Around the same time that bizSugar was launching, another news service was just putting on its finishing touches. Guy Kawasaki, entrepreneurship guru, venture capitalist and author of one of my favorite business books, “The Art of the Start,” launched a news site called Alltop. Designed as a simple way to get all of the top news stories all of the time, Kawasaki added a “small business” area. No, not a “business” section or even a “finance” section, but an area focused purely on small business issues. I commend him for his support of small businesses and entrepreneurs.
Alltop publishes stories fed from many of the top small business news and blog sites. You only get to see the headlines, but if you hold your mouse over a headline, you get a floating pop-up that gives you the intro to the article — good idea.
Kawasaki emailed us yesterday to let us know that bizSugar was added to their site. We were touched that he would add a site that wasn’t much older than his. Of course, if it were not for the quality of our story submissions, I’m sure this wouldn’t be the case.
Therefore, our hats go off to Guy and to the members of bizSugar who are keeping the quality high and the spam low.
Well, let me clarify, my first interview regarding bizSugar. My first interview ever was a television interview regarding a book I helped write when I was the publisher of a small business magazine. The entire experience could best be described as a nightmare. The local news station asked me to write down the questions the interviewer should ask. Simple enough, except that I was never asked any of those questions. Instead, I was asked questions that were best suited for a fictional novel rather than a how-to business book. I got flustered and ended up sounding like a blathering idiot.
That’s when I learned my first PR lesson: regardless of what you’re asked, prepare two or three sound-bites and make sure you squeeze them in to your answers.
This time it was a much easier and more enjoyable experience. Corey Kossack, President of the Club E Network, sent me the questions by email. You’d think it would be easy to answer questions when they’re emailed to you but, truth is, I sent him two rounds of corrections of my own answers! I thank Corey for his patience.
You can read the interview here: New social news site for business owners: an interview with the founder of bizSugar
If you aren’t already familiar with the Club E Network, check it out. It’s a social network for entrepreneurs that, in addition to its Facebook-type features, offers insightful videos and local events in many major cities. The site is still pretty new, but I expect it to grow into a powerful resource for entrepreneurs. Michael Gerber, author of the business classic, “The E-Myth,” is chairman and Ingrid Vanderveldt of CNBC’s “American Made” is the CEO, so it’s got some well-known talent behind it.
The month of January was painfully quiet. That’s when we officially launched our site and put out our first press release. While I didn’t expect a flood of publicity, I thought that maybe someone, anyone, would write about us.
Not a line was written.
In retrospect, there were a few things we did wrong that I’ll probably talk about in future posts. But what’s important is that February came and so did the love. Slowly, the business media took notice of us.
Their opinion: They like us! They really like us!
And we certainly like them. Thanks to everyone who wrote about us over the last few weeks. I hope there’s a lot more where that came from.
We just added a new section to the bizSugar blog called bizSugar buzz. That’s where we showcase comments about biz Sugar from journalists and bloggers alike. Take a look and see what all the buzz is about.
