Archive for the ‘Home’ Category

Business models and customer service

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

These two things are crucial when creating a business. How viable is your business, and how are you going to treat your customers. Both determine how long your business is going to be around and how well they are going to survive. You can have a killer business model, but if you have abysmal customer service you are going to fail. No one wants to do business with a company that doesn’t care or seemingly hates their customers. The same goes for your business model. You can have the best customer service in the world but if your business model ends up negatively impacting your customers they won’t be your customers for long.

What brought about this as a topic was my own recent dealings with a little company known as Citi. Now you might be thinking this is just me complaining, but trust me, I have some good points on building your own business strategy, so please. Read on.

I have been a faithful customer for years. Always paid my bill on time, kept myself in good standing with them and just recently I received a notice that they are doubling my APR for no reason. When I called their customer service to ask why I was being punished for being a good customer their reply was “You’re not being punished this is just the price of doing business with us.” What?

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Starting Up a Startup. Video #5

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

You are a Pyramid Scheme. Are you PASSIONATE enough about your product to SELL it?


Starting Up a Startup #5 - You Are a Pyramid Scheme! from Royal Ants on Vimeo.

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Starting up a Startup - Financial Crisis

Monday, January 5th, 2009


Money! by Yomanimus

The economy, the bailout, small business, big business, no loans, financing troubles, newspapers going out of business, millions of jobs lost so far and more to come. One can’t help but think we are in for some much darker times before we see the light, but does it really have to go that way? Maybe a little it does, but does it have to be as bad as everyone says it’s going to be?

Being in the position of starting a business involving more people than myself I have been thinking about what I would be doing in this position. What if RoyalAnts was looking at cutting expenses? Where would we start where would we look to shave some of the financial fat? What does this have to do with Starting up a Startup?

Sit down, make yourself at home and I’ll tell you.

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Starting Up a Startup. Video #4

Thursday, January 1st, 2009

Hello! This is installment #4 of our video series. What is your New Years Resolution for your business?


Starting Up a Startup #4 from Royal Ants on Vimeo.

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Starting up a Startup - Business Plans

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

As with most things there are a couple schools of thought on this topic. The first is that the Business Plan is absolutely necessary and is the core of your startup. The Second is that all it does is get in the way. Of the small businesses I polled on Twitter the only reason anyone had one was if they were looking for funding, other wise it was just too time consuming (which it should be)

Either way you look at it one thing is certain, if you’re looking for funding a business plan is absolutely necessary. That’s why I’m going to talk about it, we have created a small business plan and so we’ve been through the pain. It’s not investor worthy yet, but then we aren’t looking for investment right now anyways.

At the root of it all a business plan is a way to put on paper the goals, growth plan, business / management plans for your business. It’s there to help organize your thoughts and goals regarding your business and help keep you on track, it’s not there to drag you down and suck up your time. I’m going to get into the sections of a business plan, but first we need to create a ficticious business.

I posted the question to Twitter and Seth Simonds from the wickedly funny The Dating Papers was the first to respond with

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CO, LLC, S corp, DBA, WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Saturday, December 20th, 2008

Ryan is kicking my butt with the blog posts and while I was thinking about the many and varied things I could be writing about it hit me that I could and should start at the beginning. I’m going to go over all the crap that we went through, the decisions we made and how we did it… just like Ryan is doing… crap.

Well I’m going to be doing it from a more “analytical” stand point while giving you some reference points, information, and advice.

After choosing our business name (which I’ll let Mr.Roylance explain in a very animated and gesticulated way) we had to get down to deciding what kind of company we were going to be. So we started with a book and then went online and we figured that an LLC will work best for our needs. Now if that sated your need for information feel free to go read something else. If not then keep reading.

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Starting Up a Startup. Video #3

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

Welcome one and all to installment three of our video series. Your idea is NOT original. Now what?

I continue to flail my arms around like I am convulsing. It is just an aspect of my charm…? Enjoy.


Starting a Startup #3 from Royal Ants on Vimeo.

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Starting Up a Startup. Video #2

Monday, December 15th, 2008

Apparently I talk with my hands more than I realized. Look past the always flailing arms, and enjoy the second installment of our video series.


Starting Up…A Startup #2 from Royal Ants on Vimeo.

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Starting Up a Startup. Video #1

Friday, December 12th, 2008

Hello Y’all! Here is the first video in our Starting Up a Startup series. As previously mentioned, comments are appreciated, but maybe more importantly, if there is a topic you want to see recorded/covered, let us know. Enjoy.


Starting up…A startup from Royal Ants on Vimeo.

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A Different Kind of How To (Or How To Not)

Sunday, December 7th, 2008

As we continue to move towards our goal of launching Royalants.com we try to keep ourselves well versed on all the articles and blog posts written over the years about how to increase your chances of success during the startup process. Everyone seems to have their own strategy and opinion on the subject. The only constant is the seemingly obvious advice that a good startup needs good people, a good idea, and the ability to work for nothing for an extended period of time. The reality of the whole thing is that each startup will face their own challenges and have their own set of failures and successes.

I decided somewhere along the way that because we were going to be taking this journey that I wanted to document it. That way if (when) we were (are) successful we will be able to provide information to someone in our shoes as to how we were able to achieve our success. Adversely, if we were to ultimately build a product that does not meet our goals and expectations we will also have an outline of what may have gone wrong which we hope would be equally as valuable to a future startup.

I am not interested in writing a how to guide, or a top 10 list of the things to do or not do. Instead I want to document our journey both in writing and on video so you can follow along with us. I hope to create something that is as entertaining as it is informative. As posts appear, please leave comments and feedback. I would love to hear how our experience is similar to, or contrasts your own, as well as get advice from you. We are not experts and at no point along the way will we claim to be. To reach the top of the mountain we need honest feedback, and who better to give that than someone who is going, or has gone through the same climb. We look forward to bringing you along for the ride.

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