Archives for October 2010

Interesting Kenyan Sites #11

October 31, 2010 by 4 Comments

Stoundi – I had the good fortune to learn of this website from the developers themselves! It looks like it can be something amazing – for one thing, the technology behind it is very advanced (they use artificial intelligence technologies). Basically, this is an “answer engine” and the creators of the site say that they are building it to be able to give you answers to any question you could ever have (to do with local stuff). So, for example, if you wanted to know the Governor of Kiambu county, you would just ask Stoundi and it would return the answer. Nice eh? Good Kenyan technology!

Simple Motion – if you look at it closely, this site will simple blow you away! It is a news aggregation site built by Kenyans for Kenya. And they use some of the most uniquely amazing technology. For instance, they are the first (and maybe only) company in the world to have videos embedded on maps! (The site is, however, not fully done yet.)

50-50
PesaPal – Have a look at this page. It seems that PesaPal has done little SEO, going by the fact that the site’s description in the search results is not optimized. I’m not bashing PesaPal, but why wouldn’t they do this? It takes a minute or so only…

Flops
The Office of the Prime Minister – You’d think the site would look as good as the PM’s spanking new offices, eh? Not so. While the design is okay, many links on the site seem not to work. And what are those squares on the home page? I’d expect better from a website of such a ‘large’ office.

K24 – I do not know what the K24 site even looks like….because they’ve been hacked and cracked. Invest in security, people.

K24 hacked

K24 hacked (click to view larger)

Filed Under: Cool Sites

Apologies for Our Downtime

October 31, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Poleni, readers. On Friday evening, for about two hours, www.likechapaa.com was not available. We were down.

Why? We got an unexpected surge in visitors to this website and it crashed our servers and brought us down. While we’re excited to get so many visitors, we aren’t excited that our servers crashed. We’re investing in more and bigger servers. Thanks for understanding.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

Winner of ‘Scientific Advertising’

October 30, 2010 by Leave a Comment

We had a mini-competition the other day. So, here is the winner:

Dear readers, thank you for participating. Please enjoy the book Naomie. Do let us know how you like it.

If you are late and you want Scientific Advertising, you can get it by clicking here.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Tagged With: ,

8 Ways to Impress Your Boss While Doing Less

October 30, 2010 by 1 Comment

While we usually write about how to successfully grow your business, I know that a lot of people aren’t there yet. A lot of people are still working the 9-5, dreaming of being a Business Owner. While I worked for “the Man”, I still wanted to be “lazy” while being successful and get promoted. For the most part, these are some things that I did to be successful, while beginning on my road to being a Lazy Owner.

  1. Become Great Friends with Your Boss – While it doesn’t always seem fair, people naturally respond better to people that they like. If you establish a good relationship with your boss, they’re more likely to give you some leniency or provide a better review for you. Don’t brown nose – just treat them like an old friend.
  2. Know What Your Boss’ Boss Wants – In the end, you are only getting directions from your boss because they are getting directions from their boss. The sooner you understand what these are and what is motivating them, the sooner you can help meet those needs, and not worry about what you used to think was important.
  3. Focus on the Major Tasks – Once you know what your Boss’ Boss wants, focus on those tasks. Get them done right and get them down right away. Again, this is the most important stuff to your boss and they will look at you as being indispensable if you’re meeting their needs on time, all the time.
  4. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff – Too often, I would see people worried about the smallest details that didn’t make any difference. Don’t miss the obvious stuff but don’t spend hours worrying about formatting, etc. Focus on the important things – that’s what your boss will remember.
  5. Send E-mails Before You Go To Work and After You Go Home – You don’t have to actually log on and do any work but it shows dedication to your boss when they see e-mails at 7AM and 11PM. Just save an e-mail or two that you want to send or respond to one that doesn’t take much time.
  6. Volunteer for Everything – Initially, this is counter-intuitive but it can eventually reduce the amount of work you do. I also think it’s one of the best ways to impress your boss – shows that you can handle the multiple responsibilities of someone at a level above you.
  7. Get a Personal Assistant – So this might not be feasible if you work in a government or financial industry and it could be frowned upon by some employers, but if there are any repetitive tasks you have that can be outsourced, take advantage of the opportunity to impress your boss.
  8. Know Something Better than Anyone – Don’t become the jack-of-all-trades. Make sure that you’re the resident expert on at least one subject area. You don’t have to keep up on multiple domains but you become indispensable to your boss.

What do you think of these?

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Tagged With:

Want a FREE Online Shop?

October 29, 2010 by Leave a Comment

The very first time that I got interested in making money online was around the time when I hit puberty. I was reading this magazine – sikumbuki jina – and there was this story of a woman with three kids who had quit her job to take care of her babies. Since she was home a lot, she started spending a lot of time on the Internet.

One day, she discovered a nice little website where she could set up an online shop for free. At the time, she had nothing to sell online but the idea stuck with her. Weeks later, she started a little duka selling hand-made jewelery (she made it herself at home). According to the magazine article, in a few months her little duka was making her twice the amount of money she used to make at her old job.

This story just spoke to me and I promised myself to one day make money online somehow. I later realized this dream through Like Chapaa and other online businesses that I am a part of.

How about you? Have you ever wanted to make money online? have you managed to do it?

Only you know the answers to that. Today, though, I am very pleased to announce our newest project! OurDuka.

What is OurDuka?
OurDuka is a site that enables you to start a simple online shop easily and for free.

Why are we doing this? because of public demand. Since we launched DukaPress, we got quite a lot of people telling us they love it but also telling us they have no idea how to get started – few people understand how to download it, upload it on a server, bla bla… A lot of you just want to “get a shop” without worrying about the technical details. Well, now you can do just that, just signup at OurDuka and you’re good to go! All 100% for free.

Do you have anything you think can sell online? Why don’t you get off your behind and try sell it? You have no excuses since we’re giving you a shop for free, ama?

The site right now is still a bit crude but as we engage with you, we hope to make it better as we go along. Hop on, make money, be happy! Don’t worry if you get little things here and there that seem out of place, we’re fixing that.

Why would you use OurDuka?

  1. You get a fully featured shop just like this one or this one or this one. Free.
  2. Our shop management software is used by over 3,473 people. Would that many people be wrong?
  3. You can very very easily accept money via PayPal, AlertPay, or even MPESA. We don’t charge any commissions.
  4. We are known for providing top-notch support so you will never ever be stranded.
  5. We will love you forever! Seriously.

How do we make money?
We feel that before we even try to make money from this project, we need to make sure that you make money from it. Therefore, right now, this thing is free. Completely. We’ll be experimenting with how to make money using this in the future (when we have 1,000 users, if we ever do :p).

So, well, the ball is in your court. If you ever wanted an online shop, now you can get one that is very powerful and easy to use, and free. Visit OurDuka and sign up ASAP.

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

Business Idea Generation in 5 Easy Steps

October 29, 2010 by Leave a Comment

I read something interesting from Ramit Sethi:

The myth of the Perfect Idea takes two seemingly opposite forms.

  1. “Waaaah, I hate being broke, but I have no skills or ideas for making more money!” “My boss is such a @$#@* but there’s nothing else I can do.”
  2. “But I have a MILLION good ideas! Just don’t know where to start… website? iPhone apps (even though I don’t code)? Guitar lessons? Personal chef?”

Your idea is a lot less important than you think it is, and here’s why.

Your ideas are worthless.

The true value of your idea comes to life when you execute.

Have you ever heard anyone say “Man, if only I had been the one to come up with that Google idea… I’d be one of those billionaire guys by now!” Uh. Think again. Your idea is just meaningless thoughts until you can bring it to life with impeccable execution.

Likewise, even a highly IMPERFECT idea can yield profitable and satisfying results with great execution.

Read more about how to generate ideas in 5 easy steps.

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With:

Scientific Advertising (Free Book Inside)

October 28, 2010 by 5 Comments

The time has come when advertising has in some hands reached the status of a science. It is based on fixed principles and is reasonably exact. The causes and effects have been analyzed until they are well understood. The correct method of procedure have been proved and established. We know what is most effective, and we act on basic laws. – Claude Hopkins

Scientific Advertising by Claude C. Hopkins is a timeless classic written many years ago but a book whose powerful principles still ring true to this day.

It contains 21 chapters of timeless strategies you don’t want to ignore in your advertising and marketing efforts.

In fact, David Ogilvy once said: “Nobody, at any level, should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read this book seven times.”

If you are an entrepreneur, I highly recommend that your read this book, it will teach you timeless concepts behind advertising and marketing.

You know what? We’re giving away free copies of the books. Just leave a comment below and we’ll pick winners in three days. Your comment can be about absolutely anything, but it would help if you added to the conversation. Good luck.

This book is also available at the Chapaa Shop.

How do you do your business advertising?

Filed Under: Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With: