Life of an Internet Entrepreneur

I’ve been hearing friends and family complain about dealing with their wireless providers for years, and I’m sure you have too (or maybe you were the complainer?).  This is not uncommon, since many of the policies of cellular providers are unethical and designed to trick you. This post will investigate their incentive structure, and how to turn it around for your benefit.

Some of the more common unethical practices by cellular providers:

I recently revisited one of the most influential movies of the last century, The Godfather. In the movie, Don Corleone, the head of the crime family, is a shrewd businessman. Through making “an offer he can’t refuse”, as well as understanding the dynamics of the business relationships, the Don managed to consolidate power and run all of the gambling operations in the country.

This three part drama about the Corleone crime family is usually just seen as good entertainment, but I extracted several business lessons from it. These lessons apply even if you are not in the line of mafia work.

Google has just come out with a free service called Google Paper (still in Beta), which allows you to “Archive” any email you want, and have Google mail it to you in an envelope.

An overview of some neat features:

- One click mail option
- Mail will arrive within 2-4 business days
- Attachments will also be printed and sent (excluding mp3s)
- Photos will be printed on high-quality glossy paper

I can tell you already, this is a major event in internet history.  This will bridge the gap for the non-internet literate folks out there who want to keep in touch with the internet crowd.

An interesting report came out recently which highlights the shift in where Americans are choosing to live.  For the first time, Americans are more likely to live in an apartment than in a house.  Reasons for this include the uncertainty in the housing market making home ownership less attractive, as well as the prohibitive cost of the purchase. 

In terms of life style, Americans are also less likely to be married than they used to be (there are more unmarried people than married people for the first time), and are living the “bachelor” life for longer.  I think shows like “Friends” displayed single, apartment life as glamorous, and therefore many people didn’t feel pressured to get married and “grow up”.

The folks over at FaxZero don’t think you should have to pay to send faxes, and offer free (ad supported) faxes from your computer in a one-page form.  Faxes can be sent to any U.S. phone number (Puerto Rico included).  FaxZero has sent over 100,000 faxes so far.

File Types

You can type in text to fax or you can attach a PDF file, Microsoft Word (.DOC) file, or Excel Spreadsheet (.XLS).

Limitations

The free version of FaxZero has a two fax per day limitation.  You can also pay $1.99 per fax that doesn’t have any ads on the cover page if you wish.

While it sometimes seems the whole world has rushed out to buy iPods, including President Bush, I will wait quite a while (and maybe forever) before buying one.  Why, you ask?  What could possess me to turn my back on this fashion statement, this technology revolution, this “iPod Oblivion” as a New York Senator recently called it?

5. Everyone and their mother has one.

With iPods being sold at a rate of upwards of 40 million players per year (and growing!), pretty soon there won’t be anyone out there who doesn’t own one. You aren’t “cool” for using one, since by definition not everyone can be cool, but everyone has an iPod. The price of used iPods will keep dropping due to this, and you will be able to buy a used one for much cheaper.

I, like most people in the USA, love entertainment.  According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2004 we spent over $540 Billion entertaining ourselves (I include eating out at restaurants entertainment - we’ll discuss this in a different time and place). Although the last decade or so has seen many changes in the type of entertainment we prefer, one thing stays the same - we watch entertainment in order to:

• relax/de-stress
• laugh
• live a simulated life
• pass time