Bronson Chang, a native of Hawaii and 2010 graduate of USC, wanted to go back home and grow his uncle’s business. The business, called Uncle Clay’s House of Pure Aloha is an icon in the local community and is known for incredible homemade, all natural Hawaiin treats. Mr. Chang felt that he could take his Uncle Clay’s shop to the next level by opening more stores and introduce new products. There was only one small problem — despite the store’s popularity, neither he nor his uncle had the capital to grow the business. Instead of turning to traditional sources of funding like banks or venture capital, Mr. Chang used a relatively new approach to raising money called crowdfunding to raise the $54K he needed to expand the Uncle Clay’s House of Pure Aloha.

Crowdfunding uses the wisdom of crowds to help entrepreneurs, artists, writers, and non-profits raise money by allowing people to donate funds to support a project or business. It allows those who are seeking money, and those who have money to invest, the ability to take their cause to the community and share the risks among many. Additionally, it solves the problem of too few venture capitalist and too many entrepreneurs.

The process is relatively simple for both the entrepreneur and the investor.

The entrepreneur has a good idea. They present it online. Investors read about it and fund it. In most cases, because the selling of equity carries with it potentially strict regulations, the companies actually don’t give up any equity or incur additional debt. Instead, the entrepreneurs give out rewards for the money invested (investments are really not necessarily investments where there is implied return — but a donation).

The success of companies like Diaspora, a new open social networking site that plans to compete against Facebook, and the Million Pixel Project, where anyone could buy pixels on a website for $1 per pixel, are driving more and more entrepreneurs and creative types to rely on crowdfunding to raise money.

Here is a review of six sites that an entrepreneur may consider if crowdfunding seems like an option:

1. Startup Addict: a way for people to pool small amounts of money to back a good idea or project. Free registration for exchange of a 5% commission on successfully funded projects. It is a threshold based funding project where the investor receives the money only if the threshold funding level is met. If not, the money is returned to the pledgers. There is no exchange for profits, but instead, a reward from the founder (the founder can decide what she gives as a reward based on their own critieria). The founder typically has up to 90 days to reach funding for the project. Starupaddict allows for all kinds of startups to raise money, including non profits. Unlike many other crowdfunding sites, it is not just geared to the creative types.

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Author: vasil morice

Marketing is all the activities and processes of planning, communicating and executing a product, with a price, the promotion and the placement of an item to an end user. Your music is your product which you are then supplying to the end user – the music fan. Between you and the fan is a big space on how to bridge this gap. You may think that if you just get a record deal with some label, your prayers are answered and this instant bridge is built across that space. This is for the most part, not how things work today.

As an aspiring indie or unsigned singer, songwriter, or a musician in a band you can not do just a few things to promote yourself and expect success in your music career. Offline and online music promotion and marketing exposure is an ongoing process in this DIY age. Music companies are looking for artists that already have fan bases, sold CDs, and are proven ready to move up to a higher level. Presented here are more than 100 tips and ideas for you to think about and tweak as you will, to get noticed, gain fans, and get heard. You have to find a way to stand above the crowd, for talent alone is not enough.

Promo Tip #1 A music artist must start somewhere, that’s usually locally, but it’s better to not just dive in without a plan. But begin you must. Create a plan with some ideas and set goals as to what you need to accomplish weekly, monthly, and yearly. Start small and make it progressive. Reach bench marks and keep at it.

Promo Tip #2 Image is everything. Image is the complete package – artist/band name, look, performance, merchandise, and style, to how that brand is marketed. A stage name can be a descriptive statement of the image you or your band project. Be unique and interesting to look at in some way….build your own unique stage persona.

Promo Tip #3 Word of mouth has always been the best promotion – tell people what you do. Get people talking. Create your buzz by just giving enough info to get people interested, but hold some secrets close.

Promo Tip #4 Those that promote the most win.

Promo Tip #5 You may be a truly great talent, but without getting out there and consistently marketing yourself, networking, meeting the right people, maintaining your image, and being humble, your talent will only get you so far.

Promo Tip #6 Be innovative in your promotional efforts! The Internet has made it possible to hear a LOT more music, from a LOT more artists. You are now a very small fish in a very large pond – you will need to find a way to stand out, above and glow in the dark. Think beyond the box on every promo tip.

Promo Tip #7 Learn web basics to use the Net to your advantage. The Internet thrives on links, quality content, keywords and consistency. Properly use the tools of the Internet to build your online brand.

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Storytelling represents the virtual underutilized instrument in selling. Nevertheless storytelling not merely creates it comfortable for folks to get to experience, care and desire you, likewise step-ups gross revenue.
1. In your storytelling – follow this tested guide for most effective outcomes. T.E.S. means “trouble, execute, solutions”.
Express the trouble you’re confronted. What was not functioning, how did that sense? Narrate what execute you conducted. What represented the epiphany that shifted your spirit? What represented your “ah-ha” instant? What represented the solution of the execution you conducted? How to apply numbers and real life solutions? Narrate however you have sensed at present that matters are indeed distinguishable from whilst you experienced the trouble.
2. Most efficient stories drive the listener to discover envisions in their creative thinking. Those envision that glow in our retention and cause us to recall stories long time later on.
Choose a particular instant in time that comprises the crucial part of your story. Discard everything additional contributing up to that aim. At present, while you narrate the story produce envision in your creative thinking. Choose merely two particulars to narrate us virtually about.
Possibly it personified the closeness of your breath, the Green paint breaking off the room access you unfolded, the spongy auditory sensation below your shoes merely sufficient to unlock the key envision. Allow the listener conclude envision in their creative thinking.
3. The bountiful marketing secret narrates a story that likewise instructs a heart and soul thought behind your divine service, merchandise or platform.
Please see below to capture a full multimedia interactive presentation to create your own envision. You will probably recall more the precept behind storytelling how to narrate a story that sells. Please share how you are developing your storytelling message in comment post below.

Freelance writer wanted is the ad you would be putting out on the Internet if you were into affiliate marketing big time. With the advent of the Internet in the past few years many marketers online have made their millions, and continue to do so. But how do they manage to succeed where so many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of online entrepreneurs fail? Perhaps they have managed to get in at the right time and the right place, not to mention, marketing the right products! Then again, perhaps it is the online marketing strategy they have mastered.

A lot of their success comes from SEO. This is the acronym for Search Engine Optimization. No site will ever be found if it were invisible to the search engines on the Internet. To make these sites search engine friendly, they need to be constructed around a few very popular words and phrases that are cleverly woven into the content to make their occurrences throughout the site content seem naturally integrated.

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We got news! MaxBlogPress team is reopening their hot-selling plugin offer — “Subscribers Magnet” — for 4 days only.

If you haven’t heard by now, this is the same plugin bloggers all over the Internet downloaded in droves and amazingly experienced a “sizable” boost in their mailing list subscriptions. It is no secret; once you try this on your blog, you could double or even triple your sign-ups, virtually “overnight”.

The best part is that you don’t need to get any additional traffic; this plugin works wonders at the current level of your traffic. Obviously, if you’re only getting one or two visitors a day to your blog, the program won’t work for you; but if you’re getting 10, 50 or more visits a day, you should see a double or triple increase in subscribers.

Ok. Enough said. You have to know about the 30% OFF discount offer which saves you lots of money. Click here to grab your license now at this incredible bargain –> Subscribers Magnet

Expiration date? Friday, October 1st, 2010 – at midnight!

If you’re still on the fence, and would like more “nitty-gritty” details on this plugin, please read further.

Here are 3 serious reasons to grab the plugin while it lasts [competitive advantages not found elsewhere]

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We know you’re likely busy (we all are, lol) but you should try to take a look at this virgin social network known as IMfaceplate.

It lets you create your own faceplate where you can showcase all your ideas, programs, or anything you like.

And best of all, you can create your faceplate and use this program absolutely for free. You can visualize what my faceplate looks like here …

It only launched in July and already it’s spreading like wildfire. And you know what that means … this thing is going to be huge in no time!

After you create your own faceplate, make sure to send me a quick message from inside the program so we can help you get around quickly.

Last morning I had the pleasure to download Maxblogpress Ninja Affiliate plugin…  and discover how EASY it is to turn any keyword into affiliate links that make money.

The best feature I like which is the core basis of this wordpress plugin is actually the option to automatically convert your blog keywords into links to the affiliate product of your choice; the best part is that even your old keywords can turn into money-making affiliate links.

Why would you want to convert old keywords into affiliate links? Just think about this for a moment – let’s say you’ve found a brand new affiliate program and you can’t wait to promote it to your blog. You don’t have to wait until you write your next post, just use Ninja Affiliate plugin and it’ll convert the keywords of your choice into affiliate links on auto-pilot. You work once, and all the keywords you input will be turned into links that make money, without you having to edit any post whatsoever.

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