I am lucky because last week a young startup submitted their small business to my website, let’s check out their answers:

Founder name: Matteo La Rosa

Co-Founder Name: Andrea Lelli, Federico Panciroli

Website Name: Konkuri

Country: Italia
How old are you? 35-45 Years Old

Starting Date: 2009
Twitter Account: @Konkuri Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/konkuri

Could you please tell me what your business is offering?

Konkuri is the simplest way to manage your tournament and publish the results online.
Imagine a soccer league or a tennis tournament. How do you create the schedule and share results with the participants? Konkuri is a web application that lets you publish the tournament site in 1 click, generate the schedule, publish results and standings, communicate effectively with players and teams.

What are your Competitive Advantages?
There are some web applications doing a similar service. We believe we’re way ahead of them

Why? because Konkuri is:

- Super easy to use
- Create the tournament with 1 click manage the schedule in a flash
- so intuitive that in 1 year people have created more than 100.000 tournaments;

Then

- It’s social
- you can have people follow your tournament, and give them real time stream updates so that your competition gets a very good visibility;

Who are your Customers? and where are they?
We have two categories of customers:
1) Sports associations and sport centres.
2) Videogamers

They’re all around the world and we try to reach them by social media, direct emails and the word of mouth of people that already uses our service.

How do you see your business in few years?
We’re in contact with Federations and sport organizations to get them into our platform, as well as a lot of big videogames tournaments and leagues. This will increase the number of paying organizers in the next time.

How Did you get your idea?
The idea came from a personal need: we wanted to organize a tournament among friends and share the results online. That’s how Konkuri was born: to make competitions easy to manage, more exciting and visible!

Let’s show others how in the first year you paid your bills?
A web agency supports the project

What is your advice for someone who want to start a small Business?

Just do it!

Did you already create a company? No

What is the name of the last book you have read?
1Q84 by Murakami Haruki

Today I would like to introduce you to a very useful free web tool. Docracy.com is an online company set up to provide free legal documents. Everybody needs legal documents, you can’t just open a small business without privacy, term and condition etc..
 
Many small businesses think that copying and modifying legal terms and conditions from other websites will be enough to cover their business, and in some situations it could be, but how can you be sure that you’ve selected something appropriate for your start-up?  Docracy.com was created by people in a similar situation to you, all the legal documents on Docracy.com are from the Docracy community, so you will have a better chance of find the legal document that suits you best.
 
The other way to get legal documents is to hire a lawyer but as you know this is really expansive.
 
I honestly believe that young entrepreneurs can succeed without investing large amounts of money on web tools and set up costs, why waste your money with fancy documents when a cheaper equivalent is right in front of you! As I’ve said before, try to find free web tool on internet first, save your time, money and energy for running your successful small business.
 
I hope this free web tool helps, visit their website on http://www.docracy.com/ for more information.

I’m really interested to know what you think about this web tool, please leave a comment if you have something to say.

Vincent

I’ve found an amazing new Iphone app, its all about creating motivation for training and exercising while playing a game at the same time. Its an exciting concept, I’m already motivated to start!

Zombie Run ( zombiesrungame.com/) is running application based on the concept of surviving an unknown epidemic’s apocalyptic effects on society, and most importantly avoiding all Zombies! To support yourself and other survivors you are sent out on missions, such as searching for medical supplies or food rations, directed and supported by radio contact from your base. Your efforts and success are tracked, boosting the survival of your community.

I’ve always believed that if you run 3 or so times a week, on a regular basis, you can acquire good strength and better endurance. I like to run for my heath but find that I can easily run out of motivation. I’m currently using Nike plus, which is a great for measuring your ability, but you still need to motivate yourself. This game creates excitement, motivation and adrenaline through the fantasy of fear and survival, just simply running for you life. Apparently adrenaline also helps you to loose more calories!

Check out their video :

Upcoming updates for the app will also track metrics such as speed, distance, time and calories burned. This small company is also working on two add-on packs: one for beginners to ease them into running, and the other for interval training which apparently fits in perfectly with this concept.

This application costs 5.99 euros and some people will be put off, thinking that’s too expensive, however I don’t agree. Of course you can compare all the other iphone app you usually find for around 0.70 Euro cents, however Zombie Run is still cheaper and more exciting than running on a treadmill and paying monthly fees at the gym!

Tell me what you think about it?

To resume, young entrepreneurs will find this web tool very proficient. From synchronizing your email addresses to maintaining your calendar and contacts, gmail offers all the necessary features to efficiently run your small business, all without any cost (and no, I am not working for gmail, nor am I a big google lover, but I do find using gmail easy and pleasingly effective)!
 
Last thing, please don’t be paranoid about using gmail as any company you decide to use can see your personal information. Whether its hotmail, yahoo or whatever, these companies can all see what you’re writing!
 
So, what do you think about gmail? Are you already using it? Maybe hate it? Let’s discuss it. I’m looking forward to reading your comments.

This week I would like to talk about a new small business: Vayable.com , a great new concept within the travel industry. The concept is simple, you can visit any city/place and find a local tour guide, or you can be the tour guide in your own town.
 
This is going to change the standards of tourism. I presume that official tour guide wont be happy with this, but I think it’s a great idea, classic guided tours often tend to be standard and mundane. They’re always showing people the same places, talking about the same things each day, every day, there’s very little creativity. Actually it isn’t totally the fault of the tour guides but rather the companies hiring them, they set the standard route and activities aimed at obtaining maximum profit.
 
I think this will be a good kick in the ass for this industry, Vayable will offer a great competitive option with personalized and less standard tours. Individual tour guides will show people the city or town that they live in, what they are proud of, or what they think you’ll be interested in seeing, almost like visiting a friend. It’s great because anyone can register and become a tour guide with Vayable.
 
This startup was created by Jamie Wong and Shelly Roche ( more here  ) 
Here is the story of Jamie:
 
“ When I was twenty years old, I went to Morocco. One afternoon I walked into a carpet shop with my bulky guidebook in tow, telling the shopkeeper that I wanted to visit the Sahara Desert. Before I’d finished my cup of mint tea, I was in the back seat of the shopkeeper’s Honda Accord, tearing through the windy roads of the Atlas mountains for fifteen hours until we reached the desert where his cousin, Ali, was the chief of a caravan tribe.
After five nights traveling on camel back, subsisting on bread our guide baked in the sand, and sleeping under the stars tucked in wool blankets, I returned to the caravan camp, just as the sun went down to mark the first night of Passover. Atop a sand dune, my new friends and I drew the Seder plate in the sand and together sang “Let my people go.”
Gazing up at the brilliant stars, Ali says to me, “The only real difference between us is that my tribe reads one more book than yours.”
The modest amount of money I spent had given Ali and his cousin enough to live on for a month. And my newly gained understanding of the world, and of myself, instigated a decade of exploration that has aimed to positively impact the world, not least of which, was founding Vayable.”
You can see her story here
 
So, who says its too late to start a new creative company?
What do you think?

In 2004 I realized that I didn’t speak English, as a consequence I was stuck in France! I desperately wanted to learn English, for many personal reasons.

What did I do to learn English?

I was living in France at that time and as you probably know, in France no one speaks English. Many French people are able to speak English but they just don’t use it in France…So I decided to learn English in another country, as an expatriate.

How can you work in another country if you don’t speak English? That was the main response I received from the negative people around me. Let me explain how I ignored them. It was super easy, I just believe that I could do it! So I started to spread the word to all my expatriate French friends (actually at the time I only had 2). I told them: I want to find a job abroad, but I don’t speak English ) Seems kind of funny, right?

I clearly remember this question during the interview, “do you speak English?” (in French of course). “Yes I do…” I replied (ahhh, In my mind I had my fingers crossed, please don’t ask me anything else!  Fortunately they didn’t check my level, as at that point I still hardly spoke any English at all! A few weeks later they hired me… yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! (Maybe one day I will write about how I survived there)The adventure started 5 April 2004, I was on my way to the Netherlands! A job as DHL coordinator, French customer service, in this huge American company (and of course I still couldn’t speak English!)To resume, my advice is as follows:  DON’T block yourself because of social values or social pressure. Social values can be good, but they can also be bad. You have to select whats good for you…I always say: don’t listen toxic people, do what you think is acceptable. Only you can make your dreams happen.At that time people were saying: “you cannot find a job abroad if you don’t speak English” If I had listened to them I’d probably still be in France, still dreaming about leaving.Most of the time these people think they’re giving you good advice, they don’t realize they’re toxic for you, let alone probably toxic for themselves, so be patient with them

Remember, negative people are just conforming to social standards, it isn’t their fault. We also have our own social beliefs, we are like them too in a way. Just ignore them, make your own decisions!

The concept is simple but really interresting and inspiring.

Personally I like to keep my books but sometime I can read a book that I don’t like, so why not.

Do you like this idea?

I just found this on the web: a free elevator pitch builder, it’s good to check this out if you never tried this before.

Their elevator pitch is:

“you have one minute to explain yourself, your business, your goals and your passions. Your audience knows none of these.

Are you prepared? Can you present your vision smoothly, enticing them to want to know more…”

http://www.alumni.hbs.edu/careers/pitch/