Archives for November 2009

Laughs From Google

November 25, 2009 by Leave a Comment


Google’s autocomplete feature for searches can be pretty useful when you’re looking for a common search term. Hey, neat! You don’t have to type the whole thing! Sometimes, though, Google’s suggestions take a turn for the hilarious or just plain weird. A site called Autocomplete Me collects some of the strangest ones for your amusement. Admittedly, some of these might be offensive, so viewer discretion is advised.

Did you notice that Google introduced an autocomplete feature? It’s pretty nice, you don’t have to type so much – Google offers you suggestions that are often very relevant and useful. Sometimes, though, Google’s suggestions are Bizarre. A site called Autocompleteme collects the most bizarre and hilarious ones for your enjoyment. (Some may be offensive, be advised.)

Filed Under: Miscellaneous, Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With:

Let’s make it easier to register businesses in Kenya

November 25, 2009 by 5 Comments

Hi wonderful readers

A few days ago, I was helping my niece to register a new business. She wanted to register a (limited liability) company. We found someone to do it for us – the person, a lawyer, charged us Kshs 20,000/-

Now, I was just thinking. If any man/woman in the street wants to start a business and needs a company, they would need to also pay this 20,000, wouldn’t they? For many start up businesses that I have known, this amount is simply too much. The money can be better used elsewhere.

In the spirit of helping all of us become better, financially and otherwise, I was thinking if at all we can do anything to make it easier to register companies in Kenya.

The biggest hurdle is drawing up the Articles & Memorandum of Association, isn’t it? While at school, we were taught that there are draft copies of these documents at the registrar. Is that so? Are they usable?

My idea is this: can we make draft copies of these documents that can serve “any business under the sun” and make them available for free download to anyone? In my humble opinion, it would be of massive help to aspiring entrepreneurs out there.

While at it, perhaps we can also do the same for partnerships, sole proprietorships and other forms of businesses. Ama?

What do you think? I’m no lawyer so, who wants to help?

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With:

An Online Strategy For Companies in Kenya

November 24, 2009 by 10 Comments

This one is from a while back. Someone asked me:

My question to you is, what do you think should be the online strategy for a tour company in Kenya and how should they approach it and what tools should they apply?

Here’s my response:

What would be a good online strategy for a tour company in Kenya? This is an interesting challenge. So let’s see, what I would do is launch an elegant website that is intuitive to use and stylish (web2.0-ish also). I’m assuming this site will have some sort of ‘place’ (a shopping cart, online booking form etc) where a sale needs to be made – focus on this. Make the buying/ordering process easy to use for even a passing browser. And the sales copy around it has to be absolutely well done. If need be, hire professional copywriters for this one page (menwithpens or Kenyan Freelancer come to mind). You do this to make sure that your site doesn’t suck at selling.

Now, in my mind, the target visitors of this site are not in Kenya. True? So you need to find how to reach them. I would include a blog with the website. You can talk honestly and with a personal voice (no corporate-speak) about Kenya, and why it’s such a great country. I’m sure there are tons of things that your blog can talk about.

How to get visitors? I like the organic way – make a remarkable site and blog and then apply SEO VERY well (the works: link building, directory submissions etc). Also, since your visitors are not from Kenya, it should be easy to find out where they hang out – other travel blogs, forums, etc. Go there and join those conversations and, by all means, get noticed. But be subtle.

To complement this sort of ‘organic’ strategy, also carry out a PPC advertising campaign (with Adsense or YPN). This will get some visitors and some sales (if you did your sales copy well). I don’t like extended PPC campaigns so probably you should phase this out as the organic traffic rises – unless your returns on the advertising are very good.

As you get visitors to the site, have some way to opt in visitors into an email marketing campaign. Use mailchimp (by my experience they rock!) to provide your auto responder software/services. Don’t spend too much money on this – people sometimes go crazy – just a basic Mailchimp account will do (they even have a free offering). Be creative in how you get people to join your email list (NEVER buy email addresses). Perhaps you could offer free Swahili lessons via email, or an amazing free video of unseen Kenyan delights. But I’m sure there’s no shortage of creativity on your end.

I think if you do this, you’ll have a good strong start. I doubt many other Kenyan sites have done this well. 😉

To recap:

  • Build an elegant site. Let is be super easy to use.
  • Do your sales copy excellently.
  • SEO everything.
  • Market the site by authentically joining the conversation on other travel blogs, forums and other sites.
  • Carry out a PPC campaign and consider stopping it (or slowing down) when there is enough organic traffic.
  • Create an email marketing campaign.

—-
I had not mentioned a social network strategy (Facebook, twitter, etc). I’ll work on that and post it here soon. Stay tuned. Got questions? I have answers! 🙂

Filed Under: Lazyweb, Small Business, Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With: ,

Another Option To Raise Funds

November 24, 2009 by 2 Comments

When starting a business, sometimes one does not have enough money from his own personal sources to fund the business startup costs (‘capital’). There are two main sources of additional funding:

  1. Debt – basically you take a loan from a bank, or a friend, and agree how to pay it back.
  2. Equity – basically, you find someone to ‘invest’ in your business. They then get to own a certain agreed part of your business.

Usually, debt financing is much, much cheaper than equity financing. However, they are both sometimes unattainable for very young businesses. What to do?

Well, there’s a third source of funding. It’s not much different from debt financing but it is different enough. Basically, get someone who has some spare money and who is not a seasoned/experienced investor. Perhaps someone who retired recently and is looking for something to invest in (like a retired dentist).

You then offer them a deal: give me some money to launch my business and I’ll give you a certain percentage of my sales. Think about it – no endless meetings, punitive interest rates, complex accounting. You just pay a commission on your sales. It could work, ama?

Adapted from Seth Godin’s article.

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

How To Fax For Free

November 21, 2009 by 6 Comments

So recently we’ve been having a number of dealings with organisations and people in the big USA here at Like Chapaa. We’ve had to send a number of faxes, unfortunately. Unfortunately because we consider faxing to be…old school. We don’t even have fax machines at our offices, for starters!

What to do? Well, for a while we sent the faxes the old way…but we’re internet people so we were always looking for a smart alternative. We think we found one!

How to send faxes to the USA, free of charge and via the internet
Cool, eh? It’s simple too. Just:

  1. Get a free account and US fax number from k7. K7 will give you a US number that will let anyone fax or call you. Faxes and voicemail will be delivered to your (email) inbox.
  2. Go over here [www.faxzero.com] here [www.gotfreefax.com] and send your free fax. Be sure to put in your new US fax number in the “sender information fax #” field.
  3. That’s it, you’re done!

We’ve been sending faxes (and receiving them) with smiley faces ever since we discovered this. Hopeful, some our dear readers (that’s you) will find this useful.

What can you do with this? Well, if you’re doing business with anyone in the USA, you can now get faxes and voicemail delivered to a US number and you retrieve them quickly and easily from your email.

Have you tried it yet? How did it go? What do you think?

Image courtesy of Yo Spiff.

Filed Under: Small Business, Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With: , ,

Family Bank Goodies

November 20, 2009 by Leave a Comment

In partnership with KDN, Family Bank is set to offer free Wifi within a radius of one kilometer of each of the bank’s branches. The bank has quite a number of branches. 😀

So now you can add Family Bank to your list of where you can get Wifi in Nairobi. :p Apart from increasing it’s brand awareness, how else will Family Bank benefit from this? I’m not sure…However, you and I shall benefit immensely!

More to that, the bank shall also be offering financing to those who are interested in setting up internet and data related businesses. Are you an entrepreneur? Looking for financing?

Filed Under: Miscellaneous, Small Business Tagged With: , ,

Make Your Own Facebook

November 18, 2009 by 3 Comments

Recently, social networking sites have become all the rage. They have let people with shared interests connect with each other like never before. Some social networks, like Facebook, have grown to gigantic proportions. Social networks are so cool that people sometimes want to create their own. Do you want your own social network?

Well, you’re in luck! You can create your own social network for the lovely and friendly cost of ZERO. How? Use BuddyPress. BuddyPress is a social networking application built on the WordPress platform that allows anyone to build their own social network. Out-of-the-box, BuddyPress comes with these features:

  • A WordPress blog
  • Individual profiles for members
  • Private Message (PM) functionality
  • Friend Networks
  • Groups, which include a blog, photos and other user generated content
  • “The Wire” (like the wall on Facebook)
  • Activity/Action streams of public actions on the site
  • Forums using bbPress

What can you do with BuddyPress? How about a social network for fans of a local team, or a sports league, or a writers’ club…..or even your very own Facebook. The possibilities are endless.

Here’s a live demo of social network built using BuddyPress: TestBP

What do you think?

Filed Under: Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With: