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Here is a great post published by famous french blogger Loic Lemeur, where he gives a great piece of advice about having a successful internet business startup.

Loic definitely knows what he is talking about as he is currently developing his fifth startup with “Seesmic“, which is pretty much like a Twitter.com but with video. Actually, he raised around $5 million just to launch his company and he moved to Silicon Valley so he could get much closer to the Venture Capitalists there.

In essence, Loic’s advice is centered around two major ideas which are:

1) Thinking Global instead of “local”
2) Launching an original idea

About thinking globally, I agree with him, we need to think internationally from day one, when talking about an Internet Business Startup. I think Loic is well aware of this as he is French, and had he remained thinking only for the French market there wouldn’t have been any way that people like me, that have no idea about speaking French, could have known him. As he is blogging in English this allows him to get connected with people not only from the US but with people from all over the world.

This one of the reasons why I’m writing this blog in English and not in Spanish which is my first language. I want to reach a global audience and being English, the equivalent of Latin in times of the Roman Empire, it is very important to think in English, as it is a mean for being global.

In summary, here is Loic’s Video as well as the listing of Loic’s 25 tips for a successful internet business startup.

1. Think global as you create the business
2. Move to Silicon Valley
3. Create an original product: new and different
4. Do not create a copycat, unless your goal is only to get acquired
5. Try to raise funds from world-class VCs
6. Hire people from all nationalities as much as possible
7. Register your domain names in the key countries you are interested in (and the large ones you are not interested in)
8. Protect your brand Worldwide
9. Make a site that is language ready day one, even if you launch in English
10. gather an international community since day 1
11. Talk to the most active members of the community to help you understand their market and become evangelists there
12. Create an application that lets your community translate the site by themselves
13. Languages are not the same in all the countries they are spoken
14. Do not think that Europe is the U.K.
15. Manage costs properly
16. Never do a 50/50 deal with anyone
17. Do key partnerships with large local players
18. Never trust that if the partner is large your service will be a success
19. Create an international reseller program
20. Kill your local copycats
21. Buy your local copycats if you can’t kill them
22. Be very pragmatic
23. Do not apply any of this to Asia
24. Do not apply any of this to Russia
25. This advice only applies to Internet startups

Technorati Tags: Business, Internet Business, loic lemeur, startup, success, VC, venture capitalist

Hello everybody, let me tell you a little bit about the town where I was born: Ocotlan within the State of Jalisco in Mexico.

Physical Location

Ocotlan is located at around one hour away (80 kms or 50 miles) from the capital of Jalisco: Guadalajara, which is the second largest city of Mexico. Ocotlan is a mid size city of around 100,000 inhabitants and is well known nationwide for being the “furniture capital” of Mexico due to the big number of small and mid-size factories that produce all kind of furniture.

Ocotlan is also located very near the Chapala lake which is the biggest lake in Mexico. Because of this, my hometown enjoys a wonderful weather almost all year round, where temperature averages 21 Celsius or 71 Fahrenheit degrees. The Chapala Riviera is a well known place for American and Canadian retired workers that come to Mexico to enjoy their retirement.

A little bit of history

My hometown has founded in 1530 by the Spanish conqueror Nuño de Guzman and it later was evangelized first by the order of the Franciscans and later by the Agustinian frays that founded a church and a convent. Ocotlan has one of the oldest and most beautiful churches in Mexico, it is called “La Purisima” and its altar is dipped in Gold.

In 1847 there was a big earthquake that destroyed most of the city and the following day, when people were attending a Mass, there was a vision of Jesus Christ on a cloud over the town. There are written testimonials from both religious and civil authorities that were witnesses of the miracle. People at that time, say that Jesus Christ appeared to bring mercy to the suffering people that had lost their town due to the earthquake’s destruction, and as a sign of thankfulness, all the men swered to make a festivity in Christ’s honor every year.

This religious festivity starts with a parade, whose main characteristic is that it only has men, that ends in the main cathedral where all the men renew the promise to make another festivity the following year (women didn’t make promises in the 19th century, that’s why). I’ve been myself part of this parade although not recently, because I’m currently living in Guadalajara.

UFOs and the “Foco Tonal”

Wait a second, UFOs?, yes you read correctly, Ocotlan is also famous for being an place where many people have seen UFOs and it is also well known for a strange place called “Foco Tonal”, let me explain.

During the 90’s decade, there was a big wave of UFO sightings, I never saw one, but many people did, even one of my uncles and one friend of mine. Here is a link to a page that has a good description of the guy that took one of the most controversial pictures. I don’t know if what people saw were UFO’s or not, but definitely something happened during that time, as dozens of people cannot be wrong.

The other interesting thing is the “Foco Tonal“. It is some sort of magnetic zone on the ground of around 50 cms wide, where if you stand over there and shout or talk loudly, you’ll hear as if you were speaking to a microphone. The curious thing is that people outside that “magnetic field” don’t hear it that way. I made a test myself, on the early days it was discovered in early 90’s (coincidence with UFO sightings?) where I put a chair and I stood up on it and I kept hearing that “michrophone” effect on my voice which leads me to believe that that zone extends to the sky or beyond.

People from over the world have come to the “Foco Tonal” of Ocotlan, even some monks from the Tibet have come there because they believe that it is a portal to a zone in another part of the Universe. Other believe it is guarded by Saint Germain and believe it has some miraculous properties and come here seeking the cure to their illnesses.

What do I think about it? I believe that it has nothing to do with magical forces and I think it is natural phenomenon that deserves a careful and professional analysis. Who knows, it might be a source of some sort of energy and I don’t think we need to waste time in fantastical beliefs. Here is a link to a testimonial from an american visitor that was there.

Here is a video I found in YouTube where you can clearly see what I’m talking about regarding the “Foco Tonal”. Originally, the “Foco Tonal” was just raw land, but the owner, later added the pilars and the round stone circle, and people go in that “circle” to feel the experience.

Technorati Tags: foco tonal, jalisco, mexico, Ocotlan, ovni, ufo

I’ve been a follower of Caroline Middlebrook’s blog almost since the beginning. In September 2007 she quit her job to start a career as an Internet Entrepreneur, and look now, 5 months later she has hit the $2,000 dollar mark of monthly revenue.

I must admit that at first, I didn’t like very much what she wrote, because she didn’t have a clear idea of what to do, and she complained a lot about several things, but who am I to judge her? I also started blogging in September 2007 and look at myself, I haven’t done anything interesting nor made any money.

I know that there are more succesful bloggers on the Net, like John Chow, but what like about Caroline is that she is more closer to my personal case, as she started from zero and without any previous successful background as Internet Marketer.

Where does her money come from?

In the particular month of February 2008, around 75% of Caroline’s income came from promoting BlueHost affiliate program, she made $1,560 dollars only by promoting this affiliate program. It’s interesting to note that she admits that almost al thoe affiliate sales came from her book:

“I plug the BlueHost package both in the ebook and using a banner on this blog. Their affiliate statistics are only allowing me to see details of the last two weeks which is annoying as I use different tracking ID’s so I can see where people are signing up from. However I know that the majority of the sales have come from the ebook. “

I already read her ebook, it is well structured although I’m not very sure I’m in agreement with her approach, because her strategy is to build several niche sites with Wordpress using mainly static pages. I belive that building just a few authority sites with a blog as the main vehicle is the best road to take.

Things learned from her success

1.- We need to have some kind of viral vehicle to deliver free valuable information, preferebly an ebook, with lots of affiliate links embedded in the text.

2.- Adsense is a bad business. Caroline only made $25 dollars this month, but I just noticed that she doesn’t have any adsense ads in her blog, so they probably are located in her other niche sites.

3.- We need to post a lot of content, as she confirms that older posts keep sending her a lot of traffic, thus, every post, is an asset that keeps sending traffic over and over again, so the more posts, the more traffic we get.

So congratulations to Caroline, I hope that I also follow her lead and someday I also start making a few bucks enough to make a living.

Technorati Tags: blogger, caroline middlebrook, entrepreneur, income report, make money, money, success

I was just browsing through Youtube to find good videos to watch, and I came across a video made by an old man born in 1927.

This old man, that I’m almost sure, has no knowledge about Internet Marketing and anthing related to that, has more audience than many well known Internet Gurus. This video of “Telling it all part 1 ” has been viewed by more than 300 thousand times! and has more than 2 thousand comments, can you believe that?

The worst censorship of all: Your own fear of expressing what you think

There are countries where the government doesn’t let you speak what you think, and this is very bad, but you know what, the worst censorship comes from yourself, because even though you are free to express yourself, you withold your thougts for the fear of what others might think.

This old man is sincere and has no fear speaking his mind. At the end of the video, he is so real that he even breaks in tears. My deep respects for this man.

He doesn’t care if the video was well recorded, if he is old or if his voice is perfect for the recording, he even didn’t erased the last part of it where he broke in tears, he just opened his heart and showed himself to the world as he is. 

Here is the video so you can see for yourself.

Technorati Tags: censorship, freedom of speech, old man, video, youtube