So, what actually happens during a MicroConsult? Well, did one with Craig Millman of Brisbane, Australia yesterday afternoon.

Craig’s the founder of The Trackster, a really nice web application for personal trainers who want to be more professional, save more time and make more money. Here’s what he had to say:

You’re reading Thanks Craig! from: 47 Hats. If you like this post, there’s plenty more! Want more sales for your startup? Stop by and let’s chat, or consider a Microconsult with Bob Walsh.

…at least for the MicroConsult with Bob Walsh sale. MicroConsults will be returning to their normal highly competitive prices Monday at noon (San Francisco time).

So who went for the sale? Well, for starters…

How about you?

You’re reading The end is near… from: 47 Hats. If you like this post, there’s plenty more! Want more sales for your startup? Stop by and let’s chat, or consider a Microconsult with Bob Walsh.

Perseverance

On another note…

I wanted my readers here know about a sale starting today: Buy one MicroConsult for $99 instead of $147 (30% off). Or buy two MicroConsults for $198 and I’ll add a third MicroConsult, free (50+% off!).

You can schedule your MicroConsult(s) today or later. And as always, each MicroConsult comes with a money back, there and then, guarantee.

(So far no one has taken me up on this particular guarantee. )

If you’re feeling stuck, if you’re not sure how to explain your startup on your site, if you need a big dose of productivity to get to the next level, please, give one of my MicroConsults a try. I think you will be glad you did.

You’re reading Time to get your startup unstuck. from: 47 Hats. If you like this post, there’s plenty more! Want more sales for your startup? Stop by and let’s chat, or consider a Microconsult with Bob Walsh.

First off, a hardy thanks to those who commented on this post, or tweeted, or emailed, or IM’ed, or called. Like the song says, I get by with a little help from my friends…

Speaking of help, if you need to kick your web site into a higher gear, you could do worse than attend AppSumo’s Action Class today at noon, PST. Your’s truly will be critiquing the sites of nine brave volunteers already picked. I think it will be worth your while.

And lastly, now there’s only 16 days before GE stops paying for your copy of Do the Work. at Amazon. Tick Tock! And by the way, you in no way need to own a Kindle to read Kindle books – Amazon has free reading/managing apps for every conceivable platform, including the one you are reading this on. In fact, personally I do all my reading on an iPad, except like, in sunlight.

You’re reading Three things quick from: 47 Hats. If you like this post, there’s plenty more! Want more sales for your startup? Stop by and let’s chat, or consider a Microconsult with Bob Walsh.

A "to-the-point" video

One of my consulting clients, Izenda Reports, hit a home run today.

They combined a “looks like a plain email” MailChimp newsletter campaign linking to a blog post containing this this video. It got nearly 500 clicks this morning from customers and prospects who have chosen to get the newsletter, forcing Izenda to purchase more bandwidth at screencasts.com.

The moral of this little story is customers like it when you go the extra distance to provide them with usable, useful and interesting information about your product, delivered in an easily shared permissioned format.

You’re reading A good problem to have… from: 47 Hats. If you like this post, there’s plenty more! Want more sales for your startup? Stop by and let’s chat, or consider a Microconsult with Bob Walsh.

I think I’ve come up with a way to take your self-funded startup or microISV to the next level. I call it MicroConsult with Bob Walsh, and here’s the gist:

• A one hour consultation via Skype/phone to define your biggest startup pain - market research, productivity, your web site, whatever – and collaboratively build a checklist of 8-10 specific, measurable tasks that you can do to make that pain stop, or at least hurt a lot less.
• During that hour, you and I are going to nail down exactly what you need to do, set a deadline, make sure each task is well defined and doable.
• This checklist will be in the form of a shared checklist on Checkvist.com (you’ll need a free account with this awesome online outliner). Why there? So we can both see as you work on your checklist. Also, I will be keeping in touch and keeping you focused on completing that checklist and getting the desired results.
• You book a MicroConsult via the widget below, answering a few pre-consultation questions and paying via PayPal/CC for that hour ($147 USD).
• At the end of that consultation, if you don’t feel you’ve gotten your money’s worth, I’ll refund your $147 there and then.

Does it really work? Here’s what my first MicroConsult with Bob Walsh client has to say:

“As someone trying to get my self-funded startup going, both time and money are at a premium. I tried a MicroConsult with Bob Walsh because he had an outstanding reputation and I honestly did not have the time to read through hundreds of pages of potential useless or redundant material. Bob’s advice got me on the fast track to meeting my goals. Once I work through the checklist that he and I created, I plan on scheduling another session in order to help me get to the next stage in my startup’s life.”
Justin James, founder of RatCatcher

[bookingbug id='usw384291' palette='bob3' style='medium']

You’re reading And here we go: MicroConsult with Bob Walsh from: 47 Hats. If you like this post, there’s plenty more! Want more sales for your startup? Stop by and let’s chat, or consider a Microconsult with Bob Walsh.

Just whisper to them, “How is your market research going?”

Their eyes will widen, blood pressure rise and sweat will break out on their brow.

Of the very approximately two thousand startup founders I’ve talked with over the past 7 years, I can count on my fingers and toes the number who with premeditation did market research before they started coding. I didn’t. Twice. Yet, if I had to pick one factor out of all the possible indicators for startup success, it would be doing some decent market research before you build.

So, along those lines, I’d like a few minutes of your help with my market research on a new service, before I build it. Nothing to buy and no obligation, but the first 20 respondents will get free six-month StartupToDo.com memberships (regular price, $105) – it’s that important to me.

Please take just a few minutes and complete this survey: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/364832/SoftwareStartupCoach-com.

You’re reading How to frighten a startup founder..? from: 47 Hats. If you like this post, there’s plenty more! Want more sales for your startup? Stop by and let’s chat, or consider a Microconsult with Bob Walsh.

Here’s a email I got a yesterday:

Bob,
I wanted to take just a minute to thank you for  MicroISV Sites that Sell! The book turned out to be a resource of more value than I ever imagined.  John and I each read the book independently then we worked through the exercises together.  We used the questionnaire and the exercises as our guide while we worked through the redesign.  And the results…. WOW!  We had been limping along. We had established that there was in fact a market for our product, but we sure weren’t seeing the kind of sales we anticipated.  Of course, our site was ugly and extremely filled with features.  Our sales for January and February 2009 were just under $2000 combined.  We relaunched our website on March 1, 2009.  So far, our March 2009 sales are over $4000 … with 2 full weeks left in the month!  Thank you, thank you, thank you for putting the information we needed and the advice we needed to hear, in a clear concise easy to follow format.
With warmest regards,
Betsy Tuma
TumaSoft, LLC

http://www.tumasoft.com

===

This is what I like to hear. If you’ve not picked up your copy of MicroISV Sites that Sell!, buy it today, St. Patrick’s Day, for half the regular price. Just enter the discount code “StPat”. And may the luck of the Irish be with you!

You’re reading Another email I’d like to share… from: 47 Hats. If you like this post, there’s plenty more! Want more sales for your startup? Stop by and let’s chat, or consider a Microconsult with Bob Walsh.

One of the cool things about consulting with microISVs and startups is when your clients reach and pass important milestones on the road to success. Four of my clients (that have given me the okay to talk about them) have done just that:

Tim Sullivan - Spice, an innovative SaaS application for hiring managers launched last week. It’s a killer app for startups and other agile companies who need better hiring results than either conventional recruiting shops or bloated “HR mission critical enterprise” whale apps can deliver. The beauty of Spice is that it takes the process most small companies use for finding/screening candidates – email – and removes the pain while improving the results.

While Tim and the rest of the folks at Without Software (love that name!) are totally responsible for their success, emails like this are a rush:

“I was not prepared for the depth of assistance that Bob provided. I had expected a through review what I’d already done, but Bob provided ideas not just for our USP but for the product itself, helping to focus it very, very effectively. Thanks, Bob!”

Tony Wright – RescueTime, a SaaS time management and analytics tool, made it into the New York Times not once but twice last month. Believe me, that’s PR traditional ISVs would happily sell their first born for. (And yes, the second mention was a comment – on a post by David Pogue, one of the very most respected/read tech writers out there.)

RescueTime is exactly the kind of app microISVs can produce: really innovative solutions that break with conventional wisdom. If Tony had tried to create RescueTime at one of the Big Software Companies you can bet his vision of what RescueTime should be about would have been watered down to nothing.

Tony was kind enough to say a few very nice words about me back in April.

Vadim Kleyzit – Stimulus Technology – Another fun part of helping microISVs and startups succeed is getting to see seriously disruptive tech while it’s still in stealth mode. Take Web Stimulus – a server/IE-plugin that makes ASP.NET 3-8 times faster. No, I’m not kidding – I’ve seen it work and if anything, Web Stimulus is even more powerful than that.

Communicating complex technology is not an easy task; while the site’s copy is good, Stefanie Fontecha did a totally impressive job on the layout, vastly improving the delivery of the copy I wrote. Need a new microISV site? See Stefanie.

Mark Gladding – Text2Go is a cool Windows app for transmuting wasted commuting time into productive time by converting documents on your PC into speech of near-human quality on your iPod. Mark’s nearly ready to release his next major version he tells me, and was kind enough to say a few words about my consulting engagement with him back in March.

To Tim, Tony, Vadim and Mark: Hat’s off guys! Glad I could lend a hand.

You’re reading Clients making news. from: 47 Hats. If you like this post, there’s plenty more! Want more sales for your startup? Stop by and let’s chat, or consider a Microconsult with Bob Walsh.