The Myfitbrain company was built with one full time employee and everyone/everything else was outsourced. This presentation describes how that was done.

1. Building a Global Internet
Website Using Virtual
Resources
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

2. Agenda
 Myfitbrain
 Go or No Go
 Getting Started
 Education
 Hosting & Development
 Free Software Tools
 Communication Tools
 Marketing
 20/20 Hindsight
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

3. Myfitbrain
 Career has been in IT
 Inspired by my mom
 Help people improve their brains
as they age
 Competitors charge hundreds to
thousands of dollars
 Free to everyone
 Product placement in the interactive
part of the games
 Monitor their progress
 Educational articles
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

4. Go or No Go
 Buy and use similar products
 Differentiator
 Search Patent Database
 Google Keywords Similar Companies
 Provisional Patent ($165 + $75)
 1 Year
 Patent Pending
 Discuss Idea with Strangers – Networking Groups
 $20 per meeting
 Estimate Budget – Double It
 GO!
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

5. Getting Started
 Vision statement
 What is in your heart
 Threads through everything
 Name, Logo, Legal
 Domain name
 GoDaddy – tools to help pick names
 Easy to remember
 No funny/unique spellings
 Buy several and ask others for comments
 $40 – 5 years registration
 .com sufficient
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

6. Getting Started - Early Marketing
 Logo – CrowdSpring
 $300 or more
 Vision important here - memorable
 Iterative process
 Google email with your domain
 Google Apps for sharing documents $50
 Business Cards – Overnight Prints
 Message on the back
 Room to write on the back
 Back should not be glossy
 $40 - 500 cards
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

7. Getting Started - Legal & Banks
 Type of Company
 LLC more expensive more flexible ($500 initial)
 Lawyer not needed initially
 Trademark Name ($275)
 Bank Account
 Make sure can wire funds internationally
 Credit Card(s)
 Separate from personal, personally liable
 PayPal
 Easy was to transfer small funds electronically
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

8. Education
 DePaul – Coleman - $500
 Other people not at similar stage
 Speakers been there done that were good
 Cash flow issues biggest take away
 ITDA – Kaufman Foundation - $500
 Partner attended this one
 Lots of examples of forms and templates
 Myfitbrain farther along in process
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

9. Hosting and Development
 Development Company
 Most important skill
 Similar sites
 NDA
 Communication
 References
 Fixed Price in some form
 U.S. & Canada – Large down payments
 China – Harder to communicate
 Eastern Europe – Not well organized
 India – Used to working with U.S.
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

10. Hosting and Development
 Hosting Company
 Price
 Brand
 Reliability
 Infrastructure, Scalability
 EcoSystem
 Tried GoDaddy first
 Unexplained outages no assistance
 Settled on Amazon ($75 - $65 now)
 Branding, Worldwide, EcoSystem
 Early adopter - $1,000 for consultants
to build scalable infrastructure
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

11. Free - Software Tools
 WordPress
 Most widely used blog tool
 Very Google friendly
 Many free tools to customize
 Utilized India developers
 Website Grader
 Hubspot.com
 How to improve Google ranking
 Website code reviewer
 validator.w3.org
 www.situatedresearch.com
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

12. Communication Tools
 Google
 Gmail using your domain name
 Google Apps for sharing docs $50 per user per year
 Google Voice – FREE
 Phone number for website
 Forward to any phone
 Text message of voice mail
 Skype - FREE
 International calls – India free
 Vonage
 Inexpensive ($33) – used before Google Voice
 Emails voice mail to 1 or multiple email accounts
 Free trials – GoToMeeting ($50/month)
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

13. Marketing
 Email marketing
 Outlook/MS Word mail merge
 Free if own the tools already
 Harder to track
 Multiple email accounts into one Outlook (hotmail, gmail, etc…)
 Amazon’s cloud IP range blocked as Spam (Authsmtp.com)
 SurveyMonkey, Instant Contact, ConstantContact …
 Campaign Monitor – experienced developers required
 Press Release
 PRWeb - $200 with important goodies
 Many similar services – who are you trying to hit?
 Banners - $50
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

14. Marketing
 Facebook Ads
 Targeted to particular demographics
 $0.25 – $0.75 per click through
 Google Ads
 Not as targeted
 Broader audience
 $0.25 – $0.50 per click through
 Google Tracking - FREE
 Locations – Countries, States, etc…
 Page on your website
 New or returning user
 Bounce rate
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

15. Marketing
 Using Social Networks
 Facebook
 Tie it to your domain name, blog etc..
 Update once & feed Twitter & LinkedIn
 Separate from personal
 LinkedIn
 Join many related groups
 Ask for opinions
 Twitter
 Send out similar information multiple times spread out
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

16. 20/20 Hindsight
 Joined too many networking organizations
 Most meetings to sell their services
 Make clear bootstrapping no extra money
 Time, time, time
 Legal
 Go without lawyer as much as possible
 Change later when needed
 Patents attorneys are expensive even to explore
 Requires a second person with different skills
 Listen closely to questions asked early on
 What is your background?
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain

17. 20/20 Hindsight
 Classes best taken before you start the company
 Cash flow can cause successful business to fail
 Government grants are very hard unless connected
 Tried for SBIR grant
 State of Illinois paid to assist in writing grant
 Advertising companies control advertising $$$ not
client themselves
 Even in this economy, no commission only sales
people
Copyright 2010 Myfitbrain