Today I’d like to review Online Startups, a website that talks about starting up an online business. The website has been around since 2005 and… Naah, just kidding . I promised no more reviews, and had to turn a few down - putting your readers first is one of the most important parts of a blog, and I’ve not done that over the last few days.

I’ve been steadily working on the blogging magazine that I want to start; I’m not rushing anything as it is a huge project, however I can foresee things going well if I put the work into it and if it does, I’ll have a steady, reliable earner that will not just benefit the community as a whole, but also increase exposure of me and this blog. Gaining exposure is akin to gaining trust, as long as you conduct yourself fairly well; the more people that know about you for a longer time, the more likely they’ll be to trust you when approaching you with business deals or when you release a new product.

Whilst the benefits of increasing exposure may be huge, starting up a new project is by no means easy, something that I found over the last few days. However, the project continues to expand and I do believe it will be ready somewhat by the end of the month. By using a little bit of common sense I have no just made things easier for myself, but also saved money, money that I can now use to better other parts of the business. What tips do I have for those of you that was to look at starting up projects of your own?

- Control time. When I start a project, I want to get it done as soon as possible… in fact, sometimes I can work for hours on end without realizing it. One of the most important parts of getting a business project ready is controlling time - you don’t want to work too little on something, but then again you don’t want to do too much at once. Controlling time can be hard - well, quite a few of you will find that working too little on something is your biggest problem; others may feel opposite.

The most important thing about controlling time is taking breaks - funnily enough, it’s the breaks that help you become more productive. Even if it’s just a week day hour ten minute break, it can recharge those brain cells that have been working furiously - some of my best ideas have come at times when I wasn’t doing anything and just relaxing. Also, by taking breaks, you ensure that you are more productive when you do continue working - you will get a lot more done in five periods of an hour each of high intense work with a break in between each period rather than doing the whole five hours at one go.

- Negotiate till the end. I’m very unskilled apart from a fairly decent capability for writing that I believe I possess; I cannot code, I certainly cannot design and those are two of the most essential parts to getting a new website off the ground. In some cases, the work is done for you - for the website itself, rather than have a new theme created that would cost upwards of a thousand dollars, I’m just going to get someone to tweak a premium theme that will cost less than 1/1oth of the amount (although I do plan to get a theme custom made if this kicks off).

In some cases, you cannot save money, nor should you try to - however, with freelancers, should you need lots of work done you can often negotiate on a bulk discount; you will often be able to get a discount on public prices if you approach them privately, especially depending on the ease of the work you need done. By negotiating with freelancers, I’ve easily saved a couple hundred on this project.

- Be organized. I’m perhaps one of the most unorganized people in the world… anyone that saw that post about what my room looks like will have seen the carnage that is my desk, and that was a good day. During this project, however I’ve started to keep lists of things to do in a MS Word document; if you want to be even more organized, you can grab a copy of Fruitful Time’s Task Manager (or hope you win it in my contest ) - it is worth the now discounted price, especially with a free trial to test it out before hand .

You can use your computer, or even your phone - mine comes with the standard alarms and calender, features I can program stuff into if I need a reminder for anything pressing.

- Ask for help. Now, don’t ask for anything impossible, however if you have minor glitches asking a friend for help can save you time and money. Personally, I’ve been helped a countless number of times by friends - a theme glitch that I tried hours to fix eventually turned out to be a backslash missing in the code (geesh!), the uneven edges of a design sorted out without me even having to ask. If you are getting help from someone (unpaid), remember they’re doing it out of kindness, and so don’t push them; don’t even hold them to it, as they might have something come up and be unable to do it.

I’ve been offered various things by various people - one offered to design a custom theme specifically for the magazine, however I’d like for the magazine to be grossing money so that I can pay people for such things - a custom theme is an insane amount of work and should never go unpaid. I’ve also been offered by many people guest articles for the magazine, ones that I’ve happily accepted as it will not just improve the product as a whole but also generate a decent amount of exposure for those that contribute - although I’m working on a lot of the project myself, I want it to benefit the community as much as possible, and one of the features in the magazine should do just that.

Four tips that are arguably common sense, but I’d say few use them. I’ve saved crazy amounts of money over the last few days just by using those four tips, so make sure you do so too.

Tomorrow, an interview awaits with a very interesting person…

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