customers, in order to create a more wide-spread Internet blackout with no opt-in agreement to the business owner paying them to keep the lights on at the website. Chris Dodd is wrong when he called the 24 voluntary blackout of specific websites an abuse of power. It was a freedom of expression, which is what we're all trying to protect and live by.

Now that the bills have been put on hold, and 13 million people called their Congresspeople, and more millions flooded congressional servers and unintentionally caused them to crash (like with The Today Show or the Daily Candy Effect) Chris Dodd has changed his tune, according a New York Times article (but I learned about it an email from FighttheFuture.org) “'This is altogether a new effect,' Mr. Dodd said, comparing the online movement to the Arab Spring. He could not remember seeing 'an effort that was moving with this degree of support change this dramatically' in the last four decades, he added." 

Whatever, Mr. Dodd.

Just please, people, pay for what you want. It keeps the services coming to you. And keeps big guns out of meddling with laws that limit our creation of business and creation.

A good video for early cliff notes is here:

A few other good articles are here:

• Google's Matt Cutts' call to action
  
• "Don't Censor the Web" on Google's Public Policy blog
  
• "Facebook is relieved that SOPA is dead" on Mashable
  
• Facebook's Washington DC page
  

Last week I started doing the unthinkable. I clicked ‘Unsubscribe’ from Groupon. And from Living Social. And from Gilt Groupe. And from Bloomspot. And from BuyWithMe. And from JDeal (yup, there are Kosher deals to be had)! And there are others that I’ve relegated to ‘Trash’ status automatically without even bothering to Unsubscribe.

Turns out that I’m not the only one who’s gotten overly fatigued with the daily coupon. And people are questioning who’s really getting the ‘deal’ here anyway.

Surely the customers are getting a deal... These coupons allow customers to buy a product or service at often 50-70% off – but stats say that less than 60% of these coupons are ever redeemed. So, instead of someone getting a free coupon from a website or the good old ValUPak, they pay upfront for a coupon that they aren’t using. (I admit, I fall into that category. I bought a kickboxing session something in NY and then never actually signed up for the class or redeemed my certificate.) But, I'm sorry what kind of deal is that?!?

Well, with all of that money being paid upfront for coupons that aren’t necessarily redeemed, surely the merchants that participate are raking it in. But we’ve heard mixed reviews from users – some who state that it’s been the best experience ever and other who grumble that not only didn’t they gain a new customer following, but that they actually lost money.

My question isn’t really whether the coupon sites are good or bad for business or consumers, but rather whether the fact that there are so many of them out there has caused an oversaturation that renders the consumer sick and tired of seeing their inbox crammed with ‘coupons’ for the newest sushi bar or spa center down the street.

There are 167 Daily Deal sites out right now according to localdealsite.com. What do you think? Is the Daily Deal the new equivalent of the ValUPak? Is it starting to get thrown into the proverbial recycle bin too? My vote is 'yes'....

Today I was reading my daily Forbes.com newsletter and came across a great Mark Cuban referred to me by my partner at Red Branch PR, Michael Quinlan.  Normally we find Mark to be a bit of an abrasive, in your face personality, but when we checked out this link our opinions changed a bit. 

Mark covers a lot of bases, and Steve asks some great questions! I've got the topics he covers listed below (they're even in easy to digest and divide chapters) and the link is HERE!

    * Introduction
    * Media Is Everywhere
    * Paying For Content
    * New Media Villains
    * No Advertising Revenue
    * Facebook And Google

    * Path Of Least Resistance
    * Mobile Changes Everything
    * Taxing Carried Interest
    * Reviving IPOs
    * Mark Cuban's Stimulus
    * Government -- Step Aside   

Let us know what you think!