How To Make Your Business Come up First In Google Search

September 1, 2009 by stas | 31 Comments | Filed in SEO

Most people are unaware of this neat feature that Google provides, but have you noticed that when you search for a business, sometimes Google will show a specific business on the map at the very top of the search results?

Let’s take a concrete example. My company’s name is StasoSphere, which resides in Vancouver and besides other things that I do in this life I’m a Reiki practitioner (which is an energy-based healing modality). Now let’s search google for ‘Reiki Vancouver’, which most prospective clients would type in to find a Reiki practitioner in Vancouver.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=reiki+vancouver

And this is what we get:

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Echoes From VanTEC Oct 7 2008

October 10, 2008 by stas | No Comments | Filed in Fundraising

This month’s angel investors meeting was dedicated to the high-tech startups (every other month is Life Sciences).

I found two startup companies that stood out, both in the “do good” space:

H2O3 Inc

water-cleaner-72dpiTim Piwonka-Corle, presented H2O3 Inc, whose product is a portable water disinfection unit that you can see on the right. The process is done using an ozone sterilizer, which uses less than 100 Watts of power (think incandescent light bulb). Each unit is able to produce 20 liters of sterile water in about 15 minutes.

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Echoes From VanTEC July 7 2008

July 9, 2008 by stas | 1 Comment | Filed in Fundraising

Since there is no August meeting for VanTEC, the July’s meeting had twice the companies presenting. In addition to the usual 5 5-minute snapshots, there were another 10 extra preview presentations. Moreover Mike decided to run the same presentations twice. As I was sponsoring one of the companies, I had to come to both days. The days were very long and quite tiring. Imagine 3.5 hours of non-stop presentations, from 20 companies!

There were a few companies that I found particularly interesting.

fundfindr.com

This company’s idea is to help entrepreneurs with fundraising. Startups make a video of their pitch and upload it to fundfindr’s site. Potential investors can watch those videos and contact the entrepreneurs if they are interested in the idea. The site also provides listing of various investor groups and their contact information, which is a helpful resource.

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VANTEC – Vancouver Angel Technology Network

July 9, 2008 by stas | No Comments | Filed in Angel Investing, Fundraising

Every months a group of investors meets at SFU Time Center in downtown Vancouver, for a 2-3 hour meeting, where early stage startups give their pitch in hope that they will find some interested investors. Some startups just want the cash, most companies ask for cash, plus mentorship, others are just in the conception stage and all they want is mentorship.

Typically there are two segments to each meeting. There are 5-minute pitches, for those who do it for the first time. If the 5-minute pitch went well and people found the presenter prepared, then the next time they are given 15 minutes. They also get time to answer questions — typically 10 minutes presentation, followed by a 5-minute Q&A session, where startups get “grilled” a bit, or should we say get a “reality-check”.

Recently one of the meeting organizers, Thealzel Lee, started running prescreen sessions, which allows startups to run their presentation in front of a small expert panel, which give suggestions for improvements and the panel also decides whether the company is ready to do the long pitch, do the short one, or send them home to do their homework.

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Introduction. Investing instead of Managing

July 5, 2008 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Angel Investing

paraglidingI wear many hats. When I get bored of one hat, I simply take it off and wear a different one. Sometimes I wear no hats at all, and that means I got burned out, which is when I just disconnect from the world and become quiet for some time.

Often I find myself wearing one of the two hats: entrepreneur hat and investor hat.

I run my own business, but there are too many things I’m interested in and I can’t possibly work on too many projects at the same time and actually accomplish anything. I could hire people to work for me, but I don’t like management. I want to work on exciting projects, not manage people who do those projects. Some of us quit their employers to start their own company, because they hated being a slave to their company and not being able to work on things they really want to. And then they end up having their own company, but because now they need to manage people they don’t really get to enjoy their own company either. There must be a better way.

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