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Just launched a startup? Chances are you are on a very tight budget, counting every penny, bootstrapping anything and everthing you can and reading every 'frugal' column and blog post you can find. Here's a big list of bootstrapping resources that can save a ton of cash for pretty much any startup. 1. Bitrix24.com - Free CRM, planner, project manager, document sharing (limited to 12 employees) 2. PickyDomains.com - Pay per result naming service, $50 for domain/name/product line, slogan. 3. Reddit/Freebies - Community moderated daily updated freebies list. 4. AppSumo.com - Groupon clone for buying enterprise software. 5. JetRadar.com - Low airfare meta searchengine (searches through 700+ airlines to find best deals normally available through direct purchase on airline sites only). 6. SideJobTrack.com - Free invoicing. 7. MoneyBookers.Com (Skrill) - PayPal alternative, cheap way to accept online payments/credit cards (25 cents + 3%, please refer to ...

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming service   http://PrePaidAutoClub.com Commuting on Florida's highways often feels like bumper cars with Ferrari engines. So what would happen if those heavy-footed douches no longer faced the specter of speeding tickets? Thanks to a couple of enterprising young entrepreneurs, we might just find out. Indian River County's Ian Sidles, age 25, and Dustin Boring, 30, incorporated Pre-Paid Auto Club in August. The company provides "speeding insurance." Pay dues starting at $9.99 a month, and when you receive a moving violation, the club takes care of associated fines, traffic school costs, and legal fees. It's like the Hair Club for Men. Sidles and Boring are not only presidents of the firm, but they'd also make good clients. Sidles says epiphany struck when he was nailed for speeding twice in a week. He says he was wrongly accused of blasting his Dodge Charger past a police radar gun at 90 mph i...

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming service   http://imemories.com A lot of people go to great lengths to capture memories that are worth remembering – weddings, anniversaries, birthday celebrations, little Janey’s first steps, her first day in kindergarten, the list goes on and on.  The problem with these old films, videos and photos, however, they are rarely shared and are likely tucked away in the basement fading away and waiting to be sorted and/or converted to digital format one day. And if one isn’t so lucky, natural disasters such as fire or flooding may just speed up the “fading away” process. iMemories, recognizing this innate human need to stay connected to fond memories that can be relived over and over, is a startup that digitizes old photographs, VHS videos, slides and films, and gives the user the option to edit and share, and finally, have them burned onto crystal-clear and cinema-quality DVDs. With the help of modern technolo...

Are you good with domains, names or slogans? PickyDomains.com wants you. You'll get $20-$75 for each cool domain you come up with (and our clients decide to use). A perfect gig for your inner writer!

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency http://mailigen.com Regardless of size, shape or form, whether that’s a mom-and-pop shop you’re running or a conglomerate, marketing is an integral part of any business. One marketing strategy that works, if properly implemented, is e-mail marketing. If that got you furrowing your eyebrows in protest, and since I’m a betting man, I’d bet that you’re one of the many people who think spam has killed the effectiveness of e-mail campaigns. Viagra, Bangkok pills … I’m sure you’ve got your fair share already. The very purpose of e-mail marketing can be broken down in four: maximize your ROI (return on investment), build a trustworthy brand, drive sales and boost social interaction. Inasmuch as a good percentage of the global population is equipped with a working e-mail address, e-mail marketing is one of the simplest and most cost-effective marketing methods. But remember, it has to be do...

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming service   http://bikecaffe.com Mike Ash, who had worked in restaurants since he was 15 and earned a degree in hospitality management, hoped to one day open his own eatery. But as the years went on and he managed various restaurants and cafeterias, Ash, now 35, figured he was unlikely to ever save enough money to open his own place. Then, flipping through a Costco circular in 2010, he saw an ad for the BikeCaffe, a British franchise concept that had recently come to the U.S. The idea was as simple as the name--a mobile coffee shop mounted on a four-wheel cycle, complete with Astoria espresso machine, blender, pastry bin, refrigerator and sink. Ash signed on as one of the first U.S. franchisees and began fueling up downtown St. Petersburg, Fla. Today you can find him on the corner of Fourth Street and Central Avenue--or sometimes, especially if it's extra hot or rainy, inside the BB&T bank building. On weeken...

You know about Facebook , LinkedIn , and Twitter . You might be using them every day for business and consider yourself a social media professional. The fact is there are a lot more social tools that aren’t social networks, and quite a few of those definitely deserve your attention. 1.       Social Intranet. What if Facebook included all the elements of SalesForce, Dropbox, Google Calendar, BaseCamp, RememberTheMilk and WhatsApp? That’s social intranet for you – a private corporate social network that helps you work with clients, collaborate with co-workers, share files, exchange ideas and vote on next week’s cafeteria menu – accessible 24/7 from PC, mobile phone or iPad. Social intranets come in different shapes and sizes – some are small business friendly with a generous free package (like  Bitrix24 ), while others are created for Fortune 500 type companies and can easily cost over a million dollars (like  Jive Software ). 2....

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming service     Name: Melissa Tomkiel Day job: Lawyer Side business: Fly The Whale   Melissa Tomkiel handled a variety of small business and startup clients as an attorney with a law firm in Manhattan. That experience came in handy when she helped a friend start a private charter airline company, and eventually gave up her job to became its co-owner. "My father said I would always have my law license. But that I only live once and I should go for it," she said. With her aviation company up and running, Tomkiel is also making time to practice law again. Said Tomkiel: "I love doing both things. I probably would have made a lot more money working at a law firm full time but not as much fun as I have owning my business." Name: David Plafchan Day job: Senior copywriter at Deutsch Inc. Side business: ...

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency https://www.expensify.com/ Paul Ford writes eloquently in this week’s Bloomberg Businessweek on the rise of Bitcoin, the “media-friendly, anarchist crypto-currency” whose value jumped as the European financial crisis landed on the doorstep of Cyprus’s banking system. For the unfamiliar, Bitcoin is a form of virtual cash that’s made secure by complex computations (that’s the crypto part) and isn’t backed by any government (the anarchistic aspect). To Ford, Bitcoin is an “excellent indicator of anxiety,” often most popular with those who’ve lost trust in the world’s monetary institutions. But the virtual currency may have another thing going for it: practicality. Yes, Bitcoin can be difficult to wrap your head around, and it’s not the best solution for buying a quart of milk. But for fast, no-fee money transfers, it can’t be beat. That’s the point recently made by Expensify, a four-year-old company that creat...

Software as a service is a multibillion dollar industry that has grown by leaps and bounds since its inception. In several industries, like customer relationship management, the SaaS model has taken over traditional software distribution and has new players entering every day, trying to become the next Salesforce. Unfortunately, even with ample venture capital available, some companies keep making the same mistakes over and over when trying to market their services. Here are five such common mistakes when marketing SaaS. 1. Measure EVERYTHING. What gets measured gets improved. There are certain standard metrics used for measuring SaaS – CAC (customer acquisition cost), MRR (monthly recurring revenue), LTV (lifetime value), NPS  (net promoter score) and a few others. That’s a good starting point, but it’s not enough. The real critical metrics is HOW your service is used.  What’s the main difference between free users and paying clients? Which features are most used...

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency Need something to do this weekend? Extreme Kidnapping is a company that will kidnap you ta gunpoint, tie you up and hold you for ransom. Being abducted, gagged and bound is all part of the game. A GQ reporter recently tested out their service : I had to fly all the way to Detroit to get kidnapped. Extreme Kidnapping is a company operated by Adam Thick, an entrepreneur and convicted counterfeiter from Oakland County, Michigan. Thick founded Extreme Kidnapping in 2002 after being inspired by the old David Fincher movie The Game . (SPOILER: It was all a game!) For $500, Adam and his crew will abduct you at gunpoint and hold you hostage for four hours. A thousand bucks gets you ten hours, along with a bit of customized sadism. GQ was curious to see what $1,500 would buy me. If it strikes you as obscene that people would pay to be kidnapped at a time when it happens routinely to other people for rea...

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency http://chefdup.com/ A private, unique and memorable dining experience for your guests at your next dinner party doesn’t have to mean booking a reservation at an upscale restaurant or finding somebody good enough to cook for a crowd (if a group of eight to twelve can be considered a crowd). And that’s thanks to Chef’d Up, a startup founded by three Harvard guys: David Snider, John Feeney and David Werry. With Chef’d Up, you get to bring home premier chefs in the Boston area that include Danya Bader-Natal, a former Clio chef, Katie Barry, former Rialto chef and currently with Lumiere, and Jitti Chaithiraphant, formerly with Radius and Lumiere and now with Franklin Café South End. Chef’d Up has a total of 10 chefs in its roster at the moment. To book a chef for your event, first, browse through the chef’s profiles, including reviews from previous guests who have experienced receiving the chefs in their homes. O...